OCTAGONAL BARNS. 37 



in all, the best plan that has been conceived. "We have octago- 

 nal barns, but nobody who ever built one has ever built another. 

 I have heard of a man who built one, but he never advised his 

 neighbor to follow his example. They remind me of an octago- 

 nal house which a friend of mine once visited, and told me it 

 made him feel sea-sick ! There is no saving of timber in build- 

 ing them, and no saving of room after you get them built. A 

 simple barn, then, is what you want. 



Now, this plan which Mr. Hyde has proposed here, in itself, 

 is a good one. I doubt about his posts a little. He makes 

 them twenty feet high. I think eighteen feet high enough for 

 any posts. You do not want your mow over your cattle too 

 high, for these reasons. In the first place, it is cold weather 

 that we live in the chief part of the winter. You don't want 

 the room in which the cattle are kept so high that it is difficult 

 to warm it without an air-tight stove ; and the nearer you bring 

 the ceiling over the heads of the cattle, always provided that 

 one can walk underneath without hitting his hat, the better, and 

 the more convenient it is when you oome to pitch the hay up 

 on to it. Eighteen feet is high enough. When you come to 

 add eight feet more on to the twenty, and make it twenty-eight, 

 as Mr. Moore proposes, I don't know where you would land. 



Cattle should be tied upon the sunny side of the barn, where 

 you can give them abundance of air without chilling them, and 

 where all the sunlight we have in winter will reach either them 

 or the place in which they stand. That is provided for by this 

 plan. Mr. Hyde has got this barn one hundred and fifty feet 

 long. You can tie in that length fifty-two cattle, and you can 

 undoubtedly store away fodder enough to keep them in the bay 

 opposite, in what I shall describe hereafter as the mows over 

 their heads, and in the mows which can be furnished over the 

 driveway. This is a very warm, comfortable, convenient place 

 for them. This I approve of and go in for. I would, if pos- 

 sible, have the manure on the side of the cellar which is most 

 accessible, and so I would have it on the front side. You will 

 say that the manure will fill it up, but if you will adopt the 

 convenient little arrangement to which Mr. Hyde alluded, that 

 is, closing up this space not with upright doors, but with doors 

 falling off at an angle, that difficulty will be avoided. Tliat 

 arrangement is desirable, for two reasons. One is, that it gives 



