FENCES AND FARM BUILDINGS. 51 



vision which a farmer is enabled to have over the indoor work of 

 his assistants, are strong arguments in favor of the plan. 



Formerly, when hay wagons had to be unloaded entirely by 

 hand, the height of the hay bays of a barn had to be regulated 

 by the height to which it was practicable to pitch hay ; but the 

 rapidly extending use of the horse fork or elevator has done away 

 with this restriction. Hay can now be easily and rapidly raised 

 to any height, and not only may we gain the extra space which the 

 greater height of the bay gives, but a considerably greater 

 capacity in proportion to the height, which comes from the closer 

 packing at the bottom of a high bay. 



That it is much more convenient, easier, and cheaper to feed 

 stock in the building in which all of the hay and other fodder is 

 stored, every farmer knows without being told. How much 

 easier it is, is only known to those who have spent their lives in 

 foddering cattle in sheds and yards from distant hay barns, from 

 which every forkful of hay must be carried in bundles or on a 

 cart. 



Furthermore, the more hay has to be carried about the more 

 it is wasted, and the more liable it is to be injured by bad weather, 

 while the convenience of keeping manure is in exact proportion 

 to the concentration of the stock, under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances. 



I have recently had occasion to give much attention to this 

 question in undertaking the improvement of a worn-out and 

 " run-down" farm of sixty acres,* on which, with sufficient 

 capital at command, I am endeavoring to prove that good farm- 

 ing may be made to pay, where bad farming has been starved out. 

 My aim is to make sixty acres of land which would not, when I 

 took it, support five head of cattle, furnish all the food, winter 

 and summer, that will be required hy fifty head — except meal and 

 grain for working animals. To do this, I need the best sort of 

 a barn, with every convenience for storing hay, fodder, and roots, 

 for cutting and steaming food, for sheltering animals, in hot 



* Ogden Farm, near Newport, R. I. 



