Rural Architecture by Lewis Falley Allen (chrysanthemum read aloud .TXT) 📕

in use. Over each kettle is a sliding door, with a short spout to slide the food into them, when wanted. If necessary, and it can be conveniently done, a well may be sunk under this room, and a pump inserted at a convenient place; or if equally convenient, a pipe may bring the water in from a neighboring stream, or spring. On three sides of this room are feeding pens, (e,) and sleeping partitions, (f,) for the swine. These several apartments are accommodated with doors, which open into separate yards on the sides and in rear, or a large one for the entire family, as may be desired.

CONSTRUCTION.

The frame of this building is of strong timber, and stout for its size. The sills should be 8 inches square, the corner posts of the same size, and the intermediate posts 8×6 inches in diameter. In the center of these posts, grooves should be made, 2 inches wide, and deep, to receive the plank sides, which should be 2 inches thick, and let in from the level of the chamber by a flush cutting for that purpose, out of the grooves inside, thus using no nails or spikes, and holding the planks tight in their place, that they may not be rooted out, or rubbed off by the hogs, and the inner projection of the main posts left to serve as rubbing posts for them—for no creature so loves to rub his sides, when fatting, as a hog, and this very natural and praiseworthy propensity should be indulged. These planks, like the posts, should, particularly the lower ones, be of hard wood, that they may not be eaten off. Above the chamber floor, thinner planks may be used, but all should be well jointed, that they may lie snug, and shut out the weather. The center post in the floor plan of the engraving is omitted, by mistake, but it should stand there, like the others. Inside posts at the corners, and in the sides of the partitions, like the outside ones, should be also placed and grooved to receive the planking, four and a half feet high, and their upper ends be secured by tenons into mortices in the beams overhead. The troughs should then, if possible, be made of cast iron, or, in default of that, the hardest of white oak plank, strongly spiked on to the floor and sides; and the apartment may then be called hog-proof—for a more unquiet, destructive creature, to a building in which he is confined, does not live, than the hog. The slide, or spout to conduct the swill and other feed from the feeding-room into the trough, should be inserted through the partition planks, with a steep slant the whole length of the trough, that the feed may be readily thrown into any or all parts of it. This slide should be of two-inch white-oak plank, and bound along the bottom by a strip of hoop-iron, to prevent the pigs from eating it off—a habit they are prone to; then, firmly spiked down to the partition planks, and through the ends, to the adjoining studs, and the affair is complete. With what experience we have had with the hog, and that by no means an agreeable one, we can devise no better method of accommodation than this here described, and it certainly is the cheapest. But the timber and lumber used must be sound and strong; and then, properly put together, it may defy their most destructive ingenuity. Of the separate uses to which the various apartments may be put, nothing need be said, as the circumstances of every farmer will best govern them.

One, to three hundred dollars, according to price of material and labor, will build this piggery, besides fitting it up with furnace and boilers. It may be contracted, or enlarged in size, as necessity may direct; but no one, with six to twenty porkers in his fatting pens, a year, will regret the expense of building a convenient appurtenance of this kind to his establishment.

A word may be pardoned, in relation to the too universal practice of permitting swine to prowl along the highways, and in the yards and lawns of the farm house. There is nothing so slovenly, wasteful, and destructive to one's thrift, and so demoralizing, in a small way, as is this practice. What so revolting to one, of the least tidy nature whatever, as a villainous brute, with a litter of filthy pigs at her heels, and the slimy ooze of a mud-puddle reeking and dripping from their sides? See the daubs of mud marking every fence-post, far and near, along the highway, or where-ever they run! A burrow is rooted up at every shady point, a nuisance at every corner you turn, and their abominable snouts into everything that is filthy, or obscene—a living curse to all that is decent about them. An Ishmaelite among the farm stock, they are shunned and hated by every living thing, when at large. But, put the creature in his pen, with a ring in his nose, if permitted to go into the adjoining yard, and comfortably fed, your pig, if of a civilized breed, is a quiet, inoffensive—indeed, gentlemanly sort of animal; and as such, he is entitled to our toleration—regard, we cannot say; for in all the pages of our reading, we learn, by no creditable history, of any virtuous sympathies in a hog.

FARM BARNS.

The farm barn, next to the farm house, is the most important structure of the farm itself, in the Northern and Middle States; and even at the south and southwest, where less used, they are of more importance in the economy of farm management than is generally supposed. Indeed, to our own eyes, a farm, or a plantation appears incomplete, without a good barn accommodation, as much as without good household appointments—and without them, no agricultural establishment can be complete in all its proper economy.

The most thorough barn structures, perhaps, to be seen in the United States, are those of the state of Pennsylvania, built by the German farmers of the lower and central counties. They are large, and expensive in their construction; and, in a strictly economical view, perhaps more costly than required. Yet, there is a substance and durability in them, that is exceedingly satisfactory, and, where the pecuniary ability of the farmer will permit, may well be an example for imitation.

In the structure of the barn, and in its interior accommodation, much will depend upon the branches of agriculture to which the farm is devoted. A farm cultivated in grain chiefly, requires but little room for stabling purposes. Storage for grain in the sheaf, and granaries, will require its room; while a stock farm requires a barn with extensive hay storage, and stables for its cattle, horses, and sheep, in all climates not admitting such stock to live through the winter in the field, like the great grazing states west of the Alleghanies. Again, there are wide districts of country where a mixed husbandry of grain and stock is pursued, which require barns and out-buildings accommodating both; and to supply the exigencies of each, we shall present such plans as may be appropriate, and that may, possibly, by a slight variation, be equally adapted to either, or all of their requirements.

It may not be out of place here, to remark, that many designers of barns, sheds, and other out-buildings for the accommodation of farm stock, have indulged in fanciful arrangements for the convenience and comfort of animals, which are so complicated that when constructed, as they sometimes are, the practical, common-sense farmer will not use them; and, in the learning required in their use, are altogether unfit for the use and treatment they usually get from those who have the daily care of the stock which they are intended for, and for the rough usage they receive from the animals themselves. A very pretty, and a very plausible arrangement of stabling, and feeding, and all the etceteras of a barn establishment, may be thus got up by an ingenious theorist at the fireside, which will work to a charm, as he dilates upon its good qualities, untried; but, when subjected to experiment will be utterly worthless for practical use. All this we, in our practice, have gone through; and after many years experience, have come to the conclusion that the simplest plan of construction, consistent with an economical expenditure of the material of food for the consumption of stock, is by far the most preferable.

Another item to be considered in this connection, is the comparative value of the stock, the forage fed to them, and the labor expended in feeding and taking care of them. We will illustrate: Suppose a farm to lie in the vicinity of a large town, or city. Its value is, perhaps, a hundred dollars an acre. The hay cut upon it is worth fifteen dollars a ton, at the barn, and straw, and coarse grains in proportion, and hired labor ten or twelve dollars a month. Consequently, the manager of this farm should use all the economy in his power, by the aid of cutting-boxes, and other machinery, to make the least amount of forage supply the wants of his stock; and the internal economy of his barn arranged accordingly; because labor is his cheapest item, and food the dearest. Then, for any contrivance to work up his forage the closest—by way of machinery, or manual labor—by which it will serve the purposes of keeping his stock, is true economy; and the making, and saving of manures is an item of the first importance. His buildings, and their arrangements throughout, should, on these accounts, be constructed in accordance with his practice. If, on the other hand, lands are cheap and productive, and labor comparatively dear, a different practice will prevail. He will feed his hay from the mow, without cutting. The straw will be either stacked out, and the cattle turned to it, to pick what they like of it, and make their beds on the remainder; or, if it is housed, he will throw it into racks, and the stock may eat what they choose. It is but one-third, or one-half the labor to do this, that the other mode requires, and the saving in this makes up, and perhaps more than makes up for the increased quantity of forage consumed. Again, climate may equally affect the mode of winter feeding the stock. The winters may be mild. The hay may be stacked in the fields, when gathered, or put into small barns built for hay storage alone; and the manure, scattered over the fields by the cattle, as they are fed from either of them, may be knocked to pieces with the dung-beetle, in the spring, or harrowed and bushed over the ground; and with the very small quantity of labor required in all this, such practice will be more economical than any other which can be adopted. It is, therefore, a subject of deliberate study with the farmer, in the construction of his out-buildings, what plans he shall adopt in regard to them, and their fitting up and arrangement.

With these considerations before us, we shall submit such plans of barn structures as may be adapted for general use, where shelters for the farm crops, and farm stock, are required; and which may, in their interior arrangement, be fitted for almost any locality of our country, as the judgment and the wants of the builder may require.

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Design I.

This is a design of barn partially on the Pennsylvania plan, with under-ground stables, and a stone-walled basement on three sides, with a line of posts standing open on the yard front, and a wall, pierced by