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.