244 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to too great a height, or to carry it a great distance. The hay- 

 should be so situated as to be easily fed to the cattle. A barn, 

 therefore, with two drive-ways, one at each end, the passage 

 being across the building, is inconvenient ; for hay is not easily 

 stored between these passage-ways, and the way from one end 

 of the barn to the other is dark and nari'ow^. A barn, too, 

 which has a scaffold permanently fixed over the drive-way, as is 

 often seen, is not convenient, and is wasteful of room; for it 

 is very difficult to pitch hay through a scuttle many feet over- 

 head, and all the room below the scaffold, and above the height 

 of the mow-beams, is lost. A barn situated on a hillside so 

 arranged as to have a drive-way immediately under the roof, 

 with deep bays on each side, is not economical either of room 

 or of money. The room below the drive-way is lost, the frame 

 is expensive, and the different pai'ts of the barn are incon- 

 veniently removed from each other. 



It seems to the committee that a simple building, about forty 

 feet wide, and of such length as is required, with a drive-way 

 from one end to the other, is the most convenient design yet 

 adopted. With this plan, the cattle may be furnished with 

 roomy stalls, and they may stand near the hay. Room is fur- 

 nished for closets, stables, &c., in convenient localities. The 

 space over the drive-way can be occupied with a movable 

 scaffold, if desired. The building can easily be aired ; and the 

 frame of such a building can be constructed with ease and 

 economy. Under such a building the cellar can be properly 

 arranged so as to accommodate the design of the room above, 

 whether it be for cattle or horses, or for tlie easy storing of 

 roots ; a cellar being, in the minds of the committee, as 

 important to a well-ordered barn as to a house. 



These views governed the committee in their choice of a plan 

 for the building. They proposed to have a cellar easy of access 

 for teams ; convenient for making manure ; and provided with 

 a root cellar, into whicli roots can be tipped from tlie cart 

 tlu'ough a trap-door in the passage-way of the barn, and the 

 labor of carrying in baskets be thus avoided. They endeavored 

 to divide the space in the barn into comfortable arrangements 

 for the cattle and horses, and convenient jjlaces for the hay, 

 straw, t^c. And they endeavored, also, to erect a building 

 whicli would be j)leasing to the eye. 



