DRIVEWAY UNDER THE ROOF. 41 



without the trouble of a driveway under the roof. I have no 

 doubt Mr. Moore has seen good barns among the Shakers, but 

 outside of the Shakers, where most of us live, I have never 

 known a man to build a barn with a driveway under the roof 

 who has not denounced it. One of the shrewdest men I have 

 ever known said it was the last barn he would ever build. And 

 why ? It was an expensive barn. He had to put in timbers as 

 strong as the deck timbers of a man-of-war. He had to make 

 the floor so stiff that when lie drove in with a couple of tons of 

 hay on the load, it would not start, and he found he was in 

 trouble at once. Then what did he lose ? Why, he was close 

 up under the roof when he started, and he lost all the space 

 from his driveway down to his floor — the whole of it. He could 

 not put anything there ; and there was this immense space 

 lost, simply because he thought it was easier to pitch hay down 

 into a bay than to employ a horse to pitch it up under the 

 ridge-pole. I think the plan of a barn with a driveway under 

 the roof is all wrong. It requires, in the first place, a hillside, 

 and everybody has not got a hillside. If you have not got a 

 hillside, it requires a great deal of wharfing, and that requires 

 stone work, and stone work is expensive, and filling in wharfing 

 is expensive. I want to get at this thing economically. Imag- 

 ine a man proposing to build a barn on a perfectly level piece 

 of ground. If he takes a plan with a driveway under the roof, 

 he has got to build two wharves, one at each end. He gets it 

 done, and finds that it is not long enough, and he wants to 

 lengthen it. This plan of Mr. Hyde would allow him to make 

 it as long as he pleased ; but what shall he do ? He does not 

 want tft- tear down his barn and build greater, because there has 

 been an example of that sort set, the result of which does not 

 encourage any other man to follow it, and how can he build on 

 to the end of a barn that has got a wharf as high as the door 

 would ordinarily be ? He has got to move that wharf in order 

 to lengthen his barn, and I insist upon it, that it is the opportu- 

 nity to lengthen a barn that makes it economical and satisfactory 

 to a thriving farmer. These are the reasons why I would not 

 drive under the roof. I do not think a barn can be built 

 economically to drive under the roof. 



Then there is another reason why I would not do it. You 

 will go into a great many barns in which there is let down from 



6 



