AGRICULTURE/ AUGUST 15TH

Granary

The granary was a small out building, or a room in the barn, where all of the harvested grains were kept. Before the development of silos, the granary kept the grain that was used to feed the livestock cool and dry. These conditions were extremely important for keeping the grain from spoiling, growing mold, or fermenting.

In the granary itself, the different types of grains would have been separated from one another as different livestock ate different types of grain and they didn’t want them to get all mixed up.

In the granary we have here at O’Hara, there are removable boards in each of the compartments for the grain. Why you may ask? It’s quite a simple concept, you added more boards when you had more grain and then when it became harder to reach down into the compartment to retrieve the grain, a board could be removed.

Granary Pest Control

One thing about the granary was that it was not “airtight” and had many ways of being infiltrated by pests, such as mice and chipmunks. One way to prevent an infestation was to cut a small corner out of the door to allow the barn cats in and out of the room without leaving the door open. In fact, if you look on the corner of many old barn doors you can see this cut-out. Now you know what it’s for!

Hay Loft

The livestock didn’t eat just grain, most of them needed hay, and a lot of it. Most barns have what is called a hay loft. It’s pretty self explanatory, but that is where all of the hay would have been kept. The more interesting part is how they would have got the mass amounts of hay to and from the hay loft.

In most cases, a pulley system would have been rigged so that the hay would not have to be carried by hand up to the loft. There were different pieces of equipment that would have been used to haul up the hay. One mechanism that would have been used would be a haymow fork. There are many variations of this piece of equipment, but the idea behind it is the same. The fork would have 2 or more prongs and would be attached to a bundle of hay. The fork would then be hooked onto the pulley system and would be received by another person in the loft to be detached.

A hay sling would be placed around the bundle of hay to keep it in place and prevent it from coming loose and dropping.

Come peek inside the doors of the barn and look at the pulley system and equipment in place!