Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/417

 MODEL DESIGNS FOR FARMERIES. 393 Surrey, there is a very extensive poultry establishment ; and early in the season the fowls are reared in a vinery; and a writer in the Gardener's Mariazine (vol. viii.) not only rears, hut hatehes, in a house of the same description. In the centre of the large yard at Bagshot there is a tree partially denuded of its branches, in order that it may serve as a roosting-i)lace for the turkeys. In every poultry-house the places for incubation are sinall stalls or boxes, eighteen inches or two feet square, and open in front, in which the fowls sit on their eggs ; and, after these are hatched, they are taken out into the yard, and the mother is confined in what is called a coop, an inverted cup of wickerwork, with the interstices large enough to allow the young brood free egress and ingress, while the parent cannot escape. These coops are frequently boarded on all sides, with a grated door opening in front. Partridges, pheasants, quails, bustards, and other gallinaceous birds are sometimes bred and reared in artificial structures, with a view to their domes- tication or increase in anv* particular locality. When this is the case, it is necessary to enclose them above and on all sides by netting, to prevent their flying away ; because these birds are not susceptible of perfect domestication. 771. The Pigeon-house, or Dovecote, has been an appendage of the country-house from the earliest ages ; and nothing can be more simple or universally known than its structure. The only essential requisite is, that it must be at some distance from the ground ; because the pigeon is a bird that flies much higher than any of the domesticated fowls before mentioned. The openings for the birds may be in the roof, or in the highest part of the side walls, with shelves before the holes for the birds to alight on ; and the walls of the interior may be lined with boxes, divided into square holes, for the birds to make their nests in ; in short, into pigeon-holes. 772. The Farmery Infirmary is simply a house, or one or more divisions of one, in a quiet part of the farmery, large enough to contain a horse or cow in each division, and to serve as lodgings for animals under a course of medicine. DrjTiess and a command of temperature and ventilation are essential. 773. The Store-houses for the Produce of the i^armer!/ include the barn; the straw- house ; the granary ; the root-house ; the hay-barn ; the maize-barn ; the place for keeping pigs' food ; the wool, hair, and feather room ; the hop-loft ; and the loft for miscellaneous products. 774. The Barn combines a manufactory and a storehouse, and is to the farm-yard, in the former capacity, what the kitchen is to a human dwelling ; that is, it manufactures a great part of the food consumed in the other apartments or divisions of the premises. Formerly the corn barn was much larger than it has become necessary to have it since the introduction of threshing-machines. It should still, however, be of considerable size, so as to contain a rick of unthrcshed corn of the size that such ricks are generally made on the farm. The size of the ricks, and the size of that part of the barn which is to con- tain the unthreshed corn, should be accommodated to each other ; and the size of that part of the barn which is to contain the straw after it has been threshed, if the straw- room is not a separate building, should be acconmiodated to both. The form of the barn should, in almost every case, be a parallelogram, and at least twenty feet wide, with walls twelve feet high. The length will depend chiefly on the size of the ricks, and it is always most economical to have these small ; not only because a small barn costs much less than a large one, but because both grain and straw are sweeter, and more relished by cattle, when recently threshed fi-om the rick, than when they have been long kept in a barn, granary, or straw-room. Where the expense is not an object, it is desirable to have a room, as a gi-anary, over that part of the barn which contains the machinery for threshing, and the room for cleaning up and measuring the corn. Into this granary the corn, as measured and put into sacks, may be hoisted up through a trapdoor by a wind- lass, with a rope and pulley. The position of the barn relatively to the other buildings of the farm-yard, depends on the position of the stables, and cattle-houses ; it should always adjoin or be central to them, and be close to the rick-yard. Where the thresh- ing-machine is to be driven by horses or steam, the barn may be set down on whatever side of the farmery is thought best for it ; but where it is to be driven by water, local circumstances must often determine its position. In general, as the buildings of a farmery form a shelter to the cattle-yard, and as the barn is the highest of these buildings, it should be placed on that side from which the coldest winds blow ; and this is also favour- able for its proximity to the rick-yard, which ought to be in the most windy situation, for drying the corn when it is newly stacked. There is another reason for placing the barn on the most airy side of the farm-yard, which is, that when the threshing-machine is diiven by horses, they are less apt to be heated in the track-shed, which should always be as open as possible on all sides. Wind machinery is also sometimes employed for driving a threshing-machine; and, when that is the case, the north side of the farmery is, in Britain at least, still the best situation. The most desirable power for driving a threshing-machine is water ; and the next, in a coal country, steam. 1>T