and lighter covering of galvanised corrugated sheets, asphalte roofing-felt, rubber roofing, or even the Willesden roofing-paper. And the really great saving in the use of these materials is not so much in their greater cheapness as in their lightness of weight, thus requiring so much less roof-framing, both in weight and quantity.
The requirements as to farm buildings are also very different to-day from what they were only a few years ago. These new requirements have arisen from improvements in farm machinery and in preparing food for stock, from altered systems of husbandry, and the larger numbers of stock fed; these and other influences all tending to necessitate more or less change in building-plans and arrangements.
In many districts the sheaf-barn and threshing-barn is falling into disuse, even when completely fitted with threshing apparatus, it being, as a rule, found advantageous to thresh in the field or direct from the stack, with a portable engine and threshing-machine. On the other hand, more attention is being paid to the construction of sheds for securing hay and grain crops, and to silos for preserving green fodder. Another modern necessity is the provision of larger accommodation and better arrangements for preparing and mixing food for cattle. The substitution of covered for open yards also progresses, surely if slowly. And in the changes which are going on, matters affecting the ventilation, lighting, paving, and draining of farm buildings are meeting with the full share of attention which they deserve.
Of farmhouses there is nothing particular to note. Underground stories—except for cool cellarage—and high upper stories are, however, to be avoided in such
