Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/425

 MODEL DESIGNS FOR FARMERIES. 401 undertake this part of the farmery, as well as those buildings which are destined to lodge cattle, or protect produce or implements ; which are now deemed of so much more importance than the cottages, that their erection is not intrusted to the farmer. 796. By the Extra-Buildhiys of a Farmery are to be understood those which do not belong strictly to agriculture ; but which, nevertheless, are to be found on particular farms, and the businesses for which they are calculated carried on by the farmer, as well •IS the common culture of the farm. This practice is, no doubt, at variance with the principle of the division of labour; but as it does exist in many cases, and must necessarily long continue to do so in new countries, we cannot avoid shortly noticing such extra-buildings, m a work addressed to occupiers of land, and dwellers in the country generally. They may be included under corn mills, malt-houses, hop oasts or kilns, cider-houses, kilns for drying corn or other seeds, and for general purposes, limekilns, houses for manufacturing meal from potatoes, distilleries, beet root sugar manufactories, &c. We shall shortly describe the most common of these, and such as are most closely connected with general agriculture. The reader whose situation may render him par- ticularly interested in any of those not noticed in this work will find every information he could wish, accompanied by plans, sections, and details, in the Dictionnaire Tec/mo- logique, and in the Agrkulteiir Maiiufacturier ; the latter one of the most scientific agi'icultui'al periodicals published in France. 797. Corn Mills are of various kinds; the principal of which are those for grinding or husking oats, barley mills, and flour mills. The first class is sometimes connected with the threshing-machine ; more especially in Scotland, where it is driven by water, or impelled by steam. The farm in this case is always small, seldom exceeding 100 acres; and, as the occupier's attention is divided between his mill and his land, he rarely succeeds either as a miller or a farmer. Still we see no reason why an active intelligent man, with sufficient capital, might not excel in both, and thus secure to himself the profits of the grower, as well as those of the manufacturer, of corn. The same observation may be made with respect to barley and flour mills ; and, no doubt, will apply to a variety of others which are used for manufacturing farm produce. 798. Malt-houses. The manufacture of malt being a much more simple process than that of grinding meal or dressing flour, a malt-house is a very common appendage to the farm-yard in the barley districts of England. A malt-house and kiln comprehend three divisions ; a floor, or place for steeping the barley, and managing it, till it has germinated ; a kiln for di-ying it, to check vegetation ; and an airy loft for cooling it, and rendering it so dry as to admit of its being put up in sacks, without the risk of its undergoing fer- mentation in them. Tlie floor for germinating the corn may be level with the surface of the ground ; or, if the soil be dry, it may be three or more feet below it, as, the warmer and moister the atmosphere is, the better it will be for the vegetative process to be carried on. One end of this room should contain a cistern for steeping the barley ; and near it should be a pump for supplying water. The barley, when the process is completed, is thrown out on the floor, and turned over till it has sufficiently germinated. It is now ready to be put on the kiln ; and, after being properly dried there, it is spread out on the floor of the loft, which is generally over the malting-room, and of the same size ; being thoroughly ventilated by having lufFer-boarding on both sides. The building containing the kiln may be advantageously placed at that end of the malting-room which is opposite to the end containing the cistern ; and the floor of the kiln, and that of the upper or dr-ying room, ought to be on the same level, for the convenience of throwing out the malt to be cooled and dried. The common form of all kilns is that of an egg, with the broad end uppermost ; or of two inverted cones, placed base to base, the floor for di-ying on being formed where the diameter of the shape so produced is broadest. The fire is made at the bottom of the kiln, and the smoke from the fuel, and the vapour from the articles drying, are allowed to rise directly through the floor above it, and to pass off by a chimney covered with a cap or cowl, mounted on an upright shaft, and furnished with a pivot, so as to turn freely with the wind, and presei.t the opening for the emission of smoke and vapour always on the sheltered side. This form of kiln and mode of management are still continued in Aberdeenshire, and in other parts of the north of Scotland ; and the malt made there takes a particular flavour according to the kind of fuel used. The malt most in repute Ls what has been dried with birch wood. In England the fuel used is most generally wood, coke, or Welsh coal ; none of which produces a smoke injurious to the flavour of the malt, so that the heated air which arises from the fire is allowed to pass directly through it. The principal modern improvement in the construction of malt-kilns consists in the employment of a furnace and flues, in the lower part ot the kiln, by which common coal, or any description of fuel, may be burned there ; and heated air, being generated on the sides of the furnace and around the flues, ascends tlirough the malt, instead of the combination of air and smoke which issues from an open fire. The sides of malt-kilns are of masonry, and the drying-floor is commonly formed of cast- u u