BARN MANAGEMENT. . 
board is placed so high as to prevent any of the 
grain from being blown over with the chaff; and 
the inner side is so placed as to allow all the light 
grain to escape over it. The fans should generate 
a good blast of wind; the motion should be as 
steady as the application of human force can 
possibly make it; the supply of grain to the hop- 
per should be regular; and, as regularity of mo- 
tion greatly depends upon the pressure of a good 
weight upon the shoe, the hopper should be always 
kept full. See the articles Winnow and Winnow- 
inc-Macuine. 
The riddling is the most important of the 
manual operations. It separates, or ought to 
separate, from the corn all the heavy heads of 
weeds, short pieces of straw, small stones, little 
bits of hard earth, and grain enclosed in their 
capsules, which the wind of the machine is not 
| strong enough to blowaway. Yet the dexterous 
or proper practice of it is almost as difficult as it 
is important; it cannot be learned, or even un- 
derstood, from any mere printed description of it ; 
and, though appearing to the eye, to be very 
simple and easy, requires much practice and a 
considerable degree of cleverness and adroitery. 
| If it do not separate all, or very nearly all, foreign 
matter from the grain, it fails to serve its par- 
ticular purpose, and is badly performed. The 
end of each riddling of the riddleful of grain is 
brought towards the side of the heap, that it may 
be riddled over again before it is shovelled up to 
the top of the heap. Yet one course of winnow- 
ing and riddling is seldom sufficient to effect a 
thorough cleaning. A slow transit through the 
hopper, followed by very expert riddling, is some- 
times quite successful; but, in general, a second 
passage through the machine is requisite for oats, 
and both this and a second riddling are requisite 
for barley and wheat. When a second winnow- 
ing, but not a second riddling, is practised, one 
of the women drives the machine, another sup- 
plies the hopper, another carries away the grain 
from the machine to-the bushel, the fourth assists 
to hold the sack for the reception of the grain 
from the bushel, and the man fills the grain into 
the sack, and wheels the latter away with the 
corn-barrow. When a second riddling is prac- 
tised, the process is the same as at the first, with 
the exception that the grain may be allowed to 
pass more rapidly through the machine. The light 
grain which has escaped over the inner slide of 
the machine is now winnowed and riddled till it 
parts with all the good grain which is mixed 
with it; and the refuse of the riddling, or the 
finally light grain, is re-riddled from remaining 
commixations of sand, weed-seeds, husks, and 
other impurities. Purified final light grain of 
oats and barley can be set apart for the use of 
poultry ; and that of wheat, if not malted by wet 
weather, will make good household bread. 
Though we have represented cleaned oats as 
measured, wechtful by wechtful, into the bushel 
during the progress of the second winnowing, yet 
BARNACLES. 
ood 
most farmers are probably aware, that the mea- 
suring of grain from a heap, while the barn-floor 
is in a state of perfect rest, brings out a some- 
what larger result. 
says a writer in the Quarterly Journal of Agri- 
culture—whose casuistry or moral reasoning on 
this subject, however, has not altogether our 
concurrence—“It is found by experience, that 
when a bushel is filled at once, it can be filled 
with a less quantity of grain than when it is filled 
by degrees with small quantities. On the same 
account, a bushel, when filled, should not be 
heaped up with grain high above its rim, nor 
should the grain be forcibly poured into it, nor 
should a commotion be allowed on the barn-floor, 
particularly if it is a wooden one, when grain is 
being measured. Hence one reason for the ex- 
pediency of the plan to measure from the heap 
instead of the machine, from which the bushel 
would be filled only by small quantities, and each 
quantity shaken down by the tremulous motion 
imparted to the floor by the machine. There is 
no trick or unfairness in a farmer taking these 
advantages in filling his measure when they are 
in his power, and when he thinks it worth while 
to pay attention to them. He is obliged to fill 
the measure by ordinary means, but he is not 
obliged to use means to press or tramp the grain 
into it, into the least bulk it can assume. On a 
large quantity of corn, and for a series of years, 
the difference produced between a proper and 
impressed measure of it might be very consider- 
able. We are not aware that this difference has 
ever been accurately ascertained by experiment, 
any more than the leakage of grain in a granary, 
or, what is still more difficult to be ascertained 
than either, the shrinkage of grain in the stack 
after it has stood in the stack-yard a second year. 
The difference in the measurement of grain, like 
the shrinkage of it in the stack, must depend, we 
presume, very much on the quality of the grain, 
and the state in which it had been harvested. 
Good, plump, dry grain must both measure out 
its quantity more certainly, and shrink less, than 
ill-filled hungry stuff.” The fact seems to be that 
prime grain in prime condition will measure 
quite or very nearly the same under any mode 
of filling the bushel; and that light, chaffy, 
moist, ill-conditioned grain is capable of the en- 
larging effects of a soft method of measuring, 
very nearly in the proportion of its worthlessness. 
Hence our demur at the alleged justice of a 
bushel being filled with all possible absence of 
shaking or compression——We might now, with- 
out overstretching the subject of barn manage- 
ment, proceed to speak of the making up and re- 
moval of grain to the purchaser; but we defer 
this topic to the article on Marxuts. 
BARNACLES. Instruments used by farriers 
to put upon the muzzle of horses, when they will 
not stand quietly to be shod, bled, or dressed. 
The object of these instruments, and of another 
called the twitch, is to produce as much pain in 
“Tt is found by experience,” 
