408 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
struct, the most economical of space, and the cleanest for those who 
milk, of any plan yet devised, and they do not, in my opinion,, 
when properly constructed^ subject the cows to any discomfort. 
Three feet from center to center has been found sufficient for aver¬ 
age sized cows. A four by four scantling makes a good bed piece 
for the stanchions to work in, and is not too high for the cows’ necks 
to cross when lying down. The space for a cow’s neck should be 
seven inches wide and four feet in vertical height. If the vertical 
height is much more than this, the leaning half of the stanchion 
does not get enough out of the cow’s way in putting her head 
in and out. Two by four pieces, free of large knots, corners smooth 
and rounded next to the neck, make good stanchions. Fourteen 
feet plank cut in three, or four feet eight inches, is the right aver¬ 
age length for floor for grown cows. Mangers should be three feet 
wide at the top, one foot and eight inches at the bottom, and three 
feet high. The ditch should drop five or six inches, and have a de¬ 
scent towards some point at which the liquids can escape. 
We will go back now to the frame work. The beams ought to 
be at least eight by ten, laid the ten inch way horizontally, so as 
the better to resist the inside pressure, which is quite severe when 
the barn is full of well tramped hay. It should be twenty feet 
from bottom of sill to middle of beam. If the barn is to be enclosed 
with dressed boards and battens, the beam should have its under 
outside corner rabbeted out one and three-fourths by two and one- 
half inches, and should be framed so as to project one and three- 
fourths inches beyond the posts. The plates should project at each, 
end of the barn about three feet, or far enough to make cornice by 
raising a pair of rafters on their extreme ends. If not thought best 
to project the plates for cornices, they must project one and three- 
fourths inches, so that the outside of end rafters will be plumb over 
the outer face of the beam. The first course of boards, twenty feet 
long, reach from sill to beam, and are nailed at the top end in the 
rabbet. The battens are now put on, and these, with the boards, just 
fill out the rabbeted corner of the beatn. The course of boards and 
battens that are to reach from beam to roof, are lapped about three 
inches over the tops of this first course, and as the rafters are out one 
and three-fourths inches, as well as that part of the beam to which 
this last course of boarding is nailed, it follows that the boards are- 
jjluinb, and shed perfectly all driving rains, allowing no lodgment- 
