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Vol. XLIII. No. 1804. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 23, 1884. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
(Entered according: to Act of Congress, In the year 1884, by tbo Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.) 
3Lrd)itcctu«. 
A GENERAL PURPOSE BARN. 
HE plan of a general-purpose 
barn with basement, shown at 
Figs. 273. 274, 275, and 270, is 
original with me, as I have 
never seen any building like 
it. It was built ten years ago. 
It is sided with pine lumber. 
The size of timbers used for 
the frame is as follows: 
Sills posts, and beams.7 xh Inches. 
Purlin posts, beams, and plates.. ..Rxfl 
(orders, studs, and braces .4x1 “ 
Rafters,,.. Hvs “ 
Joists .. .','.".","..3x7 " 
Length of posts.”,'.',"""..18feet. 
The frame is thoroughly braced; the girders 
and braces are framed in by mortises and 
tenons, and pinned. The land on which it is 
built descends to the south, so that by grad¬ 
ing, the north wall stands against the bank, 
which Is as high as the top of the wall, the 
building of drive ways being in this way ren¬ 
dered unnecessary. Underneath the whole 
structure there is a wall eight feet high and 
two feet thick, except the cross walls on each 
side ol the manure vat, which are only a foot- 
and-a-half thick. The manure can be drawn 
from the vat at any time, as it never freezes, 
by backing into it from the shed, the ground 
beneath the shed being level with tbo bottom 
of the door to the vat. The bottom of the 
manure vat is made somethlug like the bot¬ 
tom of a caldron kettle, except that it is more 
oblong, and ls made water tight by being 
paved with cobble stone, and the application 
of two coats of hydraulic cement mixed with 
sharp sand. The cow stable floor is of two- 
inch plank laid in cement. The gutter is four 
feet four inches from the stanchions, and is 
12 inches wide and six inches deep. It is level 
and water-tight. Dry muck is used in the 
bottom of it as an absorbent of urine. 
There is a walk three feet wide behind the 
cows. The manure is thrown into the vat 
through wooden windows in the wall. These 
are made in two equal parts and slide past 
each other in the frame, so that should the 
vat become full as high as the lower half, this 
can remain shut aud the upper half be lower¬ 
ed for the admission of the manure. The 
windows are two feet wide, and extend from 
the top of the wall to within two feet of the 
floor. There is an inch partition of pine lum¬ 
ber between the stable, hennery and sick room. 
Eggs never freeze in the hennery. A large 
wiudow in the south end extends from the top 
of the wall to within eight inches of the floor. 
A small door, one foot square, at the south 
end lets the fowls in and out. A feed box iu 
the center holds six bushels of grain, is self- 
feeding, aud the fovvLs cannot waste the grain. 
Fowls occupy the sick room when it is uot re¬ 
quired for sick animals. It is also used for 
holding sand and gravel for fowls, and for 
mixing the hen manure with plaster, loam, 
mack, and road dust. 
The horse-barn, carriage-room, corn-crib, 
and granary, shown in Fig. 275, page 542, 
are each nine feet high. The earriage- 
room and corn-crib are over the open shed. 
The horse-a Utils are over the manure vat. 
The stable is cleansed by dropping the man¬ 
ure through the two trap doors into the 
vat beneath, and it is there mixed with the 
cow manure, muck and plaster; heating aud 
unpleasant odors are thus avoided. The 
stalls are double-floored. The end of the top 
floor next to the manger is slightly elevated. 
There Is an inch partition of pine between 
the horse-barn aud the carriage-room. The 
corn-crib is slatted across the bottom, aud over 
the slats is coarse wire cloth, There are two 
sliding windows (for sliding horizontally) on 
the west side near the top, thus creating a 
draft from beneath, causing the corn to cure 
nicely. The walls and ceiling are boarded 
witli maple lumber. This, with the wire cloth 
over the slats, makes it. proof against mice and 
rats. On each side of the barn floor the walls 
are boarded, on the west side three feet high 
to the top of the breast girder; on the east side, 
nine feet high to the floor over the horse-barn. 
The horses are fed from the barn floor through 
two doors hung .just above the mangers, so as 
to drop down from the top. The fodder for 
the cattle is passed from the barn floor through 
a door hung at the top to the breast girder, 
and opening back into a box iu the mow 
made open at the bottom. The granary is 
made rat and mouse-proof by using maple 
lumber for the floor, the walls, and over-head. 
The bins are made so that the boards in the 
end next to the alley can be removed. Stand¬ 
ards four inches wide and one-and-a-half Inch 
thick fastened to the floor and to the joists 
over-head, are nailed to the lj^-inch-thick 
boards used for the sides of the bins, so as to 
project each way to hold the boards used m 
the ends; the lifting of the grain over the top 
of the bins, is in this way avoided, and it is 
more convenient to shovel the grain into bags, 
and to sweep or dean the granary. 
The room above the horse-barn, carriage- 
room, aud corn-crib, with hay mow and 
scalfolds, is ample for storing 85 tons of hay 
or grain. The plans oT the busement and 
barn floor. Figs. 275 and 27(5, page 542, will 
fully explaiu the internal arrangement of the 
building, while its outside appearance, from 
opposite sides, is shown at Figs. 273 and 274. 
Madison Co., N. Y. s. a. davidson. 
farm (Irccmonuj. 
CONSTRUCTION OF UNDERDRAINS. 
It seems to me that the directions for the 
construction of underdrains given by Prof. 
Carpenter, are extremely crude. On page 
393 of R. N.-Y., he recommends closely-mown 
turf, tarred paper, etc., to be placed over the 
joints of tile laid in loose, sandy soils, as a 
means of keeping out sediment. How long 
would turf or tarred yiaper be effective iu 
such a situation? Suppose they are effective 
two years, is the tile then to be taken up, 
cleaned out aud relaid with turf aud tarred 
paper accompaniments? I always thought 
that a well-laid tile drain was good for un 
indefinite period. Prof. C. seems to indicate 
that it is only good for three or four years. 
Let mo toll tho Professor that nothing will 
prove efficacious in keeping sediment out of tile 
drains laid in loose soil belt a collar made of the 
same stuff tho kilo is made of; and to recom¬ 
mend any perishable material as a substitute, * 
is to advocate the laying of defective drains. 
Iu laying u tile drain last year, I neglected 
to close an open joint with a collar—the open¬ 
ing was only about one-fourth of au inch 
wide—and the seepage of water into the drain 
last Spring carried the soil with it, atom after 
atom, until a hole was opened clear to the 
surface. Mad I covered It with sod or tarred 
paper, the same thing would undoubtedly 
have occurred, but probably not for a year or 
two, Tho layfug of tile drains is too costly to 
be botched by a resort to temporary expe¬ 
dients, or the use of perishable materials in 
their construction. 
Again, on page 415, the Professor gives a 
sketch of a complicated contrivance for level¬ 
ing tho drain. He says it is no trouble to 
move about, manage, etc,; but from its ap¬ 
pearance l should judge that it would re¬ 
quire considerable time, labor and skill to 
manipulate it successfully — setting stakes, 
pulling and tying cords, sliding gauges up 
aud down, sighting and adjusting, then pull¬ 
ing up and carrying forward, etc , etc., etc. 
No practical tile layer in this section of tho 
country could be induced to adopt such a con¬ 
trivance, if he were paid for it, 
We use the level shown in the sketch (Fig. 
282), aud by means of it can guage tho bottom 
Level for Tile Drain. Fig, 282. 
of the drain almost to a hair’s breadth. It is 
a perfectly straight board, 10 or 12 feet long, 
having a level set into tho upper edge as 
shown, and it is drawn along tho bottom of 
the drain. We begin at the outlet of the drain, 
open us deep as possible with the plow, 300 to 
400 yards at a time, thou finish with shovel, 
tiling spade, and draw-scoop of the same size 
as tbo tile to be laid. Tho level is drawn along 
the bottom of tho drain by the finisher, as ho 
proceeds, and by watching it lie is enabled to 
make a perfectly uniform grade. There is no 
staking, sighting, or pulling strings. With 
it I have rapidly graded tho bottom of a drain 
when tho fall was only one inch in the 100 
feet, aud (lone it perfectly. It is also very use¬ 
ful in determining the rise or fall of tho sur¬ 
face when the land is nearly level. By using 
a 20-foot board two men can rapidly run a 
level for a drain, aud by noting the inches of 
rise or fail, as Indicated by tho two ends of 
the board when level, can easily give the exact 
fall to every 100 feet, and the uniform fall for 
the whole length, it is infinitely superior to 
the string and scaffolding apparatus of Prof. 
C., either for running a level or grading the 
bottom of the drain. Lie advises care in fill¬ 
ing the ditch, bo the tiles may not be moved 
laterally. We cut and scoop the bottom of 
our drains the exact size of the tile laid, and 
they cannot move laterally. The whole ditch 
is cut exactly V-shape, as it should be. 
Morrisonville, Ill. “picket.” 
SILAGE AND MUCK. 
There seems to be no natural connection 
between silage and muck, except in tho 
dubious minds of our anti ensilage friends, to 
whom the former term may suggest the latter, 
in the first degrees of progress towards decay. 
The terms are here used in au economic sense 
only. The muck is proposed as a convenient 
weight for the silo, when a good muck-bed is 
near at hand. By its use three important 
advantages may result, if an experiment justi¬ 
fies my theory. First, it will put weight, and 
BACK VIEW. Fig. 274. 
FRONT VIEW. Fig. 273. 
