240 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
July, 
Plan of a Dairy-House. 
Editors of\he Cultivator —Accompanying this, I 
send you a plan of a dairy-house, which, doubtless, may 
not suit the fancy of every dairyman, yet it is thought 
to embrace as many conveniences as can well be embo¬ 
died in a building of ordinary dimensions. 
The plan is arranged for cheese making, though it will 
be found equally convenient for butter making, by sub¬ 
stituting the furniture necc sary for butter making for 
that described in the plan. 
The building should consist of a cellar and one story 
above; the former, settled about three or four feet be¬ 
low the surface, provided with a drain, emptying if 
possible into the slop-tub in the cow barn. The wall 
of the cellar, and both stories, if convenient, should be 
of stone or brick, laid in lime mortar, and from 18 to 
24 inches thick. The bottom should be of water-lime 
mortar, which will, when properly prepared, soon har¬ 
den into a level smooth surface, quite imperishable, and 
be proof against water, and all rats and 
mice. The pipes, leading to and from 
the cisterns, &c., should be laid down 
before the floor is laid, and the mortar 
carefully fitted to them. The ice-house 
should be plastered with waterlime, 
and a little space left between the ice 
and bottom of the house, to allow the 
water a small space. The top and side 
walls of the dairy house should be 
finished with plaster, by which means 
a uniform temperature, indispensible to 
curing cheese well, is more easily se¬ 
cured. Size, 18 by 30 feet outside. 
Explanation. —1. The room for mak¬ 
ing cheese in, 14 by 18. 2. Closet 10 
by 10. provided with shelves, for storing 
all sorts of furniture. 
3. Ice-house, 10 by 10. This should 
be enclosed by double walls, and great 
care taken to make both perfectly air 
tight, and the space may be filled with 
sand, leached ashes, or almost any dry 
porous substance; but nothing is so 
good as air, provided it is not permitted 
to circulate in and out of the space, be¬ 
cause air when not in motion is almost 
a non-conductor of heat; but since cold 
air is heavier than warm, if crevices 1 
are left near the bottom of the ice vault, the cold air 
contained in it, as soon as the temperature without is 
raised, flows out, and its place is supplied by warmer 
air passing in at the same crevices, and an equilibrium 
is soon restored between the temperature of the air 
without and within the ice-house, and the ice rapidly 
wastes away. For this reason the door should be double 
and open near the top of the vault, or it may have no 
door on the side and be filled and emptied through a 
trap door from the upper story The lower floor must 
be high enough to draw water from it into the milk vat. 
4. General store room and wood cellar, 11 by 18. 
5. A stove or furnace of some kind, at which steam is 
generated for warming milk, heating water, &c. 6. 
Stairs to the cheese loft. 7. A tin cistern, large enough 
to contain as much milk as is to be set at once, surround¬ 
ed by a wooden vat, leaving a space an inch wide at the 
sides, and nearly two under the bottom, for the intro¬ 
duction of water, either warm or cold, for heating or 
cooling milk. a. Lead pipe leading from steam genera¬ 
tor to water in wooden vat, by which the milk is con¬ 
veniently raised to any desired temperature. By means 
of the stops in the pipe, the steam may be let in to a 
water cistern (12) when not needed to heat the milk, 
by which hot water is always easily kept on hand for 
cleansing the various untensils. The end of the steam 
pipe should pass under the center of the cistern, and a 
board a foot square must be placed between it and the 
cistern to prevent heating the cistern too hot just when the 
steam is discharged, b. A pipe leading to the sink drain, 
by which both the whey and water are led off from the cis¬ 
tern, when the cheese is sufficiently scalded. The whey 
pipe should be large, not less than two inches, so that 
when the orifice is opened the whey will escape imme- 
First Floor. 
B 
10 
/ 
0 
15 
Second Floor. 
diately, and thus prevent the curd from sticking togeth¬ 
er. To prevent the curd from escaping with the whey, 
a tin strainer of a peculiar form is inserted in the orifice. 
This strainer is a cylinder five inches in diameter, and 
as long as the vat is deep; this cylinder is perforated as 
full of fine holes as the strength of the metal will admit, 
and to the lower end of it is soldered a tin tube large 
enough to fit the orifice in the -bottom of the vat. While 
the curd is setting, the orifice is stopped with a plug reach¬ 
ing the top of the vat, smaller at the upper end, and 
when the whey is to be let off, the tin strainer is slipped 
over the plug, and into the orifice, when the plug is re¬ 
moved, and the whey escapes; this may be done if the 
orifice is tapering, and the plug made to fit the lower 
