The Portland daily press., 1883-02-05
The CONSTRUCTION Of Barns.

Mr.. Goodman says there should be a COW
barn, hay barn and a manure cellar at
the other end of the COW barn; that the
hay should be wheeled from the hay barn
to the cow barn, and the manure wheeled
from the cow barn to the manure cellar
Now this seems to be expensive, requiring
altogether too much labor, and to be entirely
needless. SUCH an arrangement might pos
sibly do for gentleman farmers, but the aver
age Maine farmer is a Woodworking man, who
adopts labor-saving machinery to save drudg-
cry, aud who will not adopt a method in
volving such additional labor several times
day in feeding his cattle and removing the
manure, as the above method would necessi-
tate. There are two important points 70 be
observed in the construction of q barn.
1st. Warmth and comfort of the cattle.
Barns are made much warmer than former
ly. Many farmers build board partition
between the tie-up and barn floor and lake
pains to make their te-ups so tight and com
Portable that manure will never freeze.
There should be plenty of windows to let
In the sunlight,-not small windows of three
lights, but large enough and numerous
enough to allow the sun to warm the tie-up.
Some persons will put plenty of windows
in the south sibe of their hen house and read
lily notice how quickly the sun warns it; the
sun will warm tie up as easily as a henery
with the same space allotted to windows.
And this warmth comes more acceptable
to the cattle at that time of day when they
stand shivering and rounded up, after having
put themselves outside of three or four pals
of ice water. Don't you suppose a COW will
appreciate the difference between & dark,
damp tie-up, and dry, light and warm one.
I'd. consider barn cellar Indispensable
My cattle are tied up every night the
year round. and as the tie up has to be
cleaned up daily throughout the year,
1t is quite an object to save labor by hoeing
it down through scuttle, than to be obliged
to shovel it through a window three feet high,
or to wheel it to some remote receptacle es-
pecially hen Iuse absorbents literally. As
the manure pile occupies but portion of
the cellar, there is ample room for storing
carts, sleds, tools, ETC. 1t costs nothing tC
keep barn cellar shingled; so it is mater
of economy as well as convenience. Most
barns with cellars under them are now con-
structed with tight floors through which odors
from the cellar cannot penetrate, and any
barn can be easily made so. Where the odor
arises through the scuttle when the tie-up is
being cleaned out it cannot escape into the
other part of the barn ifthe tie-up is separated
from it by a board partition. Some barns
have ventilators about eight inches square,
made OF boards running from the cellar to
the roof have heard this odor matter
harped on sometimes, but never considered
1t worth while to guard against in my own
barn, as there were always other things of
more Importance to be taken into consdera-
ton. do not consider it of much impor-
lance to remove the manure in the tie.up
before milking, and use dry earth, muck, or
saw-dust 10 absorb the odors; and to remove
the milk from the tie-up as fast as each COW
is MIXED, instead of allowing it to remain
until several cows are MIXED, in tie-ups reek
ing with filth, where no absorbents are used
A correspondent of THE HOME FARM a
while since recommended feeding poor fod-
der, like straw and swale hay first in the
morning, and to follow it with foddering
of good hay. Now my experience has been
the reverse of this. have found that cattle
will eat suchpoor fodder best after drinking,
and at the last time feeding at night If
cattle are fed regularly as the above cores
pondent recommended, they will wait for
the good hay and not eat the poor well. j
could never make my cattle thrive on rough
fodder, and never found ii economical feed
unless fed 1t exclusively to certain cattle |
and supplemented it with regular ration
of cotton-seed meal and bran, or other extra
feed.-Corr. Home journal.