804 
| for the admission of the poles. 
common one-story barn serves well for the ac- 
commodation of farms in which hay is tied up 
in trusses for the supply of the market; and 
barns of a larger size and firmer construction, 
with a foundation of masonry, a slight open 
frame-work, and a fixed roof, are highly service- 
able as store-houses of hay for home consumption 
on the farm. Suppose one of the latter sort to 
cost fifty pounds, and to have capacity for fifty 
loads of hay, the annual cost of its storage may 
be computed at from eighteenpence to two shil- 
lings per load; and the barn, for this trifling 
cost, affords a safe receptacle for hay as soon as 
it is dry, saves the expense and trouble of 
stacking, gives protection from the effects of a 
heavy shower in the act of unloading, and affords 
complete shelter to all broken cuts of the hay 
during winter. A curious skeleton hay barn, or 
sort of permanent rick-frame, with a vertically 
moveable roof, is extensively used in Holland. It 
consists of strong upright poles, and a roof which 
is supported by them, and can be lowered or 
raised ; and it is usually pentagonal, or com- 
prises five poles, situated at the angles of a re- 
gularly pentagonal area. The poles are kept 
erect and firm by means of a strong sill on a 
brick foundation, and of diagonal bars acting as 
spurs ; and the roof is light, pentagonal, and 
thatched, and is provided at the angles with 
strong wooden blocks, which have perforations 
Each pole is 
pierced with a series of holes; iron pins are in- 
serted in these holes, as supports to the blocks 
of the roof; and by removing the pins to lower 
or higher holes, the roof is lowered or raised. 
The work of raising the roof is progressive, or 
from angle to angle of the pentagon, and from 
hole to hole of each pole; and it is effected, in 
each act of the process, by means of a small jack, 
similar to what is used in lifting waggons or 
heavy-laden carts to let their wheels be removed. 
A similar skeleton hay barn exists in some parts 
of France, and has its roof lowered or elevated 
by means of a screw in the centre. The purpose 
served by the mobility of the roof is to have the 
hay always closely covered; and it is raised 
piecemeal when the hay is stored in small quan- 
tities and on different days, and lowered from 
time to time as the uppermost parts of the store 
are removed for forage.— Sir John Sinclair's 
General Report of Scotland.—Marshall’s Rural 
Economy of the Southern Counties.— Marshall's 
Rural Economy of the Midland Counties—Survey 
of Essex.—Hunier’s Georgical Hssays— Knowledge 
Society's British Husbandry.— Doyle's Practical 
Husbandry.—khan’s Dictionary of the Farm.— 
Stephens’ Book of the Farm.— Quarterly Journal 
of Agriculture. — Dickson’s Husbandry of the 
Ancients.— The Society of Gentlemen’s Complete 
Farmer. 3 
BARN MANAGEMENT. Neat, economical, 
orderly management of barn work, and the con- 
sequent presenting of clean corn at the market, 
BARN MANAGEMENT. 
are strong indications of good farming. Barn 
work is performed principally during winter, 
and affords a pleasing alternation to the labours 
of the field. The extent and intricacy of it are, 
in some degree, proportioned to the size of the 
farm ; yet a notice of its details on a rather large 
scale will sufficiently indicate its duties on farms 
of any size. The hand implements used in it 
are few and simple. The flail, where the thrash- 
ing-machine does not exist, is as primitive and 
homely an instrument as could well be conceived 
for accomplishing a great and most valuable re- 
sult. See Fuarm. The corn barrow, used for 
wheeling sheaves from the rick-yard up the 
gangway to the upper barn, is a long-shaped 
wheel-barrow, made light and open with spars. 
Riddles, employed in sifting, have their mesh- 
work either of wires or of stripes of ash; and are 
of various meshes, to suit the different kinds of 
grain, and the different objects of sifting; but 
all are of simple construction, and easy price. 
Wechts for lifting thrashed corn, ought each to 
contain at least half a bushel; and, when made 
of broad slips of ash, are light and handy. The 
bushel, used for measuring the thrashed corn and 
filling it into sacks, cannot be too lightly con- 
structed, provided it is hooped with iron on all 
the parts which are most subject to abrasion ; 
and it best serves the purposes of both conveni- 
ence and stability, when it is nearly as wide at 
the top as at the bottom, and has a couple of 
handles about one-third way from the top. A 
strike, for making an exact level of grain across 
the surface of the bushel, suits better to be flat 
than cylindrical; for a zigzag motion arranges 
the grain into a truer level than a direct motion. 
Shovels made each of one piece of plane-tree, 
with a broad mouth, a little turned up on each 
side, and handled like a common spade, are the 
best adapted to both the corn-barn and the 
granary. A hand hummeler for barley is indis- 
pensable wherever a hummeling apparatus is not 
connected with the thrashing-machine, and, of 
course, whenever thrashing is done with the flail. 
A light broad hand-hoe, made of wood, with a 
very short handle, is an useful implement for 
drawing the thrashed grains into the wechts. 
See the articles Wecut, Buse, RippLE, SHOVEL, 
Barrow, and HumMMELER. 
The flail, though one of the simplest and most 
ancient of implements, is still used for thrashing 
in most parts of Ireland, in many parts of Eng- 
land, and on most Scottish farms which cannot, 
in the routine of their horse husbandry, employ 
two pairs of horses. To erect a thrashing-mill 
on any farm which has not regular work for two 
pairs of horses, would be decidedly uneconomi- 
cal; so that the line of demarcation between the 
profitable use of the flail and the propriety of 
superseding it by machinery is very distinct and 
broad. The saving from the use of a thrashing- 
machine on even a very large farm is greatly 
less than superficial observers and even many 
