AN AMERICAN BARN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1189, 12 September 1874, Page 6

AN AMERICAN BARN.

!"/ The following description is given in an { American contemporary of a Pennsylvania barn. The building belongs to a farmer occupying 200 acres, half arable and half artificial pasture :—: — The main building is 74 feet long by 50 wide, and 24 feet high from floor to plate, with a basement underneath of 9 feet. There are two drive-ways side by side upon the main floor, one raised seven feet above the level of the other, so that when the bay is filled from one drive- way the whole of the floor is filled from the other, and the bay upon the other side. Thus the space which is usually appropriated for a drive floor, and so lost, is utilised and made to hold a quantity of hay seven feet in thickness. Beneath the upper drive floor are the grain bins, places for chaff, and funnels, by which hay or straw is passed to the stables below. There is a wing attached to the barn 62 feet long by 32 feet wide, and 16 feet high to the plates, with a 10-foot' basement beneath for cattle. The front of this basement is supported upon posts set upon stones, and is open to the barnyard, making a fine shelter for cattle and cover for manure. The wing is divided into two mows, each 23 feet wide and 32 feet long, and a driveway 16 feet wide -between them. One of these mows communicates with the main barn, and is used to hold the straw from the thrashing-machine. The thrashing is done upon the upper floor of themain barn ; the straw is then pitched over the beam into this mow in the wing, while the clean grain

is run down into the bins, and the chaff into the chaff-roombeneaththe floor. A covered bridgeway is the cart-house and stoneroom for stools. Adjoining the cart-house there is a root cellar, with doorway into the feed entries in the basement, and over the root cellar is the granary, 28 feet long by 18 feet wide. The barn is built upon a hillside, with a slope of eight feet in fifty ; the front drive-way rises 2£ feet, and, by reason of the slope of the ground, it is brought up to the level of the upper part of the wing. Anything unloaded, therefore, from the upper mam barn floor into the wing is pitched down, and not up, saving a great deal of labour. At the east end of the main barn the floor joists project sufficiently to form the foundation of a corn crib. At the end of the wing is a sheep-house, 24 feet long. The whole range of buildings is therefore 164 feet long, and furnishes perfect protection to the yards and the farm-house from the north and west winds.