Home Farm

“ The farm house is not what is called, a “paying investment.” It is not a direct source of income; neither can the other rural buildings be said to produce a direct income. Generally speaking, the farm house can fulfil but four purposes if properly planned and well constructed: the house may serve to keep the family warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather, dry in wet weather, and to gratify a love for the beautiful. ”

“ But the farmer must live within a few hundred feet of his barns and outbuildings, and if these be ugly and dirty, the beauty and comfort of the home are sadly marred. If the farmer, then, has the whole landscape as a background for his home, he must on the other hand modify his immediate surroundings so as to overcome their almost inevitable unsightliness. ”

“ Farm life in its best aspect is a synonym for breadth, generosity, simplicity, cleanliness, abundance of sunlight, fresh air and good food, the beauty of nature, freedom from stiff formality—these are the things which the city dweller envies the farmer. ”

“ Suffice it to say that the farmer without an abundance of fruits in their season is like the lad with empty pockets outside the circus tent: lots of fruit and fun, ready to be enjoyed by those who have made thoughtful provision for the gratification of desires which always come, sooner or later. Every farmer should grow most of the fruits suited to his soil and climate,—enough to eat and to sell and to give to the worthy poor. ”

“ Expenses of the home farm. The home farm was an essential feature of manorial economy and particularly so when the lord of the manor was a community. The nuns expected to draw the greater part of their food from the farm; livestock, grain and dairy all had to be superintended. A student of these account rolls may see unrolled before him all the different operations of the year, the autumn ploughing and sowing, the spring ploughing and sowing, the hay crop mown in June and the strenuous labours of the harvest. ”

“ Since more than three-fourths of the life of the farmer and his family are spent in sight of home, more than one-half of life in the house, and more than one-fourth in bed, the house, the place where they live, should receive most careful attention. Having secured sufficient land to maintain a home, and having made certain that these lands are productive and profitable, a problem is presented in locating and building the house which demands a high degree of intelligence, long, painstaking study, and a good understanding of what constitutes fitness, beauty and durability. ”

“ The farm garden should be ample and contain not only enough vegetable and small fruits for the use of the family, but a surplus to sell [342] or to give away. The farmer used to large areas is reluctant to undertake anything so small as he imagines the garden to be; hence, too often he plows it and leaves the planting and cultivation of it to the “women folks.” If he knew how to manage a garden he would find that the half-acre of land devoted to small fruits and vegetables could be made the most profitable and pleasurable part of the farm. ”

“ It is our purpose to set out on a home journey, one that starts from the kitchen or the parlor of the house and goes no farther than the outer fence of the farm—if we are lucky enough to have a farm. We are not making this home trip to call on anybody like ourselves. We are setting out to visit the cattle and sheep in their pasture-fields, the horses in their stalls, the poultry in their yards, the pig in his pen, and have a quiet talk about what we find there. ”

“ It detracts much from the enjoyment and beauty of the country home if vision is shut in to a few acres just about the house. The American farmer is not content to live under the [81] conditions which delight the Transvaal Dutch farmer, so isolated that he cannot see the smoke from his neighbor’s chimney nor hear the bark of his neighbor’s dog. ”

“ Permanent home life commenced with the development of agriculture. As he became a farmer, primitive man stayed at home with his wife and shared with her the nurture of the children. Before then the family had been hers, now it was theirs. The mere fact that the home and the business are both on the farm, that father is in the house several times a day and that the whole family are acquainted with his farm operations, will always give the farm home a superior solidarity, so long as the family lives on the farm. ”

“ Most farmers desire a comfortable and a beautiful home, and it is to aid such that this book is written. Such a farmer would doubtless consult a builder or an architect as to the foundation, walls, plan and materials of the home to be constructed, and he would act wisely; but how many would think so far as to consult a lawyer as to the very foundation upon which his home and his future happy occupancy of it rest: the title to the farm. ”

“ There are many things about this farm house which are commendable, and the only wonder is that so few mistakes were made in planning it. Farmers’ wives must have a sort of natural intuition; how else can the fewness of their mistakes be explained, for they have seldom received the slightest instruction along the lines of house-building. True, the tower on the corner is expensive and inappropriate, but if the house had an appropriate setting of trees and shrubs it might be beautiful. ”

“ Yet what is the position of the mother in the New England farmer's home? The farmer is careful of every animal he possesses. The farm-yard and the stall are replenished with young, by creatures for months dismissed from labor, or handled with intelligent care while carrying their burden; because the farmer knows that only in this way can he secure improvement, and sound, symmetrical development, to the stock of his farm. ”

“ So, is it any wonder that the farmer is deficient in appreciation of the fitness and beauty of the tree-clad, gently rolling plateau for a home site, when the “liberally” educated fail to see the innumerable beauty-spots which cover the face of nature? ”

“ The houses which are to be built in the future should be planned with a view to greater economy, convenience, beauty, and durability. There is now little excuse for erecting poor, uncomfortable, inconvenient houses on the farm. True, the rural population is handicapped, for few city architects have made any study of the plain rural house, and fewer have paid any attention whatever to farm barn construction. ”

“ Not one college of forestry in all this great land up to 1898, and as yet but one in its infancy! Until the last generation not a single school of agriculture, scarcely a book obtainable which might give direct help to the rural American boy and girl! Therefore, the farmer should not be blamed for the wasteful and unscientific treatment of forest and field. All this leads to the conclusion that to secure a competence, lands of high and varied agricultural capabilities, lands worthy of an intelligent American, should be selected upon which to build and maintain rural homes. ”

“ Altogether too little attention has been paid in our country to these most useful appendages to the farm, both in their construction and appearance. Nothing adds more to the feeling of comfort, convenience, and home expression in the farm, than the snug-built laborers' cottage upon it. The cottage also gives the farm an air of respectability and dignity. The laborer should, if not so sumptuously, be as comfortably housed and sheltered as his employer. ”

“ There should be room between the house and barn for a score or more of large trees, which may serve, in part, to screen each building from the other in case of fire, to shade the walk between the two buildings, and, in part, the barn itself. No tree is better adapted for this purpose than the white elm. The open barnyard should, wherever possible, be discarded, for it tends to increase the wasting of manures and the cost of getting them to the field; to the multiplication of fences and flies, and to unnecessary exposure of animals. ”

“ It is certain, also, that the men and the women must be near the stables, that the early and late work of feeding and milking may be promptly and regularly performed. If the family is to live in the village, the cattle must live in the village too. This involves the hauling home of all the hay and grain, and the hauling out again of all manure,—no slight task. If the work is all concentrated on the farm, under the immediate supervision of the farmer, there will be a certain convenience and economy of time. ”

“ The farmer alone—and in this country especially—disregards the benefits of living away from his shop, and passes his whole life—day and night—in close contact with his field of operations. He might, if he chose, make his home nearer to other homes, taking with him so much of his work as is not necessarily confined to the farm. ”

“ Then, too, progressive farmers believe it to be economy to provide shelter for animals and [251] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact the introduction of machinery and steam, and the general revolution which has been going on in agriculture, has gone far to sweep away these more pleasant and home-like features of the farm. It becomes daily more and [Pg 15] more like a mere official residence, so to speak. The peculiar home-like aspect of a farmhouse is gradually disappearing. ”

“ If not drained, will it bring constant disappointment? Fences, lanes and the necessity for them, the amount and location of inferior land as pasture land, the kind of weeds about the farm, as [61] well as the amount, kind and location of timber, should be considered.
Fig. 4. Too many buildings for eighty acres of land.
Land devoted to market-gardening should be near the market town where the perishable products are to be sold. Vegetables should reach the market early in their season in a fresh and presentable condition and cheaply, if satisfactory profits are desired. ”

“ One purchaser may lay stress on the quality or productivity of the land, another on its location as to market, another as to the outlook or scenery, and another as to the society in the immediate locality. Some would be unhappy if far removed from city or town, while others delight in many broad acres far removed from the busy crowd. All these different phases of the subject, with many others, should be considered before the purchase is made. It is seldom that a farm can be secured which fulfils all desirable conditions ”

“ Too often a single idea dominates the location. Some thirty years since I decided to erect a large basement barn. The house, a modest, comfortable structure, was located at a suitable distance from the highway, on a gentle slope. To utilize the highway for driving the animals to and from pasture, and to save the use of the fourth of an acre of land and the building of some twenty rods of fence, the barn was located nearer the highway than the house. This necessitated locating the barnyard between the highway and the barn. ”

“ Higher remuneration is received for the time spent in harvesting the products of a large, well kept garden, than in harvesting the cereals or milking the cows. It must be said, however, that there are good reasons for the farmer’s distaste for gardening, for the gardens, as usually laid out, necessitate the maximum of hand-culture and the minimum of horse-culture. The result of such gardens is a minimum of products secured by maximum of effort, and a resultant surplus of weeds. ”

“ Having shown, in part, what a rural life has to offer to those who are trained to appreciate the beauties of nature and to obey her laws, and having shown that the average farmer always has an assured though modest income, and that the better farmers have an ample income for maintaining improved rural homes, the further discussion of how they may be made to minister to the natural longings for broader and more refined lives may be taken up. ”

“ The barn should be located far enough from the house to prevent the aromas of the stables and kitchen from mingling, and at such a distance as not to seriously endanger either one, if the other should be destroyed by fire. If possible, the barn should be on lower ground than the house, that no wash or seepage from it may tend toward the house, and for other sanitary reasons. ”

“ It certainly will be necessary to cultivate several times that part of the garden which is used for late-growing crops, such as cabbage and celery. As a rule, the farmer cannot afford to attempt to raise two crops on the same land the same year, since labor is everything and the use of land nothing; therefore, better prepare the ground by two or three plowings for the late crops, than to attempt to raise them on land which has parted with much of its readily available plant-food in producing the early crop. ”

“ Too many farm houses stand alone, unrelieved by noble trees or by modest planting [117] of appropriate shrubbery, looking in the distance at the setting sun like lofty, whitewashed sepulchres. On the other hand, the house may be made dark and damp by over-planting. The house shown in Fig. 30 is a comfortable, fairly attractive stone structure, but is made gloomy and damp by the superabundance of evergreen and deciduous trees which fill all the space, barely thirty feet, between the house and the highway.
Fig. 29. Environment often makes the man. ”