Fig. 214.—Light Rustic Gate.
A very neat, cheap, and strong rustic gate is shown in [figure 214]. The large post and the two uprights of the gate are of red cedar. The horizontal bars may be of the same or other wood. The longer upright is five and a half feet long, the shorter one four and a half feet. The ends of the former are cut down to serve as hinges, as shown in the engraving. Five holes are bored through each of the upright pieces, two inches in diameter, into which the ends of the horizontal bars are inserted and wedged securely. For the upper hinge a piece of plank is bored to receive the gate, and the other end reduced and driven into a hole in the post, or nailed securely to its top. A cedar block, into which a two-inch hole has been bored, is partially sunk in the ground to receive the lower end of the upright piece. A wooden latch is in better keeping with the gate than an iron one.
BALANCE GATES.
Fig. 215.—Balance Gate.
[Figure 215] is a modernized form of a gate which has for generations been popular in New England and the Middle States. In the primitive method of construction, the top bar consisted of the smoothly trimmed trunk of a straight young tree, with the butt end projecting like a “heel” beyond the post upon which it turned. Upon its extremity a heavy boulder, or box of smaller stones, served as a counterweight. In the gate represented herewith the top stick is of sawn timber, upon the heel of which the large stone is held by an iron dowel. The other end of the top bar rests, when the gate is closed, upon an iron pin, driven diagonally into the post, as shown in the illustration. A smaller iron pin is pushed into the post immediately above the end of the top bar, to secure the gate against being opened by unruly animals, which may attempt to get in.
Fig. 216.—Carolina Balance Gate.