at he had seen in one of the
magazines in the garret. But the old Squire, who had a spice of Yankee
inventiveness in him, had improved on Addison's first notion by
suggesting a glass roof, set aslant to a south exposure, so as to
utilize the rays of the sun when it did shine.

The haymaker was simply a long shed built against the south side of the
barn. The front and the ends were boarded up to a height of eight feet
from the ground. At that height strong cedar cross poles were laid, six
inches apart, so as to form a kind of rack, on which the freshly mown
grass could be pitched from a cart.

The glass roof was put on as soon as the glass arrived; it slanted at an
angle of perhaps forty degrees from the front of the shed up to the
eaves of the barn. The rafters, which were twenty-six feet in length,
were hemlock scantlings eight inches wide and two inches thick, set
edgewise; the panes of glass, which were eighteen inches wide by
twenty-four inches long, were laid in rows upon the rafters like
shingles. The space between the rack of poles and the glass roof was of
course pervious to the sun rays and often became very warm. Three
scuttles, four feet square, set low in the glass roof and guarded by a
framework, enabled us to pitch the grass from the cart directly into the
loft; and I may add here that the dried hay could be pitched into the
haymow through apertures in the side of the barn.

That season the sun scarcely shone at all. The old fire box and boiler
were needed most of the time. We installed the antiquated apparatus
under the open floor virtually in the middle of the long space beneath,
where it served as a hot-air furnace. The tall smoke pipe rose to a
considerable height above the roof of the barn; and to guard against
fire we carefully protected with sheet iron everything round it and
round the fire box. As the boiler was already worn out and unsafe for
steam, we put no water into it and made no effort to prevent the tubes
from shrinking. For fuel we used slabs from the sawmill. The fire box
and boiler gave forth a great deal of heat, which rose through the layer
of grass on the poles.

The entire length of the loft was seventy-four feet, and the width was
nineteen feet. We threw the grass in at the scuttles and spread it round
in a layer about eighteen inches thick. As thus charged, the loft would
hold about as much hay as grew on an acre. From four to seven hours were
needed to make the grass into hay,