PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
Vol. XLIII. No. 
1793. NEW YORK, E 7, 1884. 
-- ° - — --- 
(Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1884, by the Rural *er In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
A GENERAL-PURPOSE BARN. 
HIS sort of barn seems to be 
what is wanted in our Western 
farming, and in planning one 
the principle to be borne in mind 
should be that the more space 
inclosed in the building, the 
cheaper is its capacity, as com¬ 
pared with that of a number of 
smaller buildings capable of 
bolding only the sumo amount. 
The horse hay-fork has revolutionized the old- 
fashioned arrangement of barns, and now a 
barn can be planned in a way better adapted 
to our modern requirements. A strong, dura¬ 
ble structure can be built with a small quan¬ 
tity of lumber in comparison with the amount 
used in those built when we went to the woods 
and hewed out the timber on our own farms, 
and at the present high prices of lumber, 
many of us must either be economical in its 
use or go without bams. 
The bam shown at Figs. 181, 2. 3, 4, 5 aud 6, 
is suitable for a quarter-section farm, holding 
all the stock that need hay. Of this it has 
room for 24,400 cubic feet, besides affording 
accommodation for 12 horses, shelter for 40 
head of stock cattle, aud room for the grain 
on which to feed them. It Is very nearly a 
bank bum (see Fig. 183), but the bank ie only 
on one side. The upper portion is entirely for 
hay, each forkful of which is taken from the 
load outside, at the end of the baru, borne in 
through a door near the top, as shown at Fig. 
182, carried close to the comb of the roof, and 
dropped where desired, as shown at Fig. 184, 
and in this way, the mow. Pig. 18G, can be al¬ 
most filled, direct from the fork. For labor 
nobody is needed except one person to drive 
the horses and another to handle the fork. 
The hay can be fed out of chutes at both sides, 
as showu in Figs. 181 and 182. The side with 
the passage w ay heiug open (not being board¬ 
ed up), the hay cau be pitched down Into the 
horse-mangers from the mow on the other 
side. A chute on the outside lets it dowu into 
mangers for stock cattle (Fig. 185), The space 
between the mow and the grain bins (Fig. 182) 
is 14 feet wide, and can be used to shelter 
wagons and tools, and is high and wide enough 
to permit a load of hay to be driven in, while 
the grain is handy to the mangers, for which 
only three feet of the floor room is taken up. 
The grain bins are eight feet wide, run the 
length of the bam, andean be divided to suit. 
The horse stalls (Fig. 185) are under the mow, 
and are 10 feet G inches long, and the manger 
runs along the passage-way. The horse stalls 
are divided from the cow shelter by a parti¬ 
tion in which there are small doors through 
which to throw the manure. The cattle shel¬ 
ter (Figs. 181,182, and 185) occupies the rest of 
the space under the mow, which Is nine feet 
between the floor and the ceiling. It has drive¬ 
way doors at each end to haul manure through. 
Ihe bight of the place permits the accumula¬ 
tion of a considerable bed of manure to rot, 
and by littering with straw all the urine can 
be saved. 
A shed (Fig. 182) is hong and braced along 
the open side, there being no posts, which get 
broken down. The floor of the horse stalls is 
covered to a depth of eight inches with broken 
stones, which are covered with soil just 
enough to make a smooth surface. The front 
of the manger is walled up with stone four 
feet high, to hold up the bank which is the 
floor of the passage-way, the wall extending 
far enough to hold up the approaches. 
The peculiarity of construction consists in 
the side-posts and rafters. The former (Fig. 
184) are double, being spread apart, at the 
bottom, one-half their length, and securely 
fastened to cross-sills which extend outside 
for their support, one-half of the spread being 
outside of the building, as seen in Fig. 181. 
pressure of the hay. The roof is supported by 
truss rafters, Figs. 183 and 184, the footing of 
each being on the double posts aud supporting 
purlin plates, which uphold the building in 
hay, strips, with open spaces between them, 
cau ho used, us seen at Fig. 18G. The other 
floors are of earth. The roof over the hay is 
of shingles nailed on three-inch strips the 
same distance from the centers, as the shingles 
are laid to the weather. The roof of the pass¬ 
age-way and gruiu bins is boarded tight, and 
some flat-roof material is used to cover it. 
The shed roof can bo made of flooring. The 
doors for the hay fork slide down to open, 
and are hung by weights, like a window sash. 
Union Co. Iowa. JOHN c. woodruff. 
DAIRY NOTES FROM ENGLAND. 
PROFESSOR J. P. SHELDON. 
DAIRY 1NO IN SCOTLAND. 
On the lost day but one of April, I had 
the honor to give a lecture In the Towu 
Hall of Ayr, under the auspices of the Scot¬ 
tish Dairy Farmers’ Association, my subject 
being "Home of the Principles of Dairying.’? 
This Association, which is just now in course 
of formation, embraces at present several of 
the southwestern counties of Scotland, the 
homo of the Ayrshire cattle, and a famous 
dairying district; and Its object is to improve 
and develop the dairy Interests of that part of 
the Unitrtl Kingdom. On the supposition that 
the Association remains united, 1 may predict 
that it will become a very powerful body, and 
that its influence will tend very materially to 
the Improvement of the dairy products of 
Scotland. Our Scotch cousins, usually very 
level headed and sedate, become energetic aud 
even enthusiastic, oueo they ure roused to 
action, as they now are in this matter. 
Many years ago, the late Joseph Harding, 
of Marksbury, who may be regarded as the 
chief apostle of Cheddar cheese-making in 
England, just as the late X. A. Willard was 
its chief exponent In America, was employed 
by the Scottish farmers to expound and de¬ 
monstrate the principles of Cheddar cheese- 
making; und, since his day, Scotch Cheddars 
have held a high position in the murkets of 
these islands. To a great extent, Mr. Har¬ 
ding’s method supplanted the old Dunlop sys¬ 
tem, which had been so long employed in Gal¬ 
loway and other districts of Scotlaud, aud to 
this day his system, In all its primitive sim¬ 
plicity of principle, and with comparatively 
unimportant changes in details, in utensils aud 
the like, is employed in a large proportion of 
the dairies in that part ol the country. In 
America and Canada, however, various im¬ 
provements have been worked out in the Ched¬ 
dar system, and improved utensils have been 
invented, with the result of placiug the cheese 
of the American Continent on a higher footing 
in our English markets than anybody dreamt, 
a quarter of a century ago. that it would ever 
attain. The Canadian cheese, in particular, 
has become a very formidable rival to the 
Scotch Cheddars in the Scotch markets, and 
to this may be ascribed the action which is 
being taken, in the formation of the Scottish 
Dairy Farmers’ Association. 
Mr. Ballantyne, of Ontario, who is re¬ 
garded as the cheese king of Canada, and 
who has done more than any man to improve 
the dairy husbandry of the Dominion, was 
present at the Ayr meeting, and spoke 
on the subject of cheese-making. So, 
also, were Mr. Harris aud Professor’Brown, 
the latter holding the Chair of Agriculture at 
the Ontario Agricultural College, and the 
former being at the present time employed 
to give instructions in cheese-making to the 
farmers of Scotlaud. These gentlemen also 
spoke at the meeting. Mr. Harris is well 
known as one of the most successful cheese- 
makers in Canada, and I consider our Scotch 
LOWER HILL-SIDEELEVATION. 
IT 
Shed 
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fa- 
Shed. 
Hay Manger. 
Fig. 18lf 
a® 
The purpose of this method of construction is 
to sustain the pressure from the spread of the 
roof and the weight of the hay, without the 
presence of auy timber inside the walls of the 
barn, which would interfere with the working 
of the hay-fork, or might break down under 
the middle, so that the whole interior Ls free 
from obstruction. In mowing away hay the 
' roo* is so steep that the fork is hung high, 
! and so labor is saved in mowing. To utilize 
the lumber to the best advantage the floor is 
I tight under the grsiu bins only. Under the 
