Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/414

 390 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. and, insteatl of side and end walls of masonry, there are generally wooden pales. The roofs arc made very high and steep, in order to acquire strength to bear, and inclination sufficient for throwing off the snow, at the least possil)le expense of timber. As there is no objection to numerous posts within, provided they be in the line of the racks, sheep- houses of the largest dimensions may be constructed of pieces of timber not more than ten or twelve feet long, or thicker than six inches. Sheep-houses, or folds for feeding and housing sheep in bad weather, are, in England, Mr. INIain observes, " square enclosures erected in slieltered places, formed of an outside wall built of turves or otlier materials, about six or seven feet high ; and all round the interior are lean-to thatched sheds, supported on posts about four feet high. Against the back wall are racks for hay, and troughs for chaff, bran, oats, or peas, &c. Tlie middle of the fold is kept well littered with straw ; and on one side of the gate there is a lock-up shed for keeping the jirovender. These foltls are usually about fifty feet square, and are no less serviceable to the flock in bad weatlier, than to the farm in making great quantities of excellent manure." In the north of Germany, and in Poland and Lithuania, there are immense sheep-houses of a very simple construction, which nevertheless are exceedingly effective. A skeleton roof, sometimes circular and sometimes oblong, is formed of long poles, chiefly young spruce fir trees, with their lower ends inserted in the ground, and their points meeting at to)} ; across these, smaller poles arc fastened, not by nails or wooden pins, but by withy ties. The whole is then covered, or thatched with branches of spruce fir. The doors and places for ventilation are merely gaps, stopped up or opened according to the discretion of the sheplierd. These sheep-houses answer their purpose perfectly. They are sometimes also used for sheltering cattle. 767. The Sheep-house at Celle,7iear St. Cloud, may be given as one of the most complete in France. It was erected in 1809, by Morel- Vinde, on his own estate, and the plan published fourteen years afterwards, as of a construction which, during that period, had given entire satisfaction. Long experience has convinced Morel- Vinde that every sheep in Iamb, or with a lamb, to be at its ease, ought to occupy a superficies of ten square feet ; that every full-grown sheep without a lamb requires a space of six feet ; that every ewe requires a length along the edge of the rack and manger of one foot, in order to eat at ease ; and that every ram with horns requires fifteen inches along the rack ; that the racks are best when portable, that is, when they are capable of being taken down from the posts on which they are hung, as shown in fig. 802 ; and, lastly, that in no case should a shecp-Iiouse have a floor over it, the health of the sheep depending essentially on their having a great height of open space over them. On tlicse fundamental principles the