HOW TO DO THE WORK
The lawn, then, is the first consideration. It is the canvas on which we are to paint a picture of home and comfort. In many cases the yard is already level or well graded and has a good sod, and it is not necessary to plow and re-seed. It should be said that the sod on old lawns can be renewed without plowing it up. In the bare or thin places, scratch up the ground with an iron-toothed rake, apply a little fertilizer, and sow more seed. Weedy lawns are those in which the sod is poor. It may be necessary to pull out the weeds; but after they are out the land should be quickly covered with sod or they will come in again. Annual weeds, as pigweeds and ragweed, can usually be crowded out by merely securing a heavier sod. A little clover seed will often be a good addition, for it supplies nitrogen and has an excellent mechanical effect on the soil.
The ideal time to prepare the land is in the fall, before the heavy rains come. Then sow in the fall, and again in early spring on a late snow. However, the work may be done in the spring, but the danger is that it will be put off so long that the young grass will not become established before the dry, hot weather comes.
The best lawn grass for New York is June-grass, or blue-grass. Seedsmen know it as Poa pratensis. It weighs but 14 pounds to the bushel. Not less than three bushels should be sown to the acre. We want many very small stems of grass, not a few large ones; for we are making a lawn, not a meadow.
Do not sow grain with the grass seed. The June-grass grows slowly at first, however, and therefore it is a good plan to sow timothy with it, at the rate of two or three quarts to the acre. The timothy comes up quickly and makes a green; and the June-grass will crowd it out in a year or two. If the land is hard and inclined to be too dry, some kind of clover will greatly assist the June-grass. Red clover is too large and coarse for the lawn. Crimson clover is excellent, for it is an annual, and it does not become unsightly in the lawn. White clover is perhaps best, since it not only helps the grass but looks well in the sod. One or two pounds of seed is generally sufficient for an acre.
At first the weeds will come up. Do not pull them. Mow the lawn as soon as there is any growth large enough to mow. Of course, the lawn-mower is best, but one can have a good place without it. Perhaps a hand lawn-mower (one with large wheels and not less than 16-inch cut) can be used to keep the sward close just about the house; then the field-mower may be used now and then for the remainder. Here is another advantage, as I have said, of the open-centered yard which I have recommended; it is easily mown. It would be a fussy matter to mow a yard planted after the fashion of [Fig. 88]; but one like [Fig. 89] is easily managed.
The borders should be planted thickly. Plow up the strip. Never plant these trees and bushes in holes cut in the sod. Scatter the bushes and trees promiscuously in the narrow border. In home grounds, it is easy to run through these borders occasionally with a cultivator, for the first year or two. Make the edges of the border irregular. Plant the lowest bushes on the inner edge toward the house.
For all such things as lilacs, mock oranges, Japan quinces, and bushes that are found along the roadsides, two or three feet apart is about right. Some will die anyway. Cut them back one-half when they are planted. They will look thin and stiff for two or three years; but after that they will crowd the spaces full, lop over on the sod, and make a billow of green. Prepare the land well, plant carefully, and let the bushes alone.
We now come to the details,—the particular kinds of plants to use. One great principle will simplify the matter: the main planting should be for foliage effects. That is, think first of giving the place a heavy border-mass. Flowers are mere decorations.
Select those trees and shrubs which are the commonest, because they are cheapest, hardiest and most likely to grow. There is no farm so poor that enough plants cannot be secured, without money, for the home yard. You will find the plants in the woods, in old yards, along the fences. It is little matter if no one knows their names. What is handsomer than a tangled fence-row?
Scatter in a few trees along the fence and about the buildings, particularly if the place is large and bare. Maples, basswood, elms, ashes, buttonwood, pepperidge, oaks, beeches, birches, hickories, poplars, a few trees of pine or spruce or hemlock,—any of these are excellent. If the country is bleak, a rather heavy planting of evergreens about the border, in the place of so much shrubbery, is excellent.
For shrubs, use the common things to be found in the woods and swales, together with roots, which can be had in every old yard. Willows, osiers, witch-hazel, dogwood, wild roses, thorn apples, haws, elders, sumac, wild honeysuckles,—these and others can be found in abundance. From old yards can be secured snowballs, spireas, lilacs, forsythias, mock oranges, roses, snowberries, barberries, flowering currants, honeysuckles, and the like.
Vines can be used to excellent purpose on the outbuildings or on the porches. The common wild Virginia creeper is the most serviceable. On brick or stone houses the Boston ivy or Japanese ampelopsis may be used, unless the location is very bleak. This is not hardy in the northern parts of the country. Honeysuckles, clematis and bitter-sweet are also attractive. Bowers are always interesting to children; and actinidia and akebia (to be had at nurseries) are best for this purpose.
If a regular flower garden is wanted, place at the side or rear of the place, where a liberal piece of land can be devoted to it.
Into these native shrub borders, throw some color from nursery-grown bushes if you choose. Mix in spireas, weigelas, roses—anything you like. A rare or strange plant may be introduced now and then, if there is any money with which to buy such things. Plant it at some conspicuous point just in front of the border, where it will show off well, be out of the way, and have some relation to the rest of the planting. Two or three purple-leaved or variegated-leaved bushes will add much spirit and verve to the place; but too many of them make the place look fussy and overdone. You can have a botanic garden of your own, even though you do not know the name of a single plant; and your home will be a picture at the same time.
CHAPTER XV
A DISCUSSION OF BARNS
Modern agriculture requires large and commodious barns and other structures to house the crops, the animals, tools, and implements. Especially is this true when mixed farming is conducted in an intensified and economical way. In early days one or, at most, two low barns of 30 by 40 feet were supposed to supply all shelter accommodations required for a farm of one hundred acres. At the present time, on the same farms, may often be seen a barn 60 by 80 feet and double the height of the old structures, with a wing one-half of the capacity of the main barn to which it is attached, this single structure providing more than six times the cubic space of two of the old barns. One sizable farm in Tompkins county, New York, had, for many years, a single barn 30 by 40 feet with 14-foot posts. It now has a barn which provides more than fifteen times the room of the old one, and yet it is scarcely large enough to house the animals and crops of this modest farm.
Naturally, the questions arise, are these large structures necessary, and what changes in agriculture have taken place to create a need for such mammoth structures? They are necessarily expensive, and too often dwarf and belittle the house when placed near it.
Modern advanced farmers secure nearly or quite double the average yield of crops of their grandfathers. This is an indisputable fact, notwithstanding the hue and cry about the decadence of the rural population. The facts are that some are farming much better than the older generations and some much worse. Much of the good land is producing more bountifully than ever before, and some of the poorer lands have been so badly managed, and have become so depleted in their productive power as to be nearly worthless, and should be thrown out of cultivation and left to recuperate until unborn generations require them. More live stock is kept now than formerly. The number of milch cows, horses, and mules in the United States increased more than 50 per cent between 1870 and 1890, and other cattle increased during the same period 150 per cent. Notwithstanding this fact, the live stock on many farms has been greatly diminished.
Then, too, progressive farmers believe it to be economy to provide shelter for animals and crops, manures and implements. The old custom of stacking the hay and grain, of allowing the farm animals to toughen in the winter’s blast in field and barnyard, and the manures to leach and bleach under the eaves of the building has, in part, been abandoned and better methods substituted. These new methods require better, larger, and more commodious farm barns. The modern and humane thought is, to make all of the animals as comfortable, according to their needs and conditions, as is their owner in his well appointed house, and to protect everything that is worth protecting from the storms.
There are two fairly distinct methods of constructing farm buildings: the concentrated and the distributive. The one aims to provide the room needed by one or two large structures; the other by means of many detached small buildings, each, where practicable, devoted to a special purpose. The last method was the outgrowth of the conditions which usually prevailed in a new country. First came the rude house and the log stable. The stable was followed by the modest barn, usually of the regulation size, 30 by 40 feet, with 12-, 14-, or, in rare cases, 16-foot posts. As the arable land increased another barn was built, then a shed, then a wagon-house; followed by a corn-crib, a chicken-house, a pig-pen, and later a sheep-barn, cow-barn, a hay-barn, all the room in the first and second barns being by this time required for grain. Outside the grain districts the buildings were modified to suit conditions, but the practice of constructing many small structures was not changed.
The buildings were erected without any comprehensive plan as to the farmstead as a whole. This necessitated many fences, gates, yards, and a maze of muddy byways in which the dock and other weeds, discarded implements, and the flotsam and jetsam of the farm found opportunity to grow or to rot. Do what one might, the farmstead could never be made to look neat and tidy. Not infrequently, twelve to fifteen separate structures may be seen on a farm of eighty acres. The farmers who own these structures are not to be criticised too severely. They inherited the method of building and often the buildings, and no one, so far, has deigned to give them help by treating such plebeian subjects as the improvement of unsightly stys, stables, sheds, and barns.
If the concentrated method be adopted, in case of fire all is swept away; if the distributive, some of the buildings may be saved. There are so many things to be gained, however, by adopting the concentrated method that construction would better be along this line and then trust to the insurance company to make good the losses by fire, should any occur. Compare [Figs. 114], [119].
Farm laborers receive fully double the wages, except in harvest time, which they did fifty years ago; therefore, the barns should be planned with the view of economizing labor. This can best be secured by rearing a single structure, rather than several, for it is evident that if the live stock, tools, implements and provender be placed in juxtaposition, economy in performing the work about the buildings will be secured. However, it is often convenient to have a separate building open on one side for storing farm wagons and heavy implements and tools.
Grain, hay and stover are all unloaded most economically by means of slings and hay fork, operated by horse-power, but the unloading by horse-power implies high barns, with mows measurably unobstructed by timbers. Economy of space also implies deep mows, since a mow twenty feet deep holds more than two mows ten feet deep. High, large buildings require far less outside boarding and roof than small, low, detached buildings which contain, together, the same storage capacity. Economy in construction and maintenance, convenience of temporarily sheltering and removing manures, ease of carrying on work in the building, and beauty, all indicate the wisdom of adopting the concentrated method in the construction of farm barns.
Efforts have been made to economize in barn construction by adopting the octagon form. This form secures a greater enclosed area for a given surface covering than the square or rectangular form. But all of the angles in the frame are more expensive to make than are right angles. It requires more labor and time to saw off a timber at an angle of 35 degrees than at right angles. True, this form lends itself to a roof structure free from obstructing timbers, but, on the other hand, it does not give opportunity for the placing of convenient tracks for elevating the provender. So far the pros and cons may be said to balance. It is only when the attempt is made to divide the octagon structure into stables and rooms, compartments and mows, that its inconvenient shape is fully realized. Everything is out of square. The divisions form obtuse and acute angles, or arcs of a circle, almost without number. All this implies extra expense in the internal construction and usually a great waste of space. The illustrations of these barns have a certain charm difficult to resist, but some of the most intelligent farmers who have made a study of the octagon barn and have used it, decide that rectangular barns are much to be preferred. Some who have built octagon barns speak well of them, but this might naturally be expected. A woman generally speaks well of her husband after she has secured him, however faulty he may be.