Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/397

 MODEL DESIGNS FOR FARMERIES. 373 instead of two short joists. The privy or water-closet is thus constructed : — A tub, firmly held together by iron hoops, is sunk in the earth to the brim ; and it has two strong liooks which project from each side. Over this tub is placed a portable seat, with a funnel, which descends into the tub, and there is a lid to the opening in the seat. All the soap suds, and other waste water of the house is poured through this funnel. Directly over the tub, in the rafters of the roof, a pulley is fixed ; and, when the tub is full, which it will be once or twice every week, the portable seat is removed, and the tub is raised up and placed on a wheelbarrow, by means of a cord passed over the pulley. The tub is then wheeled away to two tanks, or small trenches ; into one of which is poured the liquid matter, and into the other the more solid contents. The tub is then washed out, and returned to its place ; and the liquid matter is immediately rendered thick by mixing with it powdered lime, chalk, or marl ; or, in default of either of these, powdered lime rubbish. This manure is what is called in France Pirate. The thick matter the farmer allows to dry, and afterwards he reduces it to powder, when it forms that excellent and hi'rh-priced" manure so well known throughout Europe, and especially in France, as poudrette. Finallv, the urate and the poudrette are mixed together in a large tank, having the bottom and sides of masonry ; and soap suds, or the liquor from stable dung, being added, the whole is worked till it becomes of the consistency of mud. After this, powdered plaster of Paris, or lime, or marl, is added, and thoroughly incorporated, till the whole is so thick that it can scarcely be stirred with a stick. Left to itself it soon sets, and in three weeks will have become so firm, that it will cut like cheese, and may be taken out and dried in lumps about twice the size of bricks. These bricks Morel- Vinde calls stercoraf, and he says that they form as powerful a manure as pigeon dung. When used they are reduced to powder, and strewed over the soil by hand, as a top- dressing. In situations where neither plaster of Paris, lime, nor marl is to be had, the urate and poudrette may be mixed up with clay, when the stercoral is to be used on sandy soil, and with sand when it is to be used on clayey soil. This, Morel- Vinde says, is the best of all known manners of employing the contents of pri^-ies, and he speaks from lono- practice on his own estate, at Celle, near St. Cloud. {Essai sur ks Constructions Huraks Economiques, Sec, p. 26.) SuBSECT. 2. Fundamental Principles, Directions, and Model Designs, for the Construction and Arrangement of the various Parts which compose a Farmery. 744. The Parts which compose a Farmery may be arranged under two heads, buildings and yards. The buildings may be classed as houses for lodging and feeding live stock ; storehouses for produce and food ; houses for preparing food, or carrj-ing on in-door farmery operations ; houses for portable machinery and implements ; lodgings for single men, and houses for married men. The yards are chiefly two ; the cattle or dung yard, and the rick or stack yard : but in large establishments there are, besides these, the pig yard, the poultry yard, the carpenter and smith's yard, and some others, according to the kind of farm. 745. The Principles on which the Lodging-places of all domestic Animals are designed must necessarily be drawn from the size of the animal, the temperature of its native climate, its habits of life, and the state of domestication to which it has been brought. The domestic quadrupeds which form the inmates of farmeries are chiefly the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the swine ; and these, in their artificial state, may be considered as requiring the same climate, or nearly so ; and as not differing very materially, either in the kind of food which they eat, or "in their manner of taking it. They may all feed from a rack or manger, of nearly the same height relatively to their own ; and, taken in the plan, or vertical profile, they are all more or less wedge-shaped ; the head being placed at the narrow end of the wedge. The chief difference, therefore, is in their magni- tude as wedges ; and it is to ascertain this difference that the Architect who wishes to draw his practice from fundamental principles ought in the first place to direct his attention. A horse of average size, he will find, forms a wedge eight feet long, six feet and a half high • two feet broad at one end, and one foot and a half broad at the other. A cow or bullock of average size forms a shorter and somewhat blunter wedge than the horse ; being generally seven feet and a half long, five feet high, two feet and a half broad at one end, and, aUowing for the horns, nearly two feet at the other. Taking the horse and ox together, we may consider them, on the average, as wedges eight feet and a half long ; two feet and a half at the broad end, and two feet at the other ; and six feet and a half high. The sheep we may consider as three feet and a half long, two feet high, eighteen inches broad at one end, and, allowing for the horns of the ram, one foot at the other ; and the swine may be considered as a wedge of the same size and shape as the sheep. Assuming these averages to be sufliciently correct for practice, two important conclusions may be drawn from them : first, that the most economical mode of lodging the first two of these quadrupeds must be in houses the w.ills of which form concentric