Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/474

 450 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. ^'-'^^ '-r ii 909 of that of the cow-house, cart-house, and central hovel, which may be thatched with straw, chips of wood, or spray. The walls of the cart-shed, 21, are frames filled in with studwork, into which branches of furze are thickly wattled, a species of covering which lasts several years, and is easily renewed. Where furze is not 907 abundant, common spray may be used. Fig. 907 is a section across the round hovel in the yard, to show its construction. Four posts are fixed in the ground, which at the height of ten feet support four horizontal pieces, each twelve feet long, and placed at right angles, as shown at 23, in fig, 906 ; on these, poles of any sort are laid so as to form a circular flooring, on which faggots are built in such a manner as to form a cone, and these are slightly covered with straw or chips so as to tlirow off the rain. A round fodder-rack is formed on the ground, by placing four short posts in such positions as that they will form a circle with the four long ones, as sliown in the plan, fig. 908, in which q shows the long 908 posts for supporting the roof; r, the short ones for the frame .-. g-fi. « of the rack ; «, the horizontal joists placed at right angles to one another ; t, the rough poles, placed diagonally to the joists ; and u u, the short poles, or branches, laid on the others, to form a flooring for the faggots. Fig. 909 is a section of the wheat-barn, to show the framing of the principal timbers, six of which frames form the two ends, ar. d the five intervening spaces called bays. The central bay is the threshing-floor, which is laid with joists or sleepers, across the potato-pit, or cellar, v, which, as before mentioned, is entered from one end of the barn, at 11, in fig. 906. The sleepers are generally of oak or beech, and they are covered with oak planking, an inch and a half or two inches thick, halved into one another along the edges, or tongued and grooved. Along the sides of the threshing-floor are what are called mowsteads, w ; which are generally frames of woodwork boarded, carried up to the height of two feet and a half or three feet, with a coping of wood, to separate the corn which is being threslied, from the unthreshed corn on one side, and the corn or straw on the other. Fig. 910 is a section across the porch of the barn, showing the doors removed, and the position of the barn-door lift. In this section, a is the sill of the door, six inches square, sunk level with the threshing-floor, and supported by two stout posts or wheel-pieces, 6 6; c c are posts eight inches by six inches, framed to the sill at their lower end, and at the upper end to the top plate d, which is six inches square. The inner angle of the front of the posts is rebated one inch for the shutting of the doors, e e. These doors are made of inch deal, nailed to stout ledges or back boards, which lock into each other by means of their beveled ends, as shown by the dotted lines in e e. The doors are hung with strap hinges, on stout hooks driven into the posts ; and they shut against, and are fastened to, a movable bar, f, which fits into mortises, one of which is a trap mortise, in the posts. To this bar the barn-clotli, ff, is hung by loops of tape : it is let down when threshing is going forward, to prevent the corn, which flies up in all directions from the flail, from falling over the lift, h. This lift is made of inch deal ledged, two feet four inches high, and fits into grooves chiseled out of the spur pieces, i i, spiked to the sill and posts. The barn doors swing two feet above the level of the floor of the barn, in order that they may not be obstructed by the litter in the yard. The back door of a barn of this description has no porch, neither is it usually made so large as the front door : if it allows an empty cart or waggon to pass out, for which an opening eight feet wide and ten feet high will be sufficient, that is all that is required ; for these doors are only used for taking out a cart after it lias been unloaded in the barn ; it being dangerous to back a thiU or tram horse on the threshing-floor, which, from its smooth- ness, is generally slippery. Such doors are also used for taking in corn by manual labour from the rick-yard. Fig. 911 Ls a view of the side of the barn-door. porch, in which is shown the base of brick or stone work, k, with a coping of wood, I, forming a sill to the small lock-uj) door, m, which is shown at 26, in fig. 906. The thresher, on leaving his work at night, makes fast the large double doors by means of the movable bar/, and, passing out by the small door, locks it, and secures the whole. The wall or eaves plate of the barn, it is to be observed, is carried directly through the porch, for the greater r<sm