40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



filled, I put a piece of timber across from one mow-beam to the 

 other, and so, vent after vent, in long rows or tiers, I make 

 shifting mows, and my men can pitch my hay from the mow- 

 beams, right over the driveway, to the ridgepole. It is one of 

 the simplest ideas ever conceived of ; and when you get your 

 hay out, you have not got fifty thousand nooks and crannies 

 filled with cobwebs that you want to get rid of, — you have got a 

 sweet, clean barn, where you can stand up in summer and look 

 straight up to the ridgepole. It is, I say, a very simple thing, 

 and, once tried, will never be abandoned. With the use of a 

 horse-fork, in this simple and ingenious way, you avoid the ne- 

 cessity of having a great number of men to throw the hay back 

 after it has once been taken from the load by the fork. 



That is the internal structure of a barn that I should approve 

 of. It is simple, in the first place ; it holds an enormous quan- 

 tity of hay, in the second place ; it will hold cattle enough to 

 satisfy any ambitious man, no matter how large his farm is, in 

 the third place ; and, lastly, it puts under one roof all the farm 

 conveniencies. Roofing is expensive ; and it is so expensive, 

 that one of the most thoughtful farmers in this Commonwealth 

 said that it was more expensive to build a shed to keep his calves 

 in than to let his calves suffer from the weather — taking it 

 twenty-five or thirty years together. I do not indorse that state- 

 ment at all ; but still, after a close calculation, he came to that 

 conclusion. So, I say, avoid all the roofing you can, and put 

 everything under one roof that you can. 



Now, what is the objection to Mr. Moore's plan ? Why, you 

 have got your posts 28 feet high. 



Mr. Moore. Will you allow me to explain a little ? I said 

 that if, after changing the arrangement, so as to bring the cattle 

 out of the cellar, it became necessary to have more room for 

 the hay, I would raise the posts. 



Dr. LoRiNG. Would you have them as high as 28 feet ? 



Mr. MooRE. I don't think I should, if I had storage-room 

 enough without. 



Dr. LoRiNG. Twenty-eight feet posts, in these times, when 

 pine trees don't grow as big as they used to, are not easy things 

 to get. A barn with posts 28 feet high is going to be expensive 

 to build. We want economy here. We are going to set a good 

 example in barn building. You want an economical thing. 



