SHIFTING PLATFORM. 39 



we must take as good care of our cattle as of ourselves. So, I 

 am entirely opposed to putting any animal, unless it is a hog, 

 under ground ; and I have come at last to have so much respect 

 for my hogs that I won't put even them there. 



Now I am at that point, let me tell you that no farmer can 

 make a piece of pork that is right (unless he inherits the dainty 

 palate tliat our fathers had,) from a hog that is raised in a cel- 

 lar. A farmer in Essex County asked me how I found that out, 

 and I told him it was the natural consequence of keeping the 

 animal where it did not belong. It is just as fallacious to 

 expect to make a healthy animal in an unhealthy place as to 

 expect to raise healthy plants in unhealthy localities and on im- 

 proper soil. So, I say, have every convenience for keeping your 

 cattle above ground, and this provision which Mr. Hyde has 

 made is as good as can be. 



But you say there is not room to put your granary in one 

 of the spaces between the posts. Put your horges in the space 

 between the posts, at the left of the driveway. There is a very 

 simple and admirable plan by which a passage-way can be ar- 

 ranged, so that you can have your granary in the space next to 

 the horses. If you want a tool-room, put it in the space next 

 the granary. The tools will then be above ground, and will not 

 rust out; and tools rust out sooner than they wear out, in ordi- 

 nary labor. Have your box-stalls in the space next to the tool- 

 room, your calf-pens, &c. But you say you have taken all this 

 side for the cattle and horses, the tool-rooms, the calf-pens, the 

 box-stalls, and all that sort of things, — how are you going to 

 provide for your hay ? Put in, as every ingenious man does 

 now, wljat I found in my barn when I took possession of the 

 farm, a shifting platform over the driveway. Whoever in- 

 vented it was a smart man, and ought to have a premium. 

 It is the most convenient thing I ever saw, and why it is not 

 used more I cannot tell, and never knew anybody who could 

 tell. "What is this shifting platform that I speak of ? I built 

 my barn so that when the hay is all out of it you can walk 

 through it and look up to the ridgepole. It is nothing but a 

 frame, boarded and shingled, ■\yith cattle on one side, and meal- 

 rooms and horse-stalls on the other, all below the level of the 

 mow-beams. You can see, all of you, that all above the beams 

 is clear space for the storage of hay. When I get the side mows 



