FARM BUILDINGS. Each farm must possess a residence for the farmer, cottages for the servants, and buildings for the stock and crop. The farm-house should be com modious and plain, and of considerable extent. The cottages for the servants should also be plain and roomy, and internal convenience should be more studied than out ward ornament. A strong feeling is arising on this subject in Scotland, and a bill is now before parliament with the view of providing better cottage accommodation.
Proper offices are essential to the economical disposing of the produce of the farm, The corn crops are usually thrashed there, and a large portion of the green crops is consumed by stock, which must be well provided with shelter from the cold. When few turnips were raised, and few cattle fed, large open courts were best suited for con verting the straw into manure. Now, however, in many cases, the excrements of the stock are sufficient for wetting all the straw, and hence has arisen the practice of feed ing in covered courts and in boxes. In this case, the solid and liquid excrements are carted out along with the straw, which acts the part of a sponge. This is no doubt an excellent way of manufacturing home-made manure; it takes a considerable quantity of straw, however; and as more green crops are raised and consumed on the farm, sufficient straw cannot always be got to absorb all the liquid; hence, a saving of the straw is effected by stall-feeding, when the excess of liquid must be collected into tanks, and otherwise disposed of. When it is remembered that ammonia cannot be purchased in the market at the present time under £80 per ton, and that liquid manure contains a high percentage of ammonia, the utility of husbanding this material must be very evident. Liquid manures should be absorbed by moss or soil, or be carted out, and distributed by pipes, when the plants are in a growing state, otherwise part will be washed out of the soil. Covered farm-yards are rapidly extending over the country. It is the cheapest and best way of erecting farm-offices. On some estates, new stead ings have been erected on a too extravagant plan for the size and requirements of the farm. This is simply a burden on the holding. Landlorts should not stick so rig idly to a uniform plan of steading, irrespective of the extent and necessities of the dif ferent occupancies. In a design for a "farm steading," commended by the judges of the Berwick cattle-show in 1854, the steading is on the covered principle, all the various departments being under one roof. The food-preparing houses' are ranged as con
venient as possible to those in which the food is to be consumed, and the relative posi tions of every other department have been carefully studied. This is to be attended to in the formation of all homesteads.
Ventilation.—Without good ventilation, a covered homestead must be a nuisance. All the apartments are so arranged that, unless fresh air circulate through them, and they are kept perfectly clean, there must constantly be unwholesome effluvia in the interior—the foulness of one apartment being communicated to another. The system of ventilating this farmstead is certain to give most satisfactory results, if only ordinary care be taken to keep the different houses as clean as they ought to be. The arrange ments are briefly as follows: Under each feeding-passage is built a circular air-shaft, 30 in. in diameter; in con nection with these there are feeding-mouths with gratings on the outside of the build ing; inside, there are numerous finely perforated gratings; by sliding-valves, wrought by a cord and pulley, the supply of air is regulated. Besides these, there are gratings every 10 or 12 ft. along the exterior walls, perforated so as to admit near the floor a con siderable quantity of air. The roof, too, is provided with ventilators with vertical spars, and openings are left here and there in the sarking, to act as induction and educ tion tubes. The numerous perforated apertures throughout the building will admit twice the quantity of air required for the respiration of the animals, and are so under command that they will neither admit flies in summer, nor too large a supply of cold air in winter. A covered steading, somewhat similar in construction to the above, has been erected at Glen, in Peeblesshire, where the ventilation of the inclosed cattle-courts, etc., is admirable, and within the last few years considerable numbers of courts have been covered with decided advantages.
To carry out this principle of ventilation is somewhat expensive. A cheap and yet efficient system of ventilation for cattle is to cover the yards with pan-tiles without plaster or lath. Those who wish to see farm-offices economically erected, at the same time combined with the most perfect ventilation, we would recommend to visit some on the property of lord Kinnaird, Rossie Priory, Perthshire. For further information, see The Book of Farm Buildings, by Henry Stephens, F. R. S. E., and R Scott Burn (Edin., Blackwood Sc Sons, 3d ed., 1871).