BARN, a building in which agricultural produce is stored, to protect it from the wea ther and keep it in safety. The thrashing floor, which is required even where thrashing machines are used for thrashing out the smaller seeds, is usually in the middle of the barn, and made of stone, brick, oak, or tempered earth ; those of oak, formed of planks two inches and a half thick, dotelled or ploughed and tongued together, being considered the best ; and it is often so arranged that a loaded waggon may be drawn in upon it, so as to throw the corn at once into the bays, or ends of the barn. Freo circulation of ail is import ant in all parts of a barn.
Barns arc built of stone, brick, timber, or, in some places, of dry rammed earth in the manner termed pisL if roofed with tiles, they should be bedded in coarse hay, which is more effectual than snorter in preventing the drifting of snow ; and, if with thatch, reeds are to be preferred to any other mate rial, because they afford' no lodgment for ver min, and afford an excellent protection against the weather.
Hay is now seldom put in a close barn, experience having shown that it keeps much better in the open air in ricks. Ent where a
considerable quantity of hay is tied up in trusses for the market, it is extremely useful to have a building with a roof to protect them from the wet, and to load the carts under shelter. For this purpose a kind of barn is contrived, which some call a Dutch barn, but which may very properly he called a skeleton barn, being the frame of a barn without the boarding. Another contrivance of similar character is used in Holland, in which a pen tagonal thatched roof is made to slide up and down a series of vertical poles, on which it may be secured by pins at any required ele vation. The lower ends of the poles are well braced together by a timber framing, which rests upon a brick foundation. Its chief use is for hay, which may be deposited safely in either large or small quantities, the roof being raised when additions are made, and lowered as the hay is taken off the top for use.