turning over the stack, or by the admission of air, it may evenset the stack on fire. The presence of adventitious moisture,after the straw lias parted with its natural sap, occasionsmouldiness, and communicates a musty taste and flavour tothe grain, and likewise to the meal into which it is ground.To prevent these evil effects from moisture, it is customary indamp harvests, to leave an opening in one side of the stack,at or near the ground, reaching to the centre, and held up bya pair of old harrows, an old cart-wheel, or some equivalentcontrivance easily procured. From the inner end of this, afunnel or chimney is constructed in the centre of the stack,all the way up to the top, by building the rick around a firmbunch of straw, which is gradually drawn up as the rick ad-vances in height.
At Lord Haddington’s seat at Tynninghame, the stacksare built on stone pillars, which is fqnnd to be a very advan-tageous system. It takes nine pillars with capes to a stack.The price of these depends very much on the convenience ofgetting the stones. These can be quarried,' carted home,wrought, and put up, for about 3 s. each. It will require a-bout twenty feet of timber to make the frame that goes onthe pillars; the price of which also depends on the situation,and whether it can be got by short carriage. From the pre-sent high price of timber even there, including every expence,a complete set of nine pillars, and the timber necessary for astack, cannot cost less than L. S. The advantages resultingfrom this method, when the. object is to be kept free from ver-min, may be about two bolls in thirty ; but in a wet season,they are found very useful for drying the corn, when not putinto the stack in the best condition, by allowing a free circu-lation of the air under, and the corn is not injured by im-bibing moisture, as it must necessarily do, when set down onthe ground in a wet state.
Near Alloa , cast iron pillars were lately invented for stacks,'(an engraving of which is annexed), which seems to be a use-