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Title: The Farmstead: The making of the rural home and the lay-out of the farm (5th edition)
Author: Roberts, Isaac Phillips
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Text printed in italics has been transcribed between _underscores_,
bold face text between =equal signs=, and blackletter text between
~tildes~. Small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this e-text.
~The Rural Science Series~
EDITED BY L. H. BAILEY
THE FARMSTEAD
[Illustration]
THE FARMSTEAD
_THE MAKING OF THE RURAL HOME AND
THE LAY-OUT OF THE FARM_
BY
ISAAC PHILLIPS ROBERTS
Director of the College of Agriculture and Professor of Agriculture in
Cornell University; author of “The Fertility of the Land”
_FIFTH EDITION_
~New York~
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1910
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped January, 1900
Reprinted August, 1902; January, 1905;
August, 1907; June, 1910
~Mount Pleasant Press~
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGES
I. RURAL HOMES 1-11
II. THE FARM AS A SOURCE OF INCOME 12-42
III. EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY ON THE FARM 43-53
IV. SELECTION AND PURCHASE OF FARMS 54-64
V. THE RELATION OF THE FARMER TO THE LAWYER (_By Hon.
DeForest VanVleet_) 65-73
VI. LOCATING THE HOUSE 74-86
VII. PLANNING RURAL BUILDINGS 87-131
VIII. BUILDING THE HOUSE--GENERAL LAY-OUT 132-157
Building the Foundations 138
Wooden Houses--The Frame 142
IX. BUILDING THE HOUSE, CONCLUDED--OUTSIDE COVERING,
PAINTING 158-180
Veneered Houses 168
Old Houses 170
Painting the House 173
X. INSIDE FINISH, HEATING, AND VENTILATION 181-192
Heating and Ventilation 190
XI. HOUSE FURNISHING AND DECORATION (_By Professor Mary
Roberts Smith_) 193-203
XII. CLEANLINESS AND SANITATION--WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE
(_By Professor Mary Roberts Smith_) 204-223
Water Supply and Sewage 217
XIII. HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION, ECONOMY, AND COMFORT (_By
Professor Mary Roberts Smith_) 224-236
XIV. THE HOME YARD (_By Professor L. H. Bailey_) 237-248
XV. A DISCUSSION OF BARNS 249-265
Location 255
Planning the Barn 259
Water Supply 261
XVI. BUILDING THE BARN--THE BASEMENT 266-287
Excavation 268
Walls 271
Floors 277
Stalls 280
Mangers and Ties 285
XVII. BUILDING THE BARN--THE SUPERSTRUCTURE 288-297
XVIII. REMODELING OLD BARNS 298-305
XIX. OUTBUILDINGS AND ACCESSORIES 306-320
Poultry Houses 306
Piggeries 311
The Silo 316
XX. LIGHTNING PROTECTION (_By H. H. Norris, M.E._) 321-335
Metal Roofs 324
Protecting Wooden Roofs 326
XXI. THE FIELDS 336-345
Fences 336
Orchards 340
Farm Garden 341
INDEX 346
THE FARMSTEAD
CHAPTER I
_RURAL HOMES_
Man is made partly by heredity, partly by environment; both may be
controlled and modified to a far greater extent than is generally
supposed. In speaking of farm life, its disadvantages are frequently
emphasized, while its possible advantages as an environment for the
development of the finest quality of human nature are as often ignored
or overlooked.
Nature, with her ever-varying form and color, beauty and symmetry, is
forgotten in the city; the shady forest, the meadow brook, the waving
fields, are unknown. There, instead, is incessant noise, the clang and
clash of trade, towering and ugly buildings, skies darkened by the smoke
of factories, children who never saw a tree or played elsewhere than
upon a hard and filthy pavement; and worst of all is the
nerve-destroying haste and unequal competition, wearing out body and
soul. In rural life, however tame and lonely, the home is not merely a
few square feet hedged in by brick walls, but the whole wide
countryside: the barns, the fields, the woods, the orchards, the animals
wild and domesticated, the outlook over hill and valley--these all
constitute the farmer’s home.
The manufacturer locates his factory in some by-street or suburb where
land is cheap, and as far as possible from the residence part of the
city; his home is far removed from these unsightly surroundings. 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.
Besides the ever-present beauties of nature, country life has certain
other advantages over the city: it is the place to develop the strong
health-physique. The luxury of rich and populous communities tends to
produce puny and enervated citizens; the excessive toil, bad air,
limited space and scant food of the poor tend to degrade and destroy
body and soul; but the comfortable simplicity, space, air, sunlight and
abundant food of the open country give opportunity for the finest
development of the human animal. It is true that even on the farm there
are sometimes overwork and privation; but, at the worst, these cannot be
so severe as in cities so long as the sun shines, the wind blows, and
green things grow for the worker out of doors. Here the child may be
born right and nourished by pure food and air. It is surrounded by
animals whose life and motion become an incentive to action, and who
become its companions without danger of moral contamination. The lamb,
the calf, the colt, are far safer playmates than the city urchin
precociously wise in evil ways.
Professor Amos G. Warner says that “children reared in institutions are
much below par because they lack the power of initiative.” The farm
child has an incessant, varied and unconscious training of the eye, the
hand, and the mind. While he is developing strength, symmetry, courage,
the mental is being coördinated with the physical. The hand is made to
obey the will, while the fact that the handicraft is made useful lends
charm and delight to the work. The city child must try to learn, by a
course of manual training in some public school, what the country child
picks up unconsciously in the natural process of play and work.
After half a century, I look back to one of the happiest moments of my
life, when I presented my mother with a dove-tailed wooden flower box,
painted bright red. That flower box first taught me how to make wood
take the form desired. While the flower box has long since rotted, the
board-runner sled smashed, the water wheel broken, and the boat lies
rotten in the bottom of the lake, the time spent upon them was not
thrown away, for they gave me the inspiration and power to “boss” wood,
and this power has served me well in many an emergency.
As knowledge begins to dominate the hand and train it to change the form
and character of things, certain physical laws are discovered. If the
sail is made too large or the boat too narrow, a cold bath is the
result. If the sled runners are too short and rough, the school-mate
arrives at the bottom of the hill first. No schoolmaster was needed, for
when one of these natural laws was broken or ignored, the penalty
followed quickly and with full force. So, in a thousand ways, the youth
is taught respect for the laws which govern matter. All this leads the
youth on the farm, if full play and direction are given, to investigate
everything in sight, to discover that there are other than physical
laws. The higher laws puzzle him greatly, give him much concern, lead
to doubts, for they are too abstract and too far-reaching for his
youthful comprehension. The physical laws have been found by experience
to be ever true and stable, and the youth cannot but believe that moral
and spiritual laws are equally so. This is the sheet anchor which holds
him to belief in them, however imperfectly he may understand them. He is
anxious to investigate, even to experiment along these lines, but is
disappointed because the results cannot be set down in pounds or feet or
units of energy. If here on the farm the mental and physical have been
kept healthy and active, the moral and spiritual will develop as
naturally as the fruit from the blossom. The development of spiritual
fruit to high perfection is slow, because the power to think and reason
correctly and abstractly comes only with age, experience and mental
development.
But the greatest advantage of country life lies in the opportunity for
the promotion of healthy family relations. Parents naturally find their
chief happiness in the education and development of their children; and
in time the children stimulate the parents. The sharing of common labors
from babyhood up, the working together for common interests and
ambition, which farm life especially entails, produce the most
wholesome family relations. The most valuable part of any person’s
education is really in the home. To “help father and mother” becomes the
keynote of a child’s life, and unselfish, willing service is the first
and last and best lesson of morality and religion. The pride in honest
and capable ancestors, the natural and wholesome ambition for the future
of the children, fill up a measure of contentment difficult to find
elsewhere. In such a family there need be nothing to conceal; life takes
on dignity in place of affectation, honesty instead of sham; it has
simplicity, pure affections, fidelity. Artificial sex distinctions
disappear; men and women may do that which is needful and human, the
woman in the field, the man in the house, if desirable, sharing their
common, healthful activities.
All this is very well, some will say, but how shall such a home be
maintained on the income of the farm? “Farming doesn’t pay.” This
statement is unverified, and, carrying on its face, as it does, a little
truth, is misleading. Does farming pay? Does anything pay? What is pay?
All depends upon how you value the currency in which the pay is
received. Is “wisdom better than rubies?” Are the sayings of the wisest
and best of men true? “Give me neither riches nor poverty. Get wisdom,
get understanding. Take fast hold of instruction.”
A modern thinker, Professor L. H. Bailey, in the report of the Secretary
of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 1898, puts it in this wise:
“But there is another cause of apprehension which I ought to mention,
perhaps founded upon the probable tendencies of our sociological and
economic conditions, especially as they apply to rural communities.
There is a tendency towards a division of estates as population
increases, and the profits of farming are often so small that educated
tastes, it is thought, cannot be satisfied on the farm. There are those
who believe that because of these two facts we are ourselves drifting
towards an American peasantry. Let us take the second proposition
first,--that the profits of farming are so small that educated tastes
cannot be satisfied and gratified on the farm. Now I grant this to be
true if the measure of the satisfaction of an educated taste is money;
but I deny it most strenuously if the satisfaction of an educated taste
lies in a purer and better life. We must make this distinction very deep
and broad, for it is a fundamental one. I believe we have made a mistake
in teaching agriculture, during the last few years, by putting the
emphasis on the money we make out of it. I do not believe that people
are to become wealthy on the farm, as a few do in manufacturing; I
should not hold out that hope to men. There are certain men here and
there who have great executive ability, who see the strategic points and
take advantage of them, who can make a success of farming the same as
they would at the making of shoes, or harnesses, or buttons, or anything
else. But as a general thing, the farmer should be taught that the farm
is not the place to become wealthy. I do not believe it is. Certainly I
should not go on the farm with that idea in view. But if I wanted to
live a happy life, if I wanted to have at my command independence and
the comforts of living, I do not know where I could better find them
than on the farm; for those very things which appeal to an educated
taste are the things which the farmer does not have to buy,--they are
the things which are his already.”
The wealthy few of the cities give voice to the thought that the farming
classes in the United States are always on the verge of poverty, yet in
the last century they have rescued from barbarism and solitude nearly
all of the arable land of the two billion acres of which the United
States are composed. More than four million five hundred thousand farm
homes have been planted, valued at more than thirteen billion dollars.
Much hue and cry has been raised of late about farm mortgages. If the
facts were known, it is more than probable that the farmers, as a
whole, have assets in mortgages, promissory notes and savings banks
amply sufficient to liquidate all such outstanding obligations. Added to
the real estate, the farmers own implements and machines valued at five
hundred millions of dollars, and their live stock, upon ten thousand
hills, numbers one hundred and seventy-five millions, valued at more
than two billions of dollars, while the annual value of the farm
products is between two and three billions of dollars. It should be
remembered that these values are nominal, the true value being in most
cases more than double these amounts. The farmers are not now in danger
of becoming paupers. From the farms come more than half of the college
students. At the present time it is probable that the income of the
farmers exceeds three billion dollars annually. When it is considered
that there is little or no direct outgo for rent of house, and that
nearly three-fourths of the food is produced at home, and that these
items are seldom taken into account in the statistics of income, it
appears that the farmer’s real income is much larger than is usually
estimated in money. In other words, a five hundred dollar net income on
the farm, under the conditions which now prevail, provides for a more
comfortable living than does a thousand dollars in the city.
But these results of the labors of the farmer as set forth in figures,
tell but half the story, for nothing is said in these census reports of
an empire redeemed, of the thousands upon thousands of miles of road
constructed, of rivers spanned, of the school house by every roadside,
or of the church spires which mark the progress of agriculture and
civilization in countryside, in village and in hamlet. The census report
does not give the number or value of the great men and noble women which
the rural homes have produced, though they are the most valuable product
of the farms. It says nothing about the perennial rural springs from
which flow, in a never-ending stream, statesmen, divines, missionaries,
teachers, students and business men. Although more than half of these
life-giving energies of the nation and civilization come directly from
the rural homes, the census report gives no clue by which the value of
these, the nation’s wealth and power, can be ascertained.
Looking over all the trades and professions which are followed by
civilized and barbarous peoples, none give opportunity for rearing the
family under so nearly ideal conditions as does the profession of
agriculture: none furnish such good conditions for rearing children and
for developing them into strong, natural and useful men and women. Here,
then, on these broad acres of America, under the flag which we love, we
are to help transform the rude surroundings of the pioneer and the
slovenly homes of the careless into pure and beautiful nurseries of
American citizenship. 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.
CHAPTER II
_THE FARM AS A SOURCE OF INCOME_
If it cannot be shown that the profession of agriculture offers as good
opportunities for securing, with a fair degree of certainty, what all
should prize,--a beautiful and comfortable home and a modest
surplus,--then this little volume will be for the most part useless and
uncalled for, as the following chapters presuppose an income sufficient
for maintaining a home, and for gratifying, in part at least, the
simple, educated tastes of the better class of American farmers.
In “The Fertility of the Land” I attempted to set forth some fundamental
principles which, if followed, should result in such increased incomes
as to justify the present book. A comfortable home must be secured from
the products of field and stable, with a reasonable expenditure of
physical energy, or farming in its highest sense is a failure. In
addition, farming must give fair opportunity for training and educating
families, and for making provision for old age and unforeseen
contingencies.
In the previous chapter the annual income of the farmer has been set
forth, and, approximately, the accumulated earnings of the rural
population. Unfortunately, we are so short-sighted that the present--the
dollar--blunts the appreciation of the higher and more enduring values
which spring from well conducted farms. This being so, of necessity much
stress must be laid on immediate benefits which flow from a well ordered
farm life. While it is not proposed to write here of the details of farm
management along the lines of greatest financial results, yet something
must be said, at least in general, about the methods most likely to
produce the necessary competence.
A fairly liberal income and financial reserve give, or should give, some
leisure. Leisure gives opportunity for study and recreation, without
which life becomes one ever-revolving round of work, and results in
producing an automatic animal. If this is to be avoided, far-reaching
plans must be laid, energy directed into its most efficient channels,
and time and resources economized. All this implies training and
education directed, primarily, along the lines which broaden and
ennoble, and those of the occupation to be followed.
For centuries, the higher education has been in the direction of the
humanities, while education along technical and non-professional lines,
until recently, has been conspicuous by its absence. Prior to the
present century, what provision was made for coördinating the hands and
intellects of the industrial classes? None at all. Is it any wonder,
then, that the farmer and mechanic, until recently, received but meager
rewards for their efforts?
All this is now changed. Already the industrial classes are enabled to
secure far more of the necessaries and luxuries of life for a given
period of work than could their ancestors. In every state and territory
one or more colleges have been equipped and endowed to teach, among
other things, “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture
and the mechanic arts, ... _in order to promote the liberal and
practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits
and professions of life_.” In addition to this provision, Congress gives
to each state and territory $15,000 annually for conducting experiments
and investigations in agriculture. In 1890 the Federal government
supplemented the benefactions of 1862 by appropriating annually $15,000
to each of the Land Grant colleges; this sum has now been increased and
finally fixed at $25,000, for the purpose of strengthening the
departments of agriculture and mechanic arts. Most, if not all, of the
states have made additional appropriations for agriculture, in some
cases very liberal ones. At first, there was a strong prejudice against
these colleges devoted to the improvement of the industries and those
engaged in them, but this has nearly disappeared.
A broader view of education now prevails than formerly. The modern
colleges and universities think it not undignified to offer other than
four year courses of study preceded by difficult entrance requirements.
Many courses of from six weeks to one or two years are now open to those
who prize knowledge above a diploma. Most of these courses are given at
such seasons of the year as best suit the pupils. In America all doors
which lead to knowledge have at last been opened, and all earnest
students may enter and find teachers awaiting them. The effect of the
recent changes in college courses has been most marked and beneficial.
Many of the colleges have, as far as possible, adopted the words of the
founder of Cornell University: “I would found an institution where any
person can find instruction in any study.”
The following data show the incomes of the United States Land Grant
colleges for the year ending June 30, 1897. The table is condensed from
one recently published by the United States Department of Agriculture:
_Income of the U. S. Land Grant Colleges for the Year Ending June 30,
1897_
============================+===========+===========+=============+
|Interest on| Interest | U. S. Appro-|
STATES AND TERRITORIES | Land Grant| on Other | priations, |
| of 1862 | Funds | Act of 1890 |
----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
Alabama (Auburn) | $20,280.00| ...| $12,012.00|
Alabama (Normal) | ...| ...| 9,988.00|
Arkansas (Fayetteville) | 10,400.00| ...| 16,000.00|
Arkansas (Pine Bluff) | ...| ...| 6,000.00|
California (Berkeley) | 43,619.33| ...| 22,000.00|
Colorado (Fort Collins) | 3,238.99|$109,997.18| 22,000.00|
Connecticut (Storrs) | 6,750.00| ...| 22,000.00|
Delaware (Newark) | 4,980.00| ...| 17,600.00|
Delaware (Dover) | ...| ...| 4,400.00|
Florida (Lake City) | 9,107.00| ...| 11,000.00|
Florida (Tallahassee) | ...| ...| 11,000.00|
Georgia (Athens) | 16,954.00| ...| 14,666.66|
Georgia (College) | ...| ...| 6,333.00|
Idaho (Moscow) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Illinois (Champlain) | 23,241.10| 500.00| 22,000.00|
Indiana (Lafayette) | 17,000.00| 3,830.48| 22,000.00|
Iowa (Ames) | 47,729.75| ...| 23,000.00|
Kansas (Manhattan) | 50,689.50| ...| 22,000.00|
Kentucky (Lexington) | ...| ...| 18,810.00|
Kentucky (Frankfort) | ...| ...| 3,190.00|
Louisiana (Baton Rouge) | ...| ...| ...|
Louisiana (New Orleans) | ...| ...| 11,346.00|
Maine (Orono) | 5,915.00| 4,000.00| 22,000.00|
Maryland (College Park) | 6,142.30| ...| 22,000.00|
Massachusetts (Amherst) | 7,300.00| 3,820.23| 14,666.66|
Massachusetts (Boston) | 5,896.00| 35,000.00| 7,666.67|
Michigan (Agricultural | | | |
College) | 39,009.66| 386.34| 22,000.00|
Minnesota (St. Anthony Park)| 27,410.55| 21,856.00| 23,000.00|
Mississippi (Agricult’l | | | |
College) | 5,914.50| ...| 10,217.08|
Mississippi (West Side) | 6,814.50| ...| 11,000.00|
Missouri (Columbia) | 16,100.00| 6,469.58| 20,804.02|
Missouri (Rolla) | 4,025.00| 6,469.58| 5,201.00|
Missouri (Jefferson City) | ...| ...| 1,195.98|
Montana (Bozeman) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Nebraska (Lincoln) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Nevada (Reno) | 4,464.89| 1,803.55| 22,000.00|
New Hampshire (Durham) | 4,800.00| 3,880.50| 23,000.00|
New Jersey (New Brunswick) | 6,644.00| ...| 22,000.00|
New Mexico (Mesilla Park) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
New York (Ithaca) | 34,428.80| 314,407.51| 22,000.00|
North Carolina (West | | | |
Raleigh) | ...| ...| ...|
North Carolina (Greensboro) | ...| ...| ...|
North Dakota (Agri. College)| ...| 392.96| 22,000.00|
Ohio (Wooster) | 31,450.58| 1,511.63| 22,000.00|
Oklahoma (Stillwater) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Oregon (Corvallis) | 7,164.68| ...| 22,000.00|
Pennsylvania (State College)| 25,637.43| 5,382.57| 22,000.00|
Rhode Island (Kingston) | 1,500.00| 1,000.00| 22,000.00|
South Carolina (Clemson | | | |
College) | 5,754.00| 3,512.36| 11,000.00|
South Carolina (Orangeburg) | 5,000.00| ...| 11,000.00|
South Dakota (Brookings) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Tennessee (Knoxville) | 23,760.00| 1,650.00| 22,000.00|
Texas (College Station) | 14,280.00| ...| 16,500.00|
Texas (Prairieview) | ...| ...| 5,500.00|
Utah (Logan) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
Vermont (Burlington) | 8,130.00| 1,500.00| 22,000,00|
Virginia (Blacksburg) | 20,658.72| ...| 14,666.67|
Virginia (Hampton) | 10,329.36| 30,264.61| 7,333.33|
Washington (Pullman) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
West Virginia (Morgantown) | 5,223.00| 1,485.00| 17,000.00|
West Virginia (Farm) | ...| ...| 5,000.00|
Wisconsin (Madison) | 12,250.00| 14,000.00| 23,000.00|
Wyoming (Laramie) | ...| ...| 22,000.00|
----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
Total |$609,992.64|$574,120.08|$1,009,097.07|
============================+===========+===========+=============+
============================+=============+=============+=============
| State | ...|
STATES AND TERRITORIES | Appropria- | Miscellane- |
| tions | ous | Total
----------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------
Alabama (Auburn) | $8,746.83| $2,821.20| $43,860.03
Alabama (Normal) | 4,000.00| 16,898.44| 30,886.44
Arkansas (Fayetteville) | 26,911.00| 1,200.00| 54,611.00
Arkansas (Pine Bluff) | ...| 418.25| 6,418.25
California (Berkeley) | 133,415.46| 12,180.48| 311,212.45
Colorado (Fort Collins) | 38,892.01| ...| 64,131.00
Connecticut (Storrs) | 26,800.00| ...| 55,550.00
Delaware (Newark) | ...| 1,620.74| 24,200.74
Delaware (Dover) | 4,000.00| ...| 8,400.00
Florida (Lake City) | 5,000.00| 1,896.88| 27,003.00
Florida (Tallahassee) | 4,000.00| ...| 15,000.00
Georgia (Athens) | 29,000.00| 1,600.00| 62,220.66
Georgia (College) | ...| ...| 6,333.00
Idaho (Moscow) | 6,000.00| 339.80| 28,839.80
Illinois (Champlain) | 121,214.93| 41,305.09| 211,591.60
Indiana (Lafayette) | 58,562.96| 29,552.35| 127,115.31
Iowa (Ames) | 37,232.10| 49,397.49| 157,359.34
Kansas (Manhattan) | 16,557.70| 9,323.88| 98,571.08
Kentucky (Lexington) | 32,429.32| 6,680.61| 57,819.93
Kentucky (Frankfort) | 5,000.00| 76.00| 8,266.00
Louisiana (Baton Rouge) | ...| ...| ...
Louisiana (New Orleans) | 9,000.00| 439.46| 20,785.46
Maine (Orono) | 20,000.00| 20,001.13| 71,916.13
Maryland (College Park) | 9,000.00| 18,000.00| 55,142.30
Massachusetts (Amherst) | 15,000.00| 1,920.00| 42,706.89
Massachusetts (Boston) | 25,000.00| 253,076.23| 318,638.90
Michigan (Agricultural | | |
College) | 10,000.00| 12,825.62| 84,221.62
Minnesota (St. Anthony Park)| 174,332.59| 74,496.48| 321,095.62
Mississippi (Agricult’l | | |
College) | 22,500.00| 14,597.96| 53,227.54
Mississippi (West Side) | 7,000.00| ...| 24,814.50
Missouri (Columbia) | 3,762.34| 5,022.73| 52,158.67
Missouri (Rolla) | 5,476.65| 2,192.16| 23,364.39
Missouri (Jefferson City) | ...| ...| 1,195.98
Montana (Bozeman) | 2,500.10| 2,439.57| 26,939.57
Nebraska (Lincoln) | 123,572.50| 7,801.53| 153,374.03
Nevada (Reno) | 16,250.00| 327.35| 44,845.79
New Hampshire (Durham) | 5,500.00| 1,148.00| 40,328.50
New Jersey (New Brunswick) | ...| 21,170.37| 49,814.37
New Mexico (Mesilla Park) | 19,792.01| 875.70| 42,667.71
New York (Ithaca) | 25,000.00| 191,660.07| 587,496.38
North Carolina (West | | |
Raleigh) | ...| ...| ...
North Carolina (Greensboro) | 12,500.00| 157.92| 12,657.92
North Dakota (Agri. College)| 27,000.00| 3,446.62| 52,839.58
Ohio (Wooster) | 118,906.53| 175,140.39| 349,009.13
Oklahoma (Stillwater) | 500.00| 3,391.00| 25,591.00
Oregon (Corvallis) | 1,854.79| 1,342.37| 32,361.84
Pennsylvania (State College)| 45,000.00| 8,340.27| 106,360.27
Rhode Island (Kingston) | 10,000.00| 6,000.00| 40,500.00
South Carolina (Clemson | | |
College) | 54,053.29| 700.00| 75,019.65
South Carolina (Orangeburg) | 13,000.00| 1.00| 29,001.00
South Dakota (Brookings) | 5,900.00| 8,038.12| 35,938.12
Tennessee (Knoxville) | 1,674.00| 7,271.89| 56,355.89
Texas (College Station) | 22,500.00| 9,361.39| 62,641.39
Texas (Prairieview) | 15,700.00| 10,836.78| 32,036.78
Utah (Logan) | 22,000.00| 5,811.83| 49,811.83
Vermont (Burlington) | 6,000.00| 16,603.09| 54,233.09
Virginia (Blacksburg) | 15,750.00| 12,352.48| 63,427.87
Virginia (Hampton) | ...| 109,110.46| 157,037.76
Washington (Pullman) | 29,000.00| ...| 51,000.00
West Virginia (Morgantown) | 38,060.00| 10,315.13| 72,083.13
West Virginia (Farm) | 14,500.00| 600.00| 20,100.00
Wisconsin (Madison) | 285,000.00| 47,000.00| 381,250.00
Wyoming (Laramie) | 7,425.00| 775.59| 30,200.59
----------------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------
Total |$1,821,072.01|$1,239,902.90|$5,203,580.82
============================+=============+=============+=============
It has been thought strange that the farmers did not more quickly see
and appreciate the valuable opportunities offered to their children. But
why should they at once appreciate and value the princely provisions
which were being made for them? With no opportunity for education along
the lines of their profession, following a more or less despised
calling, from being the butt and jest of those who had had educational
advantages from time immemorial, how could they at once understand the
value and far-reaching effects of the new order of things? Then, too,
these liberal provisions were made somewhat in advance of the times. The
pioneer must first redeem the land from the wilderness, fight the
physical battles and endure the hardships of a new country. As soon as
these primitive conditions passed away, the farmers made an effort to
bring their profession up to a high intellectual plane and make it a
delightful and honorable calling. The evolution from the primitive to
the complex, from the age of toil to the age of thought, from excessive
muscular effort to a more intelligent direction of energy, from the
narrow and prejudiced to the broad and liberal, from the coarse and ugly
to the refined and beautiful, is proceeding rapidly, and is in part
realized. What happier task than to give direction and help, sympathy
and encouragement to these new-born desires! The part which the youths
on the farm are taking in this evolution leads naturally to a higher
intellectual plane, and hence to a more rational understanding and
fuller comprehension of what the rural home should be. This desire to
gratify the love for the true and beautiful, which has been growing up
by reason of the better education, leads directly to the securing of an
income sufficiently large to gratify the more refined and newly acquired
tastes.
Taking the rural population as we find it, with added wants and new
aspirations, and with a somewhat better understanding of the value of a
more extended culture, it will be seen that a more rational system of
agriculture, a more economic expenditure of energy, and a clearer
comprehension of the highest and most economical use of money must be
secured if the objects sought are attained. To secure the results
desired, it must be shown how a competence can be secured without
excessive toil, how the results of work may be put to the best uses, and
lastly, but not least, it must be shown what is really valuable, what
real, what substantial, what polite, what beautiful, what worthy of
intelligent Americans. On the other hand, vulgar display must be shown
to be vulgar, shoddy must be unmasked, the effect of aping the
uncultured rich set forth, and that which is unreal and that which goes
for naught but vanity displayed under their true colors,--that
comparisons may be made, and that truer conceptions of life, its duties
and obligations, may be secured.
How may a competence be obtained? Briefly, by securing a knowledge of
the laws which govern the business or undertaking entered into, and by
conducting the business or undertaking in obedience to the modes of
action or laws which apply to the specific case in hand. What are some
of the dominant laws which should govern the farmer and farm practices?
The farmer should specialize along those lines for which his taste and
training, in part at least, fit him. To be more specific: A farmer will
show you his potato patch with pride, but not a word will be said about
his work animals and their offspring, which look like Barnum’s woolly
horse. Then the first principle of agriculture is, follow up successes.
In this case, the man has land and skill in potato culture which should
lead him directly to success. Why not each year increase the output of
potatoes, and let some horseman breed the horses? I have no ear or taste
for music; why should I spend time in thrumming a piano and in making
the life of my neighbors miserable? I love a bird and am interested in
all its ways, its beauty and its life. Why not study the birds, and let
them make the music?
Much of life’s energy is spent in trying to adjust square pegs to round
holes and round pegs to square holes, and life may be spent before the
adjustment is complete. Modern civilization tends to specialization. Men
vary as widely as do the stars. There is a place for everyone and some
one to fill the place, if this great mass of unlike units can only be
sorted and fitted into the complex problem of civilization.
The first question, and the question which should be repeated often is,
What am I good for; what branch or branches of agriculture will give me
the greatest pleasure and profit? Having answered this question, pursue
the work through all discouragements to a successful issue. It is
possible you have no capacity for farm life, and, since you cannot buy a
capacity, better go directly to town and there fit yourself into your
environment. I have known men to toil many years on a farm, and near the
close of life to be driven to town by the sheriff. There they made not
only a living, but secured a modest competence in conducting some little
one-horse business, the profits or losses of which could be counted up
every night. The farm, with all its complexities, with its profits and
losses a year or five years in the future, was too large and
far-reaching for their narrow understandings. All are not so fortunate.
Some remind us of the Quaker’s dog which he sold to his friend and
recommended as a good coon dog. The dog proved to be a failure and was
returned to the seller, who said, “I am much surprised. Thee believes
that nothing was created in vain, does thee not, Ephraim?” “Most
certainly I believe that the Creator made all things for some beneficent
purpose.” “I, too, believe this, and I had tried that dog for everything
else under the heavens but coons, so I was certain he must be a good
coon dog.”
A competency is always in sight in this country for those who do well
those things which are suited to their tastes and training. A competence
may be secured by following those branches of farming which require the
minimum of labor and the maximum of skill and training. My friend of
Westfield, Mr. G. Schoenfeld, from Germany, has six acres of land, a
part of which is covered with glass. He did that terrible thing,--ran in
debt for the full purchase price of the land. It and the valuable
improvements upon it are now paid for. His modest home is valued at
$6,000. While paying for it a large family has been raised and educated,
the eldest boy entering Annapolis Naval Academy with a high standing. It
is possible that this son will one day be acknowledged as the
intellectual and social equal of the aristocracy of Germany should he
ever visit the fatherland of his parents. But why this long account of a
not infrequent occurrence? To show how it was done: This German, though
untrained, succeeded from the first in producing superior carnations. He
followed up his successes, and sold the product of brains instead of the
fertility of his little farm. Mr. Schoenfeld sold in Buffalo during one
year--October 1, 1896, to September 30, 1897--carnations (80,946
flowers) for the net sum, over commissions, of $719.08. The amount of
plant-food removed by the 80,946 carnations was as follows:
Nitrogen Phosphoric acid Potash
5 lbs. 4 ozs. 2 lbs. 3 ozs. 10 lbs. 8 ozs. (valued at $1.32)
The table below shows the amount of plant-food removed by 856 bushels of
wheat, being the amount which, at 84 cents per bushel (the average price
of wheat for the last ten years in central New York), would bring
$719.08, the amount received for the carnations.
Nitrogen Phosphoric acid Potash
904 lbs. 437 lbs. 298 lbs. (valued at $158.34)
In addition, 20,000 flowers used in making flower displays for
weddings, and the like, were sold at retail, by the dozen, for
$450.80. The net returns for flowers sold during the fiscal year ending
September 30, 1897, amounted to $1,169.88. The expenses, including
taxes, insurance and 10 per cent on the capital, were $790.67. This
includes the cost of raising 12,000 plants, about 6,000 of which netted
$263.24. In round numbers, then, the net income from the one leading
industry--flowers--after paying 10 per cent on invested capital, coal,
commission and workmen’s bills, was $642.45, with an additional
prospective income from the 6,000 plants which remained unsold.
When I last visited this gentleman, he informed me that he had all the
land he wanted. Since that time he has purchased eight acres adjoining,
has made some improvements upon the land, and now values it at $2,000.
He stated incidentally that the reason he made his purchase was that the
land was in the market, and he wanted control of it that he might choose
his neighbor. The land, he says, is now in the market, although it paid
9 per cent, clear of all expenses, on a valuation of $2,000. The
question is often discussed as to how much land is necessary to secure a
competence. Here we find that six acres suffices. A large family has
been fed chiefly from the products of the orchards, vineyard and garden,
and the children are receiving a practical and, in some cases, a
liberal education. All this has been accomplished because the man
quickly learned the value of scientific agriculture and was wise enough
to follow up his successes.
Not only follow up success, but learn to do the difficult things; there
will always be a throng seeking to do the easy things,--things which
require the maximum of muscle and the minimum of brains. Why do such
multitudes seek this hard, easy work? Because they will not consent to
endure the toil, shall I say, of acquiring the power to think deeply,
accurately and effectively. Some of our sympathy is thrown away upon
these muscular workers. Their desires are few, their wants simple, their
appetites good, and their sleep peaceful. Let us show them the way to a
higher life, open the doors to those who choose to enter, and fret not
because all will not enter in.
“Some are and must be greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.”
The man who fells the trees in the woods may receive 15 cents per hour;
the man who controls the carriage of the great sawmill and decides on
the instant what shape and dimensions the lumber shall take may receive
25 cents per hour for simply moving a little lever; a third man causes
a piece of the wood to take on the forms of beauty for the great
staircase, and may receive 50 cents per hour; the fourth furnishes the
design for this beautiful staircase, and may receive $1 an hour. The man
who does the so-called “hard” work receives the least pay. Why? Because
it is the least difficult. This difference of remuneration holds good on
the farm. Mushrooms sell for 50 cents per pound; maize for one-half cent
per pound. Why? Because anybody, even a squaw, can raise maize, but only
a specially skilled gardener can succeed in mushroom culture. Hothouse
lambs bring from $6 to $10 when two months old; a poorly bred sheep at
two years of age may bring from $2 to $4. Why? The breeding and feeding
of the one is easy; of the other difficult.
In 1897 the raising of potatoes was difficult. The blights, the bugs and
the beetles were present in full force. Good potatoes in the middle and
eastern states rose to 65 cents per bushel wholesale. The man who
watched and fought intelligently secured 300 bushels per acre and a
ready market; the careless man and the man who should have been raising
horses or chickens secured 30 bushels per acre and a slow market. Why?
Because unusual difficulties were present, and the man who was able to
cope with them drew the prize of $195 per acre for his potatoes. This
successful potato raiser the previous year secured more than 300 bushels
per acre, and sold them for 25 cents per bushel, but even at this low
price they brought more than $75 per acre. If from 200 to 300 per cent
profit can be secured and the limit of profit not reached by raising one
of the most common products of the farm, what possibilities loom up for
securing a competence from those products which require greater skill
and knowledge than the raising of potatoes?
Consider the crops which are supposed to give promise of securing little
or no profits at the present low prices, as wheat, maize, hay and oats.
One man, on land naturally below the average, has secured during the
last fifteen years an average of nearly 35 bushels of wheat, and in a
few cases 40 bushels per acre. The average yield for the whole United
States in 1889 was a shade less than 14 bushels per acre. During the
same year the average yield of oats was 28.57 bushels per acre, and hay,
including such other crops as are used for forage, averaged 1.26 tons
per acre. Good farmers secure 40 to 50 bushels of oats, and 2 to 2¹⁄₂
tons of hay, and in propitious years 50 to 60 bushels of oats and 3 tons
of hay per acre. (Compare Figs. 1 and 2.) These latter yields always
show large profits and lead to a competency, while the average yield
usually gives no profit. If the average yield gives only a bare
subsistence, what must be the condition of those who secure much less
than the average? If one man raises 35 bushels of wheat, five other men
must each raise 10 bushels to secure an average yield of 14 bushels per
acre. Some entire states--as, for instance, Mississippi, North Carolina
and Tennessee,--have an average of 6, 6 and 9 bushels, respectively, per
acre. What is the remedy? Stop raising wheat, and raise something better
adapted to soil and climate, or go to town and sell peanuts. Some of
these men who utterly fail to comprehend the laws of wheat culture may
be good “coon dogs,” after all.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Thirty-five-bushel wheat field (Cornell
University).]
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Eight-bushel wheat field, on a farm adjoining
that shown in Fig. 1.]
It will be said that if the yield per acre be doubled, the market will
be so flooded that no one will receive profits. This is the old
scarecrow. No farmer can control the prices of his product. The law of
supply and demand is inexorable. What he may do is to improve quality,
diminish cost, reduce area, find the best market and the products most
sought, and increase the production from a given area. If he raises the
yield from 20 to 35 bushels, while the yield of his neighbor remains at
10 bushels and prices remain low, we shall soon see a fine illustration
of “the survival of the fittest.” The 35 bushels will yield a fair
remuneration for the work expended in production when prices are at the
lowest. When they are high the profits are 200 to 300 per cent. Wheat,
for the last ten years, has averaged 84 cents per bushel in June in
central New York. Allow $3 for the straw of the lower yield, and if the
wheat was sold at the average price, the total income per acre would be
$11.40. For the straw of the larger yield allow $6, which, added to the
wheat at the average price, would give a gross income per acre of
$35.40.
The cost of raising and marketing an acre of wheat, including $5 for
rental of land and $2 for fertilizers, may be set down at from $15 to
$20 in New York. If the most successful compels the less successful
farmer to stop raising wheat at a loss, what will the latter do with his
land? Better give it away than lose by farming it. Better abandon the
farm and go to town and set up a second-hand clothing store. There is
always at least a small profit in that business.
In central New York a large herd of dairy cows was tested, and the owner
of the herd was informed that about one-fourth of his cows were quite
profitable, one-half paid their board bill and a little more, and
one-fourth were kept at a considerable loss. He was advised to dispose
of the unprofitable cows. His answer was, “But what will I do for cows?”
Then, to secure a competence, the crops and the land which uniformly
produce loss must be abandoned. How it worries the city penny-a-liner
and how it rejoices the successful farmer to see land thrown out of
cultivation--“abandoned.” To me nothing is so encouraging in agriculture
as this lately acquired knowledge which reveals the fact that vast areas
have been cleared and brought under cultivation which should have been
left undisturbed, except to harvest the mature trees and protect the
young plants from ravages of fire and cattle. As the blackberry bushes,
year by year, creep down the steep hillsides and over the rock-covered
fields, one rejoices at the pioneer work these modest, hardy, tap-rooted
plants are accomplishing. How wisely and well they fit the soil for a
higher and more noble class of plants, and how surely in time they cover
the shame and nakedness of mother earth!
The rural population has made many serious mistakes, toiling to reclaim
land which was not worth reclaiming, not worthy of an intelligent
farmer. But how could they know better? 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.
Quantity of farm products we have in abundance; better quality is what
is wanted, since quality may improve prices and widen markets. To assist
in securing a competence some specialization is advisable. Sometimes
this has been carried so far as to work serious disaster. Many farms in
western New York have been almost exclusively devoted to the raising of
grapes, which, when abundant or moderately so, sold at ruinous prices.
It is noticed that where only an eighth or a fourth of the farm was
devoted to vines, the yield was not only proportionately larger but the
quality better than where nearly all the land was used as a vineyard.
Wherever diversified agriculture was carried on to a limited extent and
plantations were restricted, the low price of grapes made no serious
inroads on the income. Where all the land was given up to grapes, work
was intermittent, the farmer being overtasked at one season of the year
and idle at another. The demoralizing effect on the farmers and their
families of this army of unrestrained youths and loungers of the city,
which, for a brief period, swarms in the districts devoted to
specialized crops, as grapes, berries and hops, is marked.
The baleful result of raising a single or few products in extended
districts may be seen in California and the great wheat districts of the
northwest. In such localities there is little or no true home life, with
its duties and restraints; men and boys are herded together like cattle,
sleep where they may, and subsist as best they can. The work is hard,
and from sun to sun for two or three months, when it abruptly ceases,
and the workmen are left to find employment as best they may, or adopt
the life and habits of the professional tramp. It is difficult to name
anything more demoralizing to men, and especially to boys, than
intermittent labor; and the higher the wages paid and the shorter the
period of service, the more demoralizing the effect. If there were no
other reason for practicing a somewhat diversified agriculture, the
welfare of the workman and his family should form a sufficient one.
Happily, many large and demoralizing wheat ranches are being divided
into small farms, upon which are being reared the roof-tree, children,
fruits and flowers.
To secure a competence, no more activities should be entered into than
can be prosecuted with vigor and at a profit. On the other hand, too few
activities tend to stagnation and degeneration. Mental power, like many
other things, increases with legitimate use and diminishes with disuse.
The farmer who simply raises and sells maize is often poor in pocket and
deficient in understanding. The college graduate who attempts but a few
easy things seldom becomes a ripe scholar.
To secure a competence, the petty outgoes should be met by weekly
receipts from petty products. I have known so many farmers to succeed by
specializing moderately along one or two lines, while holding on to
diversified agriculture, in part at least, that I am tempted to give a
single illustration as a sample of thousands which have come under my
notice.
A Scotchman and his family of four little children landed in northern
Indiana with three to four hundred dollars; to this was added as much
more by day labor. A farm of about one hundred and fifty acres was
purchased, one hundred acres of which were adapted to wheat, corn and
clover. Thirty acres were marshy pasture land; the balance, timber.
Wheat was selected as the great income crop, which was supplemented by
the sale of one to three horses yearly. The butter from a dozen cows,
the chickens, ducks, and their eggs, were taken to the city once each
week. The result was that at the end of the year there were no debts of
subsistence to be paid. This left all the money received for the wheat
and horses to be applied towards liquidating the mortgage. In a few
years a large, comfortable house was built. This was followed by the
purchase of another farm, and still another, until each child was
provided with a home and facilities for securing a modest income. This
shrewd Scotchman succeeded because he neglected neither little nor great
things.
With what pride the writer, in 1863, deposited $1,700 in bank, the
product of a single wool crop!--and the little farm of one hundred and
twenty acres was not all devoted to wool-raising. If a young man can
secure a loving, helpful wife, four good cows and enough land to produce
feed for them, with room left for an ample garden, a berry patch and a
small orchard, he may consider himself rich, and if he be able and
intelligent he will soon have a competence.
The farmer, of necessity, goes to the city or village once each week for
supplies which cannot well be produced on the farm. He should return, if
possible, with more money than he had when he left home. It is not the
big mortgage which was given for part of the purchase price of the farm
which should make him unhappy, but the steadily increasing little
charges accumulating on the tradesmen’s ledgers until this “honest”
farmer dreads to meet a score of his town acquaintances.
The farmer who, from his well-painted covered democrat wagon, sells the
product of his skill and labor looks to me quite as dignified as does
the merchant who sells nails and codfish, turpentine and bobbins, patent
medicines and jews’-harps, none of which represents his own skill or
labor.
Farming will never be carried on in America by trusts or syndicates. A
combine can run fifty nail factories or breweries, but not fifty farms,
at a profit, because farming is too difficult, requires too close
supervision and frequent change of details and combinations, and new
plans to meet the ever-changing conditions of climate and soil. The
conditions which surround agriculture in America put a quietus forever
on “bonanza farming,” and tend to the rearing of ideal homes and the
accumulation of modest incomes. Mining-farming on virgin, fertile,
unobstructed areas can be successfully prosecuted only for a time.
“The Red river valley native soils contain from .35 to .40 of nitrogen,
while the soils which have been under cultivation (in wheat) for twelve
to fifteen years contain from .2 to .3 of a per cent.”[1] Another
important point: When humus is taken out of the native soil as above,
only .02 of a per cent of the phosphoric acid is soluble by ordinary
chemical methods, while in the native soil three or four times as much
phosphoric acid is soluble and is associated with the humus. Allowing
that an acre of soil one foot deep weighs 1,800 tons, the native soil
would contain from 12,600 to 14,400 pounds of nitrogen per acre, while
the cultivated soil would contain from 7,200 to 10,800 pounds per acre.
If the average amount of nitrogen in native soils (13,500 pounds per
acre), and the average in the soil after it had been cropped twelve to
fifteen years (9,000 pounds per acre), are compared, it will be seen
that the soil has lost 4,500 pounds of nitrogen per acre, or more than
one-third (probably one-half) of the nitrogen which could well be made
available, and this in less than a quarter of a century.
[1] Henry Snyder, Bulls. 30, 44, Minn. Exp. Sta. See “Fertility of the
Land,” p. 256.
Fifteen crops of wheat of 25 bushels per acre require 433 pounds of
nitrogen, or one-tenth of the amount which the soil lost during the
years of cropping. This soil, under “bonanza farming,” has lost outright
nitrogen sufficient for 155 crops, each requiring as much nitrogen as
does a crop of 25 bushels of wheat per acre. When the amount wasted on a
single acre is multiplied by the acres of the vast, fertile wheat plains
of the west, where “bonanza farming” is carried on, the loss of nitrogen
to our country is seen to be so great as to appal the thoughtful man who
looks forward to the generations who will want this element in the not
distant future. Happily, this “bonanza farming” has its own cure. When
mining-farming reduces the yield so that profits vanish, then these
great farms will be cut up into modest-sized ones, true homes will rise,
intermittent labor and the tramp harvest-hand will disappear, and the
last and only condition which tends to produce an uninstructed peasant
class will cease to exist.
The other great “bonanza” industry which still remains and which affects
agriculture, and the land directly, is lumbering. This, like “bonanza”
wheat farming, may be classed as a mining industry, carried on at the
surface instead of in the bowels of the earth. Without rational
direction, restraint or control, this agricultural mining goes on until
the sources from which the profits are drawn are so depleted as to be no
longer profitable. There is no home or competency for the farm boys in
the lumber camp or on the great wheat farm. Here the rule is to
take all and return nothing. After the ax and the binder, comes the
fire to complete the wanton destruction. The shade-giving and
moisture-conserving brush, stubble and straw, and all living plants, are
destroyed, and nothing but the mineral matter, unmixed with surface
humus, remains. A blackened waste, devoid of animal or vegetable life,
is left behind. No homes can be reared here, no competence secured until
nature, assisted by man in the coming years, slowly restores the
covering and productivity of the soil. This unwise treatment of the land
must soon come to an end; then the hardy home-builder will have
opportunity to repair, by more rational methods, some of the wanton and
unnecessary waste.
Is it too much to hope that before the close of another decade every
state and territory will have a school of forestry, and that all
national forest domains will have been brought under rational
supervision and control? The future home-builders will need them, and
the present owners of homes have a right to a share of the benefits
which flow from intelligently managed forest preserves. It is not enough
to show that intelligent farming is highly remunerative at the present
time; provision must be made by which the children and the children’s
children, for all generations, may have opportunity for securing a
competence from rural pursuits.
Can a competence and a comfortable home be secured by the renter? If
not, why not? Shall the farmer put his little capital into a home and
run in debt for supplies and necessary equipment; or had he better rent,
and start even? This depends to a large extent upon the individual. A
successful country life does not depend upon owning the land in fee
simple. Here is a picture of what may be called “a country gentleman”
(Fig. 3). He, his father and his grandfather, all have been renters of
the same farm. He has a competence and an assured income. This hue and
cry about renting has no terrors for those who have been renters and
have found that this is often the most satisfactory way to start when
capital is limited. The merchant of limited means invariably rents the
building in which he does business, because it is safer and usually more
economical to rent than to purchase the business block.
[Illustration: Fig. 3. A farmer and a renter.]
In an old city of 12,000 inhabitants, it was found that 84 per cent of
the business was carried on in rented rooms. The trouble in renting
farms in the United States lies chiefly in the fact that there are no
well digested laws or old customs which help to guide the renter and
rentee. A few simple laws would provide for adjusting the value of
betterments removed from or put upon the farm at any time. Long leases,
with inducements to long occupancy, would give the rentee a permanent
occupier. The renter has quite as good a chance of finally securing a
home in fee simple as has the man who purchases and mortgages heavily.
The possession of a valuable farm and an assured income, especially in a
new country, is often most surely and easily secured by renting for a
series of years. Good farming pays liberal profits even on rented land.
If there is failure, it is the man and not the occupation which causes
it. The fault will not be “in the moon,” but in ourselves if we fail or
become underlings.
CHAPTER III
_EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY ON THE FARM_
More and more we are coming to believe that the rural district schools
offer but few opportunities for educating the farmers’ children. Various
schemes have been recommended for providing better and more convenient
educational facilities. One proposition is first to improve the
principal highways. This, it is thought, will make it possible to run
’buses or carriages twice daily to transport the children to and from
some centrally located graded school. Such schemes are usually proposed
by some one who has seldom seen a country school-house and who is
totally unacquainted with the conditions which prevail in rural
communities.
Admitting, for the sake of comparison, that teacher and pupil in the
country are not so far advanced in book-lore as they are in the city,
how does it happen that the country youths are able to maintain
themselves on an educational level with the pupils of the graded schools
when they meet them in the academy and college? Is it not quite possible
that the wide opportunities enjoyed by the country youth for becoming
acquainted with natural objects of use and beauty are a full offset, so
far as training is concerned, for the more systematic instruction given
in the city schools?
I can but look with some degree of solicitude on the effect on
civilization and on the home, of palatial hotels, and great school
buildings, filled with heterogeneous masses of children, in which love,
solicitude and sacrifices, each for all, have little opportunity for
growth and development. The family seems to be the sacred unit of
civilization and morality. A full and sufficient reason must be given
for massing men, much more children, in a single great structure,
thereby destroying the quiet and breaking the sacred ties of the home.
What good reasons can be offered for massing children between the ages
of six and twelve in an uncomfortable school-room? Children do not
study; they learn little except when they read the lesson in the
immediate presence of the teacher who is able to amplify and explain the
lesson in hand. Sending these little ones to school is a relic of the
primeval days, when, by reason of large families, lack of training and
excessive toil of the parents, there was no other way but to make
nursery maids of the school-teachers.
I have a vivid recollection of those early days when I was crowded into
a 16 × 20 school-house, with two score other bounding, mischievous
urchins, all seated on the hard side of unbacked, long-legged slab
benches, which left our bare legs, for which the flies had a liking, to
dangle between heaven and earth. True, all this has now been improved,
and good and appropriate seats are usually provided, but this only
ameliorates the conditions; it does not cure them. If the parents who
have lost something of their first love for their children, or who are
too lazy or careless or ignorant to teach them, will go to these
patent-seated school-rooms and sit for five mortal hours on one of these
hard, wooden, uncushioned seats, they will no longer place their tender
children in these modernized stocks. You who no longer have the hot
blood and restless nervous energy of youth make long faces and complain
bitterly from your well cushioned pew, if the over-earnest pastor
prolongs his sermon ten minutes beyond the customary time. It may be
said that many, nevertheless, secured a primary education under these
unfavorable conditions. But I did not; I received it at my mother’s knee
in the old kitchen, some of it before daylight. About all I got in that
old school-house were kicks and cuffs from boys who were older and
stronger than I, and round shoulders from sitting through many weary
hours on backless benches, and blistered hands in punishment for my
unrestrained interest in things in general, and in my school-mates in
particular.
But what has all this to do with the opportunities which a farm life
gives for education? It is to emphasize the need of more home training,
more personal attention by the parents, and a more natural and rational
education of those whom it has been our responsibility to bring into
existence, and upon whose shoulders will rest the weal or woe of our
country. In these rural homes, children should be reared and educated
until they have reached the point beyond which their parents or the
older children cannot carry them. The child, when only two or three
years old, begins to learn handicraft, performs some little helpful act
for another; it is being taught to work. As it becomes more mature it is
to do useful things; but who thinks of keeping the child of eight to ten
years of age at continuous work for five or six hours daily? Why not
carry on the child’s mental education along these natural lines in the
same manner as it receives its primary technical education?
I am almost persuaded that the farmers’ children would be better off if
the old red school-house on the dusty, treeless four corners was
abandoned, and the responsibility for the education of the children up
to twelve or fourteen years of age was thrown upon the parents. As it
is, the parents who have received a fairly good primary education become
rusty and illiterate simply from non-use of the education which they had
when they left the schools. If the unexcelled opportunities which rural
life offers for securing a primary education were only utilized, there
would be fewer country youths hating even the sight of that red
school-house which has received such honorable mention. It has been
glorified in every Fourth of July oration, but it still remains not only
unevolutionized but even degenerated.
If you ever imagined that the best provision has been made for teaching
the little ones, spend a day in one of these school-houses. Take some
book with you that is as abstract and useless to you as the children
believe their books to be to them, and make the attempt to memorize a
single page, or essay to write a composition on “The Immortality of the
Soul,” or on “The Wisdom of Annexing the South Sea Islands.” Meantime,
classes are reciting in falsetto voices; the teacher is giving many
admonitions and making dire threats; a festive bumblebee has found its
way through the open window and makes as much commotion among the timid
girls as a mouse at a tea-party. Now a dog barks, and the boys know
that Bowser has safely treed a squirrel. Before you have had time to
collect your thoughts a lusty farm boy, perched on a creaking wain,
whooping loudly to his team, goes rattling by. Stay a week and finish
your composition, and see how fast your children are securing disjointed
fractions of an education. A half-hour of continuous, quiet, intensified
study at home is worth more than a day in many a school-room where
little muddy driblets of knowledge are being doled out to the children.
You may say that you have no time to teach children. Business is too
pressing, and you are already overworked. You should have thought of
that sooner, and been wholly selfish and saved the money and time you
spent to persuade that beautiful maiden to join you and help perform the
duties and functions of life.
You will certainly agree that home education is the best, the ideal
education. For a child, an hour or two of study and recreation a day, an
equal time employed in useful work, and the rest of the day spent in
picking up fun and facts, both of which may be found in abundance on the
old farm, is the natural way to secure a broad primary foundation, upon
which to rest a liberal education.
After the child has reached the age of ten or twelve and has had careful
home training, what provision can be made for continuing its education
during the next four to six years? Two or more districts might be joined
to form one, for graded school purposes. On every farm is, or should be,
a spare horse and a light wagon; a few dollars would provide a stable
near the school building. Such an arrangement would permit the children
to drive to and from the central school, although the distance might be
two or three miles. All this means that the children will be around the
family fireside in the evening instead of on the street, as is too
frequently the case when they are sent to the village or city school and
remain during the week. All this keeps the boys and girls in sympathy
and healthful touch with home life and their parents, until character
has been strengthened by age and knowledge. Here, in these country and
village graded schools, the home life, with its restraints and duties,
is preserved. Only the mentally strong or the courageous and aspiring
will seek the halls of higher learning, from which, if they tend to go
astray or neglect their work, they are quickly returned to the bosom of
their families. If the central graded school is impracticable in some
cases, then a few families might join and employ a private instructor;
this would be far cheaper and more satisfactory than to send the
children away from home.
It is not so much lack of facilities as a lack of an appreciation of the
true value of an education which debars the country youth from securing
even a wholesome and logical primary education. The value of an
education for citizenship must be placed first, and its value as a
money-making power second. Now the first question that is usually asked
is, Will an education help to secure a position or to make money? The
question, Will an education help to a nobler citizenship? is not even
thought of. We shall have no evolution in rural training until the
parents secure a clearer conception of the true value of an education.
Evolution along educational lines has already begun, and it is not
difficult to see many beneficial effects of the changed methods. M.
Demolins’ recent book has this to say: “‘It is useless to deny the
superiority of the Anglo-Saxons. We may be vexed by this superiority,
but the fact remains, despite our vexation.’... Considering the
superiority conclusively proved, the author proceeds to search for the
cause of this superiority. He finds the secret of this irresistible
power of the Anglo-Saxon world in the education of its youth, in the
direction given to studies, to the spirit which reigns in the school.
The English and the people of the United States have perceived that the
needs of the time require that youth should be trained to become
practical, energetic men, and not public functionaries or pure men of
letters, who know life only from what they learn in books. M. Demolins
has personally studied with care some prominent English schools. In
these he found the school buildings, not as in France, immense
structures with the aspect of a barrack or a prison, but the pupils were
distributed among cottages, in which efforts were made to give the place
the appearance of a home. They were not surrounded by high walls, but
there was an abundance of air and light and space and verdure. In place
of the odious refectories of the French colleges, the dining-room was
like that of a family, and the professors and director of the school,
with his wife and daughters, sat at table with the pupils.”[2]
[2] Editorial, “Literary Digest,” July 2, 1898.
Here is seen the beginning of better methods in primary education. In
the rural districts of America, this system needs but little
modification to fit it to the rural home. All else must yield to the
inborn rights of the children. If that Brussels carpet which adorns the
dark and unused parlor must be pulled up and some of the worst pictures
relegated to the garret, in order that provision for a school-room for
the children of the family or for those of the immediate neighborhood
may be made, then pull it up. Receive the visitor in the sitting-room
or on the veranda, and let the neighborly chat be where there is “air,
and light, and space, and verdure.”
Reduce the above picture of an English school to suit environment, and
we have the family as a unit; the mother and her companion as teachers;
and we shall have not only the appearance of home, but a true home,
where duty commands and love obeys. This is no far-fetched picture; it
is one drawn from many observed instances of these farm home schools.
The youths on the farm have a right to a liberal education if they
desire it; they own the earth, and why should they not have the best it
affords if they make good use of what the earth and all that therein is
has to offer.
When we come to the higher education, there are good and sufficient
reasons why pupils should be massed. At the college, expensive and rare
appliances, great laboratories and museums, ample and expensive
libraries, and distinguished and able teachers, must be provided. Then,
too, the pupils of the college have arrived at that period of maturity
which gives them a fair degree of self-restraint and discretion.
Connected, as I have been for more than a quarter of a century, with
college life, I have had many opportunities to observe the freshness,
vigor and purity of many of the country lads and lasses who come
directly from the healthy, solid home instruction of their parents.
I am well aware that this chapter will not revolutionize rural primary
education. I do not want it to do so. Revolution destroys; evolution
builds. But if these brief words of one who received until near manhood
the thoughtful, loving home training of a mother, who said, “I received
a better education than my parents did, and, come what will, I determine
that my children shall have better opportunities for securing an
education than I had,” shall persuade some that the farm home is the
natural, the appointed place for training children until they have
passed the critical mental and physical period of life, I shall be
content.
CHAPTER IV
_SELECTION AND PURCHASE OF FARMS_
In selecting a farm, many things should be considered. 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; therefore, such choice should be made as will most
fully meet the desires and tastes of the purchaser.
Some farms are purchased with little or no thought of their producing a
livelihood, while others are selected largely for the purpose of
securing profits in their cultivation, and others are bought because
they are expected to furnish safe and profitable investments. It is
evident that no specific or even general rule can be formulated which
will be applicable to all purchasers, since tastes, training, needs and
desires of the purchaser vary widely; nevertheless, a discussion of the
subject may be profitable. Those who secure their income and profits by
agriculture alone should lay stress on four things; viz., healthfulness,
environment, quality of land, and water supply.
Without health, life often becomes a burden; therefore, climatic
conditions, soil and surroundings, so far as they relate to physical and
mental vigor, should be considered first. But health and vigor are not
all, for if the moral, intellectual and social conditions of the people
in the neighborhood are undesirable, the children may take the road
which leads towards semi-barbarism. This road is open to all, in city
and country, but parents should avoid thrusting their children into it.
Church, and social congenial and God-fearing associates should be
accessible to the growing family. Children are and must be active,
physically and mentally, if they are to grow straight; and if provisions
are not made for directing their energies into proper channels, they are
likely to find improper ones. Wherever the farmer sows not a full
abundance of good seeds, weeds are certain to spring up. The farm must
provide a fair and liberal income, because want brings lack of true
pride, breeds carelessness, even hatred of others, filches self-respect
and courage. Therefore, if profits are desired, good land, land of wide
agricultural capabilities, should be selected. The greater variety of
crops the land is capable of producing and the more varieties the farmer
raises, provided he does not exceed his mental and executive
capabilities, the better will be his education and training.
Frequently the purchaser has too little means, and feels that he must
secure cheap lands, which too often are situated far from the railway
markets and centers of activity. In such a case, he places himself
outside the activities of the towns, which are extremely helpful to him
if he be wise enough to choose the good and refuse the evil which they
offer. Of course, much depends on the good sense of the parents and the
inheritance and training of the children as to how much they will imbibe
of that which is good and how much they will refuse of that which is
evil. Children cannot be placed entirely beyond evil influences, but
they can be prevented from becoming too familiar with them.
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
Already something has been said with regard to an abundant supply of
water, but it may not be out of place to emphasize the necessity of
securing healthful water for household purposes. Modern science has
revealed the fact that a large number of diseases are introduced into
the system by means of drinking water (see Chapter XII). All drinking
water may be boiled; it may be said that it should be, for in too many
cases water that appears limpid and pure, drawn from sources which have
every appearance of being uncontaminated, is not only dangerous but
sometimes deadly. Careful physicians recommend that all water be
filtered, but so many of the filters are imperfect and are so badly
neglected that there is no certainty that filtered water is entirely
safe; therefore, it may be said that the only safe way is to boil all
drinking water. As the streams and soil become more and more
contaminated by unsanitary conditions, it is only in rare cases that
safe water can be secured naturally. When wells or streams become low,
or when streams are quickly flushed by heavy rains, invariably there is
danger that the water which they contain may be impure. Care should be
taken to provide an abundance of water, and that used for household
purposes should be treated in such manner as will make it entirely
healthful.
Having discussed the subject from four leading standpoints, those of
less importance may be taken up. It is usually not wise to purchase a
farm, however well it may fulfil the requirements of healthfulness,
desirable environment and productivity, if the lands by which it is
surrounded are poor, since man, in one respect, is like the tree toad,
which partakes largely of the color of the thing to which it adheres.
The French have a proverb which runs in this wise: “Tell me where you
live, and I will tell you your name.” Translated into modern thought, it
would read: “Tell me your environment, and I will tell you your
character.”
Beauty of natural scenery may not be entirely ignored, although utility,
the dollar, must be kept prominently in view. One can afford to
economize in the living expenses in many ways not dreamed of by those
who load the farm table with a superabundance of good things, if it be
necessary to do so, to secure beautiful surroundings. It may be only a
question of choice between a moderate subsistence and a reposeful
environment, or an overloaded table with uninspiring surroundings.
Natural as well as artificial beauty and pleasurable environment have
their values. A certain lot on one street sells for $1,000, another one
on the same street for $500. They are both within easy reach of the
business center, on the same street-car line, of the same size, and have
the same elevation. Why the difference in price? Because of environment.
A seat in the dress circle at the theater costs a dollar, one in the
peanut gallery ten cents. The play can be seen as well with a glass in
the cheap seat as in the more expensive one. Then environment has value,
as well as land and buildings.
The value of the farm may be greatly modified by the improvements upon
it. It is well to ask, Is the house well located? May it not have to be
virtually rebuilt before it is at all satisfactory? Will it be necessary
to move and repair barns before they are at all suited to their
purposes? The improvements may be too extended for the needs of the
purchaser. Some farms are overloaded with buildings (Fig. 4); some have
badly arranged, unsightly buildings, too good to destroy and too ugly
and unhandy for either economy or pleasure. Farm buildings are not a
direct source of income and are expensive to keep in repair; therefore,
there would better be a slight deficiency of them than an ill arranged
surplus. All other permanent improvements, such as orchards,
plantations, fences, and the like, should be carefully considered. A
good bearing orchard of only a few acres may serve to furnish enough
profit each year to liquidate taxes and interest charges. The orchard
may be cheaper at $500 per acre than the balance of the farm is at $75
per acre, or it may be only an incumbrance of good land. Is the farm
naturally or artificially drained? If not, will $35 per acre have to be
spent in thorough draining before the land is really satisfactory? 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 well as the amount,
kind and location of timber, should be considered.
[Illustration: 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. Then land which can be
tilled early (warm or sandy land), though it may contain a comparatively
small amount of natural plant-food, will be more satisfactory than rich,
cold land situated farther from the market. An acre of poor, sandy land
near the market may be worth, to the gardener, three or four times as
much as an acre of the more distant fertile upland.
Near the town, manures, which are so necessary to force many
market-garden products, can be procured cheaply and in abundance. The
added distance of even one or two miles from the switch or shipping
station may have an important effect on profits. Land situated far from
market may well be devoted to stock-raising and such other products as
may be marketed infrequently or at leisure. As yet, agricultural methods
in America are so new that they have not adjusted themselves to the
growing cities, nor have specialized crops found their appropriate
localities. Too often are seen truck farms located half a score of
miles from the city, and the meat-producing farms within sight of it. As
the country becomes older, the varied activities in agriculture will fit
themselves into their appropriate localities, as they have already done
in many parts of Europe. The dairyman of the Channel islands has long
since learned that the piebald cattle of the poulders are not suited to
his wants, and the boer of the lowland knows that the meek-eyed,
thin-skinned Jersey is not best adapted to his cold, windy country and
wet pastures.
Cost of tillage should be considered when valuing land. When produced on
friable land, crops may be secured at much less cost than on tenacious
clay. On the other hand, while sandy soils are the most easily
cultivated, they are ever demanding more plant-food, and hence are not
well adapted to grass or general agriculture, as the expense of keeping
them productive is usually so great as to preclude profits.
Except in special cases, as in truck farming, it is cheaper to purchase
natural plant-food in the soil than artificial fertility. One acre of
land may have potential plant-food sufficient under superior tillage for
one hundred crops, while another unaided will yield but half as many,
and yet the two pieces of land are often priced at the same figure. In
other words, land of high productive power is usually cheaper than land
of low productive power. A good farm may be cheaper at $50 per acre than
a poor one as a gift.
Last, but not least, is the road to the farm. Every free-born American
demands a public highway in front of his house; if farms are small there
must then be a highway about every mile, or, at most, every two miles.
This leads to cutting up the country into enlarged checkerboards, to a
multiplication of highways so great that none of them can be kept
passably good without overtaxing the land which adjoins them. On account
of the contour of the land over which they pass, some roads are
extremely difficult and are well described by the man who, when asked
how far it was from a certain town to another one, answered: “Thirty
miles, and it’s up hill both ways.” As I write this I look out upon a
washed clay road which stretches up and on towards the horizon for six
weary miles, so steep that the team must maintain a walk for the whole
distance in ascending or descending. What is land worth at the other end
of this road, as compared with that which lies six miles away in the
other direction, along a smooth, level pike? Every grown farm boy should
have a good horse and a good road upon which to drive, if he be worthy
of such a noble animal as the horse. When he starts for himself let him
locate on a good road. There are always enough persons who are not
thankful for advice, especially if it be in a book, who are looking for
cheap land at the end of the hilly road.
Many farms are purchased by young men just starting out in life before
judgment has been developed by experience, while men of mature years
take in the whole problem, or rather series of problems, easily and at
once. The novice would do well to make a list of the topics enumerated
above, and add to them such others as appeal to his tastes or conditions
and then study them, one at a time; in fact, there is nothing left for
the young man to do but to make out a score-card upon which he records
his judgment in numbers as he investigates each phase of the difficult
problem of selecting a farm.
CHAPTER V
_THE RELATION OF THE FARMER TO THE LAWYER_
Doubtless more than one reader will be astonished, perhaps even
horrified, to think that the writer should seriously suggest that there
ought to be any relation whatever between the farmer and the lawyer.
It has come to be generally believed by many farmers that lawyers are at
best a necessary evil, which it is well to avoid if possible; but,
strange as it may appear, this very feeling is responsible for much of
the litigation, with its attendant loss and sometimes ruin, in which too
many farmers have been engaged. It is not the purpose of this short
chapter to treat of the subject of law, or to try to lay down any rules
to be blindly followed in legal matters. An old and learned lawyer, who
had all his life been engaged in a country practice, once told me that
the most prolific sources of litigation were alleged text-books of law,
bearing such alluring and seductive titles as “Every Man his own
Lawyer,” or “The Farmer’s own Law Book.”
Several years ago, a wealthy manufacturer of the state of New York sent
a bright son to a law school, to help prepare him for a business career.
At the end of his course the proud father was present at commencement,
and, in the course of conversation with his son, said: “Well, John, I
suppose you have learned a great deal.” John answered, “I have learned
one thing which I think is of value; and that is, if any legal matter
comes up in the course of my business, to consult the very best lawyer I
can find.” That young man had really learned something worth far more
than the cost of his course in the college of law.
There is, perhaps, no other of the so-called learned professions which
is so exacting and which requires more devotion and study for its
mastery. Some of the brightest men in this country have devoted a
lifetime to the study and practice of law, only to have just entered its
broad field as they have been compelled to lay down their work. How
futile, then, would be the attempt to make every man his own lawyer! The
real purpose of this chapter is to open the eyes of the farmer to the
necessity of a closer relationship between himself and the lawyer,--the
family lawyer, if you please, having his confidence to the same extent
as that of the family doctor.
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. Too many times he is satisfied with the services of the
village solons,--the shoemaker who is a notary public, the justice of
the peace, or the pettifogger who daily overrules the supreme court or
the court of appeals. Years after he has purchased his farm, he finds,
perhaps, that some man has given a deed whose wife has not signed, and
upon the death of the woman’s husband our farmer friend is confronted
with a law suit; and he finds that this wife, who did not sign the deed,
is entitled to dower in his farm, the use of one-third of its value at
the time her husband gave the deed, for life. Such cases are frequent,
and might easily be prevented by submitting an abstract of the title to
a lawyer at a cost of $5 or less. The flaw in the title may be a
mortgage or judgment, or a failure of all the heirs of a deceased
person, somewhere along the chain of title, to join in the deed; all of
which might be overlooked by the ordinary business man, and yet be
readily detected by a lawyer.
Some day the farmer may be annoyed by the encroachment of a neighbor
upon his farm, and, when in the midst of a litigation, find that the
description of his farm is so defective that there is no relief. I have
in my possession a deed of a valuable farm containing this description:
“Beginning on the ---- road at the south end of a pile of four-foot
wood; running thence westwardly to a black cherry tree, thence northerly
to a stake, thence easterly to a pine stump in the center of the road,
and thence southerly to the place of beginning, containing 100 acres,
more or less.” For fifty years this description has been copied, a score
of times, by the various justices of the peace and notaries public of
the neighboring hamlet, but fortunately, however, it has never devolved
upon the owners to establish the boundaries of that farm. The first
lawyer who got hold of this particular deed insisted upon such a
description as would be tangible and certain. Not many years ago a
mortgage on a valuable farm in Tompkins county, N. Y., was foreclosed,
and during the foreclosure it was discovered that this mortgage covered
about fifty acres of Cayuga lake, and what had been supposed to be a
valuable mortgage was depreciated one-half by reason of the neglect and
incompetence of the country conveyancer.
So, too, there are questions as to line fences, water courses, rights of
way, encroachment upon the highway, and an innumerable train of
threatening evils, continually arising, any one of which, if neglected
or referred to the many wiseacres common to every community, may lead to
costly litigation, or even to the loss of the farm itself. A bit of
counsel at the right time, which is when the matter first appears, will
prevent, at trifling cost, all the attendant evils of a law suit.
Such instances are very common in the experience of every lawyer who
enjoys even a moderate country practice; and it is an alarming fact that
perhaps fifty per cent of the titles to all the farms, especially in the
older states, have flaws more or less serious, any one of which is a
microbe of trouble, liable to assert itself when least expected. This
being so, the general and inflexible rule should ever prevail, never to
take a deed of property without an abstract of title which has been
examined by a competent attorney. The so-called maxims of law, often
repeated and distorted, especially in farming communities, are extremely
dangerous to follow. They may have some foundation in fact, but as
almost all rules of law have their exceptions, and as no one not versed
in the law is competent to pass upon them, they should never be blindly
followed by a layman.
To illustrate this point: Not long ago a prosperous farmer, relying upon
the oft-repeated assertion that twenty years of peaceable possession
gave title, became involved in a lawsuit with the town over a fence
which had been built in the highway adjacent to his farm. He was an
astonished man when the lawyer whom he consulted told him that
possession for a thousand years of the land claimed would not give him
title as against the public.
It seems almost incredible that a farmer, who will drive his horse for
miles to have him shod by an expert, or who will summon a veterinarian
to treat a sick cow, will be satisfied to consult what someone has
brightly termed a necessity lawyer,--because necessity knows no
law,--upon matters affecting his farm, his home, or his competence,
rather than the experienced lawyer. The cow might be replaced for forty
or fifty dollars if a mistake was made, but the farm, the competence,
have cost a lifetime of labor.
Perhaps the most striking example of neglect on the part of the farmer
is in regard to the disposal of the fruits of his life-work. It is true
that anybody can draw a will, and yet the fact that men and women allow
anybody to draw their wills is productive of more fat fees than arise
from any other source. Not long ago an acquaintance, who did not realize
the truth of the old adage that “a little knowledge is a dangerous
thing,” drew his own will, and, being childless, sought to leave his
property to his wife, who had been the partner of his labors in a long
life of toil. The law of the state of New York requires two witnesses to
a will. He procured only one, and upon his death the property, which
husband and wife had with so much toil secured, was for the most part
scattered among distant relatives, almost strangers, because he was
afraid of lawyers and their fees.
In all the varied business which a farmer will meet,--the giving of
notes, mortgages, etc., or, better, the taking of mortgages, bills of
sale, and promissory notes,--it is well to remember that different
conditions of fact make necessary different interpretations of the law,
and that it is usually unsafe to follow a neighborhood precedent.
Oftentimes you may be called upon to transact business where it is not
convenient to consult a lawyer. In such cases, and in all transactions
of any magnitude or possible importance, all talk, or the essence of it,
should be reduced to writing. Then it cannot get away or be distorted
or forgotten, and is in good shape to submit, at the first opportunity,
to your lawyer, who, if an error has been made, can, while the matter is
fresh, more easily correct it. Remember that a contract is simply a
meeting of the minds of the contracting parties, and the best drawn
contract possible is one that states, in language simple and concise,
what each means as expressed by word of mouth.
Most of the litigation so much feared by the farmer is due to the farmer
himself and his neglect to seek an ounce of preventive. It is true that
there are rascally lawyers; so, too, there are dishonest men in every
trade, occupation or profession, but they are generally easily located.
If this chapter shall lead the farmer to feel that his business is
farming, that “a jack-at-all-trades is master of none,” and that the
law, justly interpreted and enforced by those who know it thoroughly and
well, is to be the foundation of his success, the guarantee of his home
through life, and the channel of its proper disposal after death, then
it has not been written in vain. Remember that the province of the true
lawyer is to keep his client out of trouble, rather than to get him out
of trouble. An honest lawyer, of whom, thank Heaven, there are very
many, notwithstanding the popular prejudice of those who have suffered
from litigation, will always try to steer you clear of litigation and
loss.
In conclusion, then, always consult a lawyer in matters affecting your
farm or property. The average fees of a lifetime will not exceed fifty
dollars, and oftentimes valuable advice will be given free. Select one
in whom you have confidence, and stick to him. Become his friend, and
let the relation be one of mutual confidence. Do not neglect to ask him
a question because you fear he will think you dumb; he probably knows
less about farming than you do about law. He will need your advice and
influence in minor matters as much as you need his. Call on him when you
are in town, and he will be glad to see you. Very often he will answer
your question gratis. When he charges you what may seem a large fee,
remember that you are paying for skilled labor, and that you are
entitled to expend as much for the possible welfare and happiness of
your family as you expend upon the choice stock in your stables.
Farmers, more than any other class of men, perhaps, are prone to neglect
legal matters, or place them in incompetent hands.
CHAPTER VI
_LOCATING THE HOUSE_
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.
Life in the country gives one the idea of repose, of strength and
breadth, of largeness, of solidity and durability, of healthy,
symmetrical, solid development. Things which are evanescent, unreal,
shoddy; things which are simply for show or vulgar display; things which
have the appearance of aping that which may be appropriate under
different conditions, but are totally out of place in rural life, must
be avoided if utility, natural beauty and comfort, economy and repose
are to be secured.
The pioneer in the wooded districts built the home in some sequestered
nook or valley at the base of the hill or table land, where the spring
or the stream issued from the wood-covered heights. The rural house of
the pioneer allowed free circulation of the frosty air; the problem of
ventilation they solved without knowing it. Unwittingly they adopted the
correct principle; viz., ventilation by many small, gentle streams of
air instead of by a few large openings, which create dangerous drafts.
It must be admitted that our forefathers overdid the ventilation in most
cases, and rheumatism and chilblains were the result; but the principle
was correct.
Now the spring has dried up, the water from the deforested hills comes
rushing to the lowlands until the streams overflow their banks, and
these and other changed conditions indicate that the future farmsteads
should be erected on higher land, on the slopes of the hills. From the
one extreme we have gone, in some cases, to the other, and the home has
been built on the very apex of some lofty hill. Such locations may be
well adapted for summer residences, where little or no farming is
carried on, but are not suitable for the farm home.
Now that the house is constructed by more skilled workmen than
formerly, and out of better material, there is little need of locating
the home in the sheltered nook, except possibly in the extreme north, or
on plains subject to tornadoes. The object in locating the house on
somewhat elevated lands is fourfold. First, air drainage. In deep,
crooked, narrow valleys the air is pocketed, especially at night, and
the damp, cold air settles in the lowest land as certainly as water
finds the low-lying pool. In these pockets between the hills, frosts
come early and remain late.
While traveling in western North Carolina in the late summer and fall, I
could not but observe how every little break in the hillside and every
narrow valley was filled at sunrise, to the crest of the adjoining hill,
with a dense fog. Slowly the sun, as it approached the zenith,
dissipated the fog, but the narrow valleys were often free from fog for
only a few hours each day. Here the home might be situated well up the
mountain side, as shown at the right in Fig. 5.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. A house in the bottom of the valley and one on
the mountain side.]
In a little pocket about twenty feet deep, formed by hills, with a road
embankment at its mouth, fruits failed, although they flourished on the
adjoining land, where there was good air drainage (Fig. 6). If fruits do
not thrive on these undrained areas, the natural conclusion is that the
children will not. It is found that the upper stories of city buildings
are healthier than the lower ones, and that the ground floor is the most
unhealthy of all. This is the only objection to a one-story house. On
the level prairies little opportunity is offered for locating the house
above the level of the surrounding country. Fortunately, many of the
prairies are undulating, and furnish most beautiful locations for
country homes. Much may be done, even in the level country, to overcome
the disadvantages of the site by placing the cellar of the house only
two or three feet in the ground and grading up to within a short
distance of the top of the wall. A pool or two, or a miniature lake near
the barns, and skilful planting of trees will lend a diversity and charm
well worth the attention and time given to them.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. A frosty pocket.]
A pool may be made by scooping a place in hard earth or by damming a
stream (Fig. 7). If no water is allowed to flow over the dam and it is
raised some two feet above the overflows, it will serve every purpose as
well as an expensive grout or stone structure. It will be noticed in the
picture that provision has been made by digging shallow ditches on the
right and left for carrying off the surplus water when the miniature
lake is full. In constructing the dam, a trench two feet wide, at right
angles to the stream, should be dug to the depth of one foot, or until
solid ground, unmixed with vegetable matter, is reached. Fill the trench
with clayey earth which is free from humus, which will prevent the dam
from leaking at the bottom where it meets the natural soil. The stream
which feeds the lake or pond should be small, and need not be perennial
if the dam is raised as high as it should be. If the water is dammed
back to the depth of twelve to fourteen feet, and the banks of the pond
are rather steep (A, Fig. 7), a cool, useful miniature lake will be
formed, and not an unsightly marsh, during the dry months of summer.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. A useful pond.]
Dryish, gravelly soil and subsoil is to be much preferred as a site for
a house to clayey or dark, damp soil which contains much humus. If the
ideal soil cannot be secured, then thorough drainage should be provided.
In locating on a gentle declivity, there is a constant tendency for
water to penetrate the wall next the hillside or to pass under the wall
and appear in the bottom of the cellar. Unless this can certainly be
prevented, another location had better be selected.
The house should be situated on somewhat elevated ground, to promote
both surface and house drainage. If it is the purpose to introduce into
the house more water than has been furnished heretofore, then full
provision should be made for carrying all waste water and fecal matter
to a safe distance from the house, and to do this beyond a peradventure,
sufficient fall must be secured to give permanency to the work and an
unobstructed outlet.
One of the objections urged against a country home is that it is “too
quiet,” too much shut up from the outside world. This, in part, is true.
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 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.
When visiting the home of the Hon. Edwin Morgan, I found that he was
having three large trees cut down. It seemed to the uninstructed like
vandalism. When asked the reason for sacrificing these noble trees,
nourished and tended for half a century, he answered: “I have many more
trees, but I have but one lake--Cayuga--and I must have vistas through
which I can watch the white sail, the crested waves, the ever-changing
colors of the water as the winds open vistas in the fleecy clouds. I
love the trees not less, but the soft reflection of the moonbeams on the
rippling wave more, and so the trees must give way.”
The outlook from the vine-covered veranda should be broad and extended.
If possible, the hill and dale, the stream and wood, neighbors’ houses
nestled in plantations of trees and shrubs, all should be in sight. As
life advances, I see more and more clearly the effect of that noble
lake, its now boisterous now placid surface of the rippling water which
laved the stony beach. I see its effect on that “tow-headed” lad who at
one time breasted the waves, at another sat dreamily casting pebbles
into the clear expanse, wondering what life had in store, what the
great unknown world offered for the nut-brown, high-tempered, crude
country boy. Then plant the country home where nature in her happiest
moods has showered her richest gifts!
But beauty loses much of its charm where healthy vigor gives not the
power to appreciate and enjoy it. So the house should be located on a
healthy eminence. But it is not easy to find a location which shall
combine convenience, beauty, air and water drainage, and healthfulness
all in the highest degree. In the case of the farmer, convenience as to
carrying on the various operations of the farm and healthfulness are
paramount. Drainage may be artificially improved, vistas opened,
miniature lakes constructed, and surroundings made more beautiful. The
farm and its equipment is the workshop, and must be convenient in all
its appointments, or much energy is spent for naught; health must be
maintained at the highest, or work may become but toil and drudgery.
In locating a house, its relation to the size of the farm, its
productiveness and agricultural capabilities should be considered. In
locating the site, two places should be carefully avoided: First, at the
end of a long lane in the middle of the farm. It may be said that the
buildings form the natural nucleus in and around which the work
centers, and therefore they should be placed near the middle of the
estate. But the work carried on in the fields forms but a small part of
the farmer’s activities. He must ever, in these modern times, be in
touch with the school, the church, the post office, the railway, the
market, and his neighbors. When an infrequent call is made at the end of
this long lane, the children appear like frightened deer as they seek
shelter in the shrubbery or behind the corner of a building, and the
more the inherited timidity and reserve, the wilder they appear.
The other location to be avoided is within a few feet of the highway.
Such locations are only admissible in the city, where land sells by the
square foot. What fortunes are sometimes spent in the city to secure
some amplitude of space between the dusty, noisy street and the
residence! What dignity and repose an ample, well kept house-yard gives
to even a plain, modest house! The effect of the mistake of locating the
house too close to the highway is often accentuated by locating the
barns on the other side and immediately upon the highway, and in front
of the house. The location of the house, as to the highway, should be
governed, in part, by the size and productive power of the farm. If
ample acres and means are available, then the grounds should be ample;
if limited, the grounds should be made to correspond.
In moderate-sized holdings, a clear space of from 100 to 200 feet
between the house and the highway, and width equal to or exceeding the
length, will give room for a few shade trees and an ample grass plat.
The site should be either suited to the house or the house to the site.
Therefore, the character of the proposed house and the site should be
considered at the same time. One location may be suited to a one-story,
another to a two-story house. No location is suited to a
story-and-a-half house.
It may be said that on most farms the house is already located, and has
grouped around it plantations and barns. In many cases it would be
inexpedient to change the site of the house, as this would necessitate
many changes of outbuildings and other permanent improvements. But if a
careful inspection is made of farmsteads, it will appear that many of
the houses are in need of repairs and additions, and that the cost of
making them would be but slightly increased if either the house or the
outbuildings were removed to a more desirable site. In the great
majority of cases, the old barns should be gathered together into one
structure, or into two at most, and adapted to the needs of modern
agriculture (as will be explained in a subsequent chapter). All changes
presuppose well matured plans and long and careful study of problems
which will have to be solved if the location of the house or barn is
changed.
The scope, and particularly the cost, of the changes should be known
approximately before the execution of the plan begins. “For which of
you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down and counteth the cost,
whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply after he hath laid
the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin
to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to
finish.” Far better live in the old house, with its inconveniences, and
get the greatest possible happiness out of the ancient structure, than
to build a new one and cover it with shining paints of many colors and a
mortgage which sticks longer than the paints.
Some of these old farm houses embody many beautiful and reposeful
characteristics, are well located, and need only slight modifications to
make them fit the site as nicely as a bird fits its nest. If thought can
be awakened as to the possibilities of these neglected homes and some
information imparted as to their treatment, or, in other words, if the
eyes and understanding can be trained to take in the fundamental
principles of beauty, dignity, fitness, and repose, we shall soon see
fewer architectural monstrosities. That there are not more is a wonder.
What lad or lass has ever had the slightest instruction by teacher in
rural or city school along the lines of fitness, beauty, and
healthfulness of sites for country homes? The few youths who reach the
institutions of higher learning are scarcely better off. Some of these
are taught to see the beauties and wonders of nature through a
microscope, and, in rare cases, one may be taught to observe the lines
of symmetry and form as exhibited in a poor plaster cast of some
mythological Roman warrior; but as for any instruction which leads
directly to a broad understanding or keen appreciation of nature in her
broader, happier, and grander aspects, it is painfully conspicuous by
its absence. 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?
CHAPTER VII
_PLANNING RURAL BUILDINGS_
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.
Since the farm house as a paying investment is usually a failure, if it
does not supply the wants of the household and fulfil its object, it
becomes a failure indeed. The first great mistake which the prosperous
farmer usually makes is to invest too much money in expensive, hastily
planned buildings. The house should be built to serve its inmates; too
often the inmates become the servants of the house. A farmer’s wife
cannot well afford to devote one room in the overcrowded house to the
storage of expensive, useless upholstery and bric-a-brac, nor time to
keep them presentable and in order.
The debt incurred for a part of the purchase price of the farm forbids
the employment of help to keep in order this home museum of things
useful and beautiful, and things useless and ugly. If plainness,
durability, and natural beauty in parlor, sitting-room and chamber would
only become fashionable, what a burden would be removed from the
shoulders of housewives, both in country and city! The time is at hand
when health and intelligence should count for more among American women
than show and the possession of a miniature upholstery shop. The
furnishings of the rooms should minister to the comfort of their owner,
and not tend to make life burdensome.
Not infrequently farmers of energy and ability become possessed of more
than a competence near the close of life. Having lived in somewhat
restricted circumstances, they think to make the close of life more
comfortable and luxurious. So, notwithstanding the fact that most of the
children have left the paternal roof, they set about building a large
house, tear down or remodel, and add to the outbuildings; and at the
close of life they leave the possessions encumbered and a farm
overloaded with buildings as an inheritance to a child unable, by reason
of youth and inexperience, to secure a competence sufficient to live and
keep up repairs.
A beautiful farm of 180 acres, in central New York, is provided with the
following buildings:
[Illustration: Fig. 8.
The buildings on a 180-acre farm.]
A house, part 2-, and part 1¹⁄₂-story, 110 feet long.
A horse barn, 30 by 80 feet.
A grain barn, 40 by 80 feet.
A straw shed, 20 by 30 feet.
A machinery and husking barn, 20 by 80 feet.
A hay barn, 16 by 30 feet.
A cart shed and chicken house, 20 by 24 feet.
A piggery, 20 by 24 feet.
A corn crib, 12 by 18 feet.
A carriage house, 24 by 32 feet.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. The farm house that is too big for the farm.]
Some of this lay-out is shown in Figures 8, 9, and 10. These buildings
could not have cost less than $15,000. A fair valuation of the farm at
the present time would be $14,000 to $16,000. The family which now
occupies the house consists of man and wife, one child, and two regular
employes, one of whom has his own home. The father overloaded the farm
with buildings, his son is struggling to keep them in repair, and the
wife labors to keep unused rooms presentable. These buildings might well
serve for a section of land and a family of twenty.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Scattered farm buildings.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11. A cosy farm house.]
Another house not far from this one was built nearly a century ago (Fig.
11). If the upper story was a full instead of a half-story, it would
fulfil all the demands of a house, except possibly beauty. It stands on
a rather steep front slope, which stops abruptly on the shore of one of
our beautiful inland lakes (Fig. 12). By reason of the steep incline at
the front of the house, a tall building would be far less beautiful than
this lean-to, severely plain structure. This simple old house has a
restful, almost beautiful appearance when viewed in conjunction with the
trees, the steep, sloping lawn, and the broad, placid lake. The shaded
veranda gives the idea of social repose far more than does the formal,
stiff, restricted one shown in Fig. 9, which has scarcely room for two
easy chairs, and is so constructed that no grateful shade is secured.
Woe be to the man who destroys this restful old house and substitutes
for it a lofty, narrow-waisted one adorned with peaks and spires, bay
windows and a filigree cornice!
[Illustration: Fig. 12. The lake view in front of the house.]
Before ground is broken for the foundation, carefully considered plans
suited to the site, the size and productiveness of the farm, and the
probable income, should have been made. It may be said that the size of
the house should be governed by the size, or the probable size, of the
family. But “it is better to dwell in the corner of the house-top than
in a wide house” with insufficient means to maintain it. The general
plans should be outlined at least a year before a new building or
extensive enlargement of the old is begun. 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. Even if architects had given
attention to the needs of the rural population, the farmer would feel
that he could hardly afford to pay $100 to $200 for the plans of a house
costing $1,000 to $2,000, exclusive of the labor which the owner, his
men and teams were able to perform upon it. The task of planning a
country house is too great for the country carpenter; he cannot even
interpret plans correctly; his range of observation and training have
been too limited. Then, who is to plan the house? Why, the farmer and
his family, and it will take at least two years of study and observation
of other houses and their modern conveniences before intelligent, crude
plans and instructions are ready to be placed in the hands of the
draughtsman.
[Illustration: Fig. 13. A house of seven gables.]
Few persons are original; therefore, if the little conveniences which
help to lighten work and make life more pleasurable are to find a place
in the house, they must be seen in other houses. All men have more ideas
than any one man; therefore, the range of study should be wide, that
whatever is suitable to the conditions may be adopted. After having
built many farm houses and barns, and having made a long and most
careful study of them, I estimate that from 30 to 40 per cent of the
cost of farm buildings is useless, and sometimes worse than thrown
away.
A small farm house on a modest-sized farm is shown in Fig. 13. The site
is beautiful, and is worthy of a house better fitted to the situation,
the farm, and the farmer. The illustration shows seven gables, and the
house, therefore, might serve as a model for a work of fiction; but the
left-hand side of the house is like unto the right-hand side, so it will
not do for fiction, for if the truth must be told, there are eleven
gables and twenty-two valleys on this house.
[Illustration: Fig. 14. Filigree work is expensive, and does not look
well on a farm house.]
The vine-covered veranda is most beautiful, and looks cool and
comfortable, but there are too many vines, and, with the exception of a
few days in summer at midday, the air under this veranda would be damp
and uncomfortable. It is far better to secure shade by means of awnings
and a few tall, well trimmed shade trees, which preclude dampness and
permit air drainage, than to overburden the veranda with vines. The
covering of this veranda is an unprotected floor, and extends along the
front and well around both sides. Notice the too expensive balustrade
and frequent fancy posts, an enlarged section of which is shown in Fig.
14. All of this expensive wooden material is exposed to our
ever-changeful, paint-destroying climate. The tinsmith, the painter, and
the carpenter will reap a rich harvest if the external part of this
house is kept in order. It seems hardly necessary to call attention to
the chambers, which, of necessity, must be of such a character as to
preclude comfort, beauty and repose.
[Illustration: Fig. 15. Ground plan of a house which is out of character
on a farm.]
A house built after the ground plan, Fig. 15, might make a not
unpleasing picture in the landscape, but it would not be appropriate for
the farm, and would be unnecessarily expensive in construction and
maintenance. It would be difficult to heat, on account of the great
surface exposure due to the broken outlines and numerous corners, which
are seldom air-tight. The style might not be altogether inappropriate
for a cheap seaside cottage.
[Illustration: Fig. 16. A good model for a farm house, having strong
lines and much character.]
A rear view of a somewhat larger house is given (Fig. 16). It would not
cause the passerby to stop and stare. It may be compared to a well,
appropriately, and simply dressed lady, while the other is a reminder of
the over-dressed, furbelowed damsel, who attracts the prolonged stare
and the thoughtless comments of every sidewalk idler. Here are seen
repose, beauty, elements of durability, and freedom from expensive
ornamentation and repairs.
A back view of this house has been shown purposely to emphasize the fact
that the rear side of a house may be made nearly as beautiful as the
front side. It would be improved both in looks and convenience if a
partially enclosed porch were placed over the door and two of the
windows.
[Illustration: Fig. 17. Ground plan of the house shown in Figs. 16 and
19.]
The planning of a house is not difficult if wants are clearly defined
and the principles of economy, dignity, durability and repose, as
applied to the exterior of the house, are fairly well understood. If the
site is ample, and it always is in the country, you have but to draw a
rectangle, the length of which is one-third to one-fourth longer than
its breadth. Fig. 17 is a ground plan of the house shown in Fig. 16.
The farm house shown in Fig. 18 is located thirty feet from a dusty,
muddy, much-traveled public highway. Opposite to it, and immediately on
the road, are located the ill-kept farm buildings. How the aromas of the
stables and kitchen are to be kept each on its respective side of the
road is a question difficult to solve. Here, as in so many cases, the
wife showed better training and more commendable pride in her
surroundings and her workshop than the husband. She may coax him some
day to set a few trees, which may serve in part to hide his workshop on
the other side. 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. The house is too fancy. The small projections
make it look weak. The view is not attractive.]
The farm house should have one large bed-room on the first floor, a well
appointed kitchen and living room. When the size, number, and
arrangement of the other rooms are fixed, the lines which bound the
outside of the rooms will not, of necessity, always coincide with the
rectangular lines. On one side the house may extend slightly over, on
another fall short of the lines which bound the rectangle. Does the
rectangle embody fitness and beauty? If the manufactured things by which
we are surrounded are noted, it will be seen how many of them are
rectangular. The book, the sheet of paper, the pamphlet, the photograph,
the picture frame on the wall, the rug on the floor, the writing case,
the chiffonier, the trunk, and thousands of objects of use and beauty
naturally take the rectangular form: then why not the house? Man
constructs along the lines of acute, obtuse, and right angles unless
there are specific reasons for adopting curves, while nature’s modes
adhere closely to circular and curved outlines.
A front view of a substantial, appropriate house fronting to the west is
shown in Fig. 19. It is the house of which a rear view is shown in Fig.
16. The wide, projecting eaves, the simple roof over the second-story
windows, and the plain veranda, all protect the windows from storm and
the glaring afternoon sun. The eave-trough near the edge of the roof
serves to relieve the plainness of the projecting roof, which really has
no cornice. The side and ends of some of the rafters are seen, and no
attempt has been made to box them in. The treatment is dignified,
plain, inexpensive, and suitable,--therefore it is beautiful. The
planting at the left is too thick for any but a dry climate. A lofty elm
tree would serve better for shading the veranda in the late afternoon,
and permit of better air drainage. The trees shown are deciduous, and
therefore cannot form an ideal winter windbreak. If they were evergreens
they would be entirely too close to the house. The mournful sighing of
evergreen trees in the bleak November winds does not promote
cheerfulness.
[Illustration: Fig. 19. A dignified, restful, economical house.]
Four college buildings are shown in Figs. 20, 21, 23, and 24. School
buildings can hardly be said to be a part of the farm lay-out, but they
will serve quite as well as farm buildings to educate the taste and to
train the eye and the judgment. The reader will see at once which two of
these buildings are most dignified and pleasing.
[Illustration: Fig. 20. University building,--gray stone and tile roof.]
In the schools, the people of the rural districts have had no
instruction which would lead them to carefully observe and compare
buildings of any kind; and hence, with but rare exceptions, they are
ill-qualified to make an intelligent study of them. They are totally
unprepared to grasp the fundamental principles which should govern the
erection of structures on the farm, and totally ignorant of the
principles to be observed when large public buildings are planned and
erected. Fortunately or unfortunately, some farmers will be called upon
to judge of the plans for school and other public buildings. The plans
for a president’s house and an expensive college building were submitted
to a board of thirteen trustees of a flourishing agricultural college.
Ten of these trustees were farmers of more than local reputation. I
forbear giving illustrations of the results: suffice it to say, that
happily the house fell down before it was roofed in.
[Illustration: Fig. 21. University building,--red brick and slate roof.]
A school building for the higher education should be light and airy; but
light does not enter a building freely through narrow windows placed in
thick stone or brick walls. Fig. 22 shows the effect of narrow and wide
windows in the lighting of a building. Observe the shadow cast by the
wall between the two narrow windows. The sun is directly in front of the
windows for but a small part of the day. Usually it enters at a more or
less acute angle, in which case a window three feet wide may be more
than twice as efficient in lighting a room as one two feet wide, and a
four-foot window three or four times as efficient as one half its width.
[Illustration: Fig. 22. Showing the greater proportionate amount of
light admitted by one broad window, as compared with two narrow ones of
equal combined opening.]
[Illustration: Fig. 23. University laboratories,--red brick and slate
roof.]
Figs. 20, 21, 23, and 24 serve to illustrate some of the fundamental
principles which should be observed in constructing expensive public
buildings, and they may also serve for comparison, and for educating
the eye and the judgment. The knowledge acquired in a study of these
buildings may be useful in the planning and erection of rural homes, for
in some respects all buildings should be alike. The farmer seldom has
opportunity to contrast and study large detached buildings in which
beauty, dignity, durability, and, above all, utility, are combined, and
he seldom plans and erects more than one homestead; therefore, many
buildings should be observed, the desirable and undesirable features
noted and discussed thoroughly before the erection of a new structure,
however simple it may be, is begun. It requires no little knowledge to
construct in the best manner even a modern chicken house.
[Illustration: Fig. 24. University building,--gray stone and slate
roof.]
The consideration of these four school buildings, so different in
character, may not be dismissed at once. They are introduced for the
purpose of arousing interest and for giving opportunity to study the
principles of external construction. The true principles once mastered,
their application to rural homes will not be difficult. If Fig. 20 be
studied carefully, it will be noticed that the lines are dignified,
restful and even beautiful, although the building is constructed on
straight lines, with little attempt at ornamentation. This building is
sometimes taken for an art gallery, and so it is, for in it is taught
the fine art of butter making. Its strong tile roof, ample projection of
eaves, and freedom from peaks and valleys give assurance that this
building, barring accidents, will stand for centuries with slight
repair, and be more beautiful as time tones down and softens the colors.
The building shown in Fig. 21 satisfies neither eye nor judgment. It is
a noble building as to size and material, but are not the twenty
miniature peaks out of place? It does not have the appearance of a
restful school building, but of a mammoth seaside hotel. The many little
gables might have been combined into a few large, noble ones, which
would have given abundant light and lent dignity and charm to this well
built structure. If we now transfer our thought from the large buildings
to the brick dwelling house (Fig. 25), we find the same strong lines,
the same dignity, and the same durability of roof structure, with a
little added ornamentation, as are found in some school buildings. It
should have been two-story instead of a story and a half, and the
veranda might well have been more ample. This house, too, like the large
stone structure (Fig. 20) is restful and satisfying. One instinctively
sees that the cost of maintenance of this durable structure will be
comparatively little. If this house be compared with the one shown in
Fig. 26, it will be easily seen how much more appropriate and beautiful
it is. One is built of cream brick and roofed with soft-colored tile;
the other is roofed with poor shingles, has a cheap hemlock frame, and
is sided with wood, which is covered with gaudy, ready mixed earth
paints, which may fade out before the bill for them is paid.
[Illustration: Fig. 25. A simple and attractive little dwelling house.]
Some day a genius will set forth for the farmer, in simple language and
illustrations, the fundamental principles which should be followed in
the building of rural homes. When that time comes the present children
will then be mature and will have been so energized by nature-study
work, which is now being introduced so extensively in the schools, as to
be able to appreciate and profit by such literature.
[Illustration: Fig. 26. Another type of dwelling house.]
Some of the tree-embowered farm houses have such a restful look and
often embody such true lines of beauty that it seems almost sacrilegious
to change them. On the other hand, some of them are so ill adapted to
farm life, so unhandy and uncomfortable, that radical changes should be
made. After the farmer has prospered, he naturally has a desire to build
a new house or to transform the old one, not only to secure needed
conveniences, but that greater beauty and a more luxurious home may be
secured. It is difficult for him to find adequate help to solve the
problem if he keeps the cost within reasonable limits. He may know where
to begin; he seldom knows where he will end. Usually the first thought
should be to preserve the old home, or the greater part of it. The
architect is almost certain to advise demolition and the erection of a
new house, asserting that the new structure will be no more expensive
than the remodeling of the old, which may or may not be true. But he
does not always know what is best, as he is usually unfamiliar with the
farmers’ needs and traditions. Sacred associations usually cluster round
the old farm house; every room and door and window may be associated
with some epoch in life’s history. Through yonder door came the happy
bride a half century ago; in yonder room the children were born;--every
nook and corner has some tale to tell, some happy association. We cross
oceans and mountains to view the birthplaces and homes (which happily
sometimes are preserved and held sacred) of a Burns and a Shakespeare.
Then is it not well to preserve the farm houses, where possibly are the
birthplaces of many “Cromwells guiltless of their country’s blood.”
The first thought, then, should be to save and improve the old house,
not to destroy it. But most of these farm houses are either too low or
too high: that is, they are neither one- nor two-storied, but a story
and a half. A two-story wing may often be placed either at the front or
side, and may serve to give dignity to the house; or a lower room or
two, a few comfortable chambers, and an entrance hall or vestibule may
be added. Such addition would make it possible to remove the low,
flat-roofed, leaky kitchen to more appropriate quarters. The formerly
unused parlor might be transformed into a living-room, the former
living-room into a dining-room, and the old dining-room into a kitchen.
The details by which this evolution is made must, of necessity, be
worked out by those who are to occupy the house. That home is enjoyed
best which is planned by those who have to pay the bills; therefore, I
shall not go into detail of arrangement. My object will have been
accomplished if I succeed in creating a greater respect and love for the
houses of our ancestors, and shall have stayed the hand of the
iconoclast. Any one can destroy, but few can create.
So reasoned the college graduate on his return to the old homestead. The
old house (Fig. 27) was improved by making slight additions and some
minor changes. Even the green window blinds and the white siding were
not disturbed, only brightened by the use of old-fashioned,
unadulterated paints. The major effort was along the line of improving
the live stock and making the acres more productive, soon resulting in
surplus funds, which were used to erect the large and commodious barn.
Simultaneously with the barn came the icehouse, and the windmill for
pumping water. The observant passer-by instinctively knows that here are
all the outward indications of morality, intelligence, and a rational
and progressive system of agriculture. If the family be judged by what
is seen in this picture of the farm above ground, the conclusion must be
reached that here is a true home.
How different the impression is when we look through the open roadside
gate in the next picture (Fig. 28)! Lack of intelligent purpose and of
neatness and thrift is written upon every structure, and is especially
shown by the want of any logical plan in the arrangement of the numerous
small structures. The house, which stands just to the right of the
beautiful tree, is modern in many respects, but the front is supported
by numerous Grecian columns nearly twenty feet long, as inappropriate
and as useless for a farm-house as is a coon’s tail on a lady’s hat.
[Illustration: Fig. 27. The old homestead.]
[Illustration: Fig. 28. Lack of intelligent purpose.]
Instinctively we judge people at first sight, and largely by the clothes
they wear and the manner of wearing them. So we judge, and often very
accurately, of families by the houses which shelter them and the objects
which surround them. One can easily tell much of the character of a man
by the style and tip of his hat. What noble deeds, what lofty
aspirations in this day and age of plenty and opportunity, should we
expect to have birth and fruition in the house shown in illustration
Fig. 29! This building is not located in the country, but in the suburbs
of a small, prosperous inland city. Unfortunately, this village is
unlike many beautiful country villages and small cities in western New
York in which there are no poor people. What a depressing effect this
building must have on the well bred country lad who passes it weekly on
his journey to and from the post office!
But how easy to go from one extreme to the other! Too many farm houses
stand alone, unrelieved by noble trees or by modest planting 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 29. Environment often makes the man.]
The church, as well as the farm house, is or should be the home of the
farmer; but the church, like the individual, may become proud, in which
case the old meeting-house is demolished and replaced by a modern new
one, which may serve for a time to stimulate laggards and appear to
take the place of changed purposes in life. But the debt saddled on the
congregation tends to drive the church-goers to the rear seats and
eventually out of doors. I have sometimes thought that a country church
could not well be too small. Man is a gregarious animal, and does not
enjoy church-going when the seats are but partially occupied.
[Illustration: Fig. 30. Buried in trees. The opposite extreme from Fig.
26.]
The plain, substantial stone church shown in Fig. 31 is located in a
sparsely settled district on the windy prairies of Kansas. It is
certainly most appropriate and fits its environment; all it lacks to
make it beautiful is a suitable setting of trees and shrubbery. It would
then serve as a reminder of “God’s first temple not made with hands,”
and not of one made with a jig-saw.
[Illustration: Fig. 31. A plain, substantial stone church.]
“It is a plain, rugged, austere structure, like the men who built it,
and any proposal to modernize it would be received with disfavor; for it
means more to the people than merely a church building--it is a sacred
possession that is a part of their life,” and it is an appropriate
monument to the sturdy religious character of the pioneers who stood in
the forefront as a wall guarding human rights and liberties in those
stormy days of the past. The country church should be as truly a part of
the farm structure as are the house and barn, located on land held in
fee simple.
[Illustration: Fig. 32. Where horses are kept.]
[Illustration: Fig. 33. Where boys and girls are taught.]
The school-house also, as well as the church, should form a part of the
farm above ground. We sometimes build parlors for the pictures, and
palaces for the horses and cattle, and neglect the school-house. A city
of 12,000 inhabitants in central New York has many expensive stables,
some of them works of art. The barn shown in Fig. 32 is not more than
half a mile from the school-house shown in Fig. 33. The beautiful stable
might serve as a well appointed dwelling house by making a few minor
changes. While such buildings are being constructed, the country
school-house, the pride of the American, is left to fall into decay; or,
if rebuilt, it is located too often on a little scrap of land which may
be almost worthless, as though land in America were the most precious of
all our inheritance. This school-house is designed to provide
accommodations for both farm and city children living in the suburbs.
The school-house has not a tree for shade nor a shrub to admire,
situated on the commons among weeds and rocks, provided with one
dilapidated outhouse unscreened by fence or tree or vine or shrub, while
the stable is surrounded with rare trees and shrubs artistically
arranged and a smoothly shaven lawn. Are horses and cattle worth more
than boys and girls?
To leave the reader to infer that all school-houses are like the one
shown would be misleading. A more pleasing illustration is presented in
Fig. 34. Here the meeting-house, the school-house, and a bit of the farm
are shown in juxtaposition, as they were found at the meeting of the
roads in a shady grove. Since moral character should be the foundation
upon which to symmetrically build intelligence and industry, the church
may be treated first. While taking the photograph, I was struck by the
inexpensive character of the meeting-house. The outside covering was of
plain, matched, vertical boards, but they were kept well painted and
therefore looked neat, and the seats were entirely comfortable. I judge
that here true, practical religion finds a congenial home, for a long
line of comfortable sheds were being built to house the horses during
the hours of devotion. Then, too, the sheds will serve a doubly humane
purpose, for where the pupils live long distances from the school the
horse driven in the morning will have comfortable quarters until the
school closes in the evening. A public water-trough near by, kept full
from a spring, gave evidence that this little church and the
school-house were potent factors in promoting civilization. To the right
is seen a lad plowing. Here, then, in this picture is represented the
three great corner-stones of civilization upon which to build a
symmetrical, beautiful superstructure. To build on either one alone is
to insure disappointment; when life is grounded on all three the result
is practical religion and intelligence eventuating in a better
understanding of the complex soil and the interrelations of nature’s
modes of action. It means steady and effective employment, the
abandonment of nomadic life, and in lieu thereof a permanent home and an
abundant supply of the necessaries and comforts of life. The Bible, the
school book, and the plow should all be engraven and intertwined in our
modern civilization.
[Illustration: Fig. 34. School house and church at the corners.]
So far the general characteristics, fitness, durability and beauty of
the country farm house have been discussed and illustrated, together
with such public buildings as are directly related to rural life. But
having discussed the size, best proportions, and most suitable materials
for the house, and having put them into visible form, the building may
be made hideous and unnecessarily expensive by careless or ignorant
treatment of external details.
[Illustration: Fig. 35. The sway-back house.]
Most of the farmers who now occupy the country west of the Alleghanies
came from the east and brought with them a varied assortment of styles
of architecture inherited from the many European countries from which
they or their ancestors came. These people, though of limited means, had
pride and tenacity of purpose, and they could not easily change to the
plain and appropriate exterior treatment of the farm house. This
inheritance and persistence, as shown in the farm houses of the middle
states, is fitly illustrated by the expensive and heavy return cornice,
the massive columns, and the complicated and ornate entablatures which
are supposed to adorn an otherwise plain house.
[Illustration: Fig. 36. The expensive box cornice.]
[Illustration: Fig. 37.
A plain and durable cornice.]
I have said that there is no place for the story-and-a-half house. Here
is shown (Fig. 35) the results of two serious mistakes; viz., an effort
to build a cheap frame of such a form that it is almost impossible to
tie the building together, with the result that the roof is in danger of
collapsing; and the attempt to beautify this cheap structure by
over-heavy, complicated cornices. An enlarged detailed drawing of a
typical return cornice is shown in Fig. 36. On the right is shown a
cross-section outline of the members of the cornice. There are ten of
them. The mouldings are now “stuck” by machinery, but these were made by
hand, and 10 and 8 were formed of two pieces each, making twelve
members in all. The infinite pains and labor in preparing the material
and placing it cannot be realized except by a carpenter who has spent
weeks and months in sawing out, in planing and “sticking,” and mitering
such an elaborate system of useless ornamentation. Compare this with the
cornice, or rather projection, of a house (Fig. 19) which cost $6,000.
Fig. 36 shows a projecting eave of scarcely one foot. The next
illustration (Fig. 37) shows one of nearly two feet. The latter is far
superior to the former in that it is quite as beautiful, is inexpensive,
and protects the external paint and woodwork far more than does the
former. The piece at the top of the rafter serves to cover the
projecting cornice, and as a roof-board as well, and gives opportunity
to place the eave trough well outside, which prevents damage to the
house should it ever leak. The frieze board is simple and serves its
purpose well. It has taken a long time to learn that a wooden roof which
is at least one-third pitch is far more durable than the flat roof shown
in Fig. 38. Here the return cornice is carried across the entire end of
the house, and the gable is ceiled with plain matched boards, both
likely to leak and to rapidly become paintless.
Many veranda and porch floors and outside doors have no roof over them,
or other protection. This is poor economy. It would be better to reduce
the cornice to the fewest possible members, if it were necessary to do
so, in order to secure means to roof the veranda, which, unprotected,
decays rapidly. Or the money expended on the cornice, which results in
neither use nor beauty, might well suffice for the building of an
additional room, or to provide many conveniences, such as hot and cold
water, storm sash, and window screens.
[Illustration: Fig. 38. The old-time gable end cornice.]
[Illustration: Fig. 39. Framework of a ship.]
When the farmer reached the fertile, treeless prairies he was compelled
to economize in lumber. Some genius soon discovered that the best and
most scientific method of constructing the frame of a house was along
the lines of ship construction (Fig. 39): that is, ribs, joined to a
sill or sills, encircling the entire structure and placed at equal
distances apart. Two keels or sills joined together by joists, straight
ribs--joists--instead of curved ones, a roof instead of a deck, and the
balloon frame (Fig. 40)--the best of all frames when properly
constructed,--was invented. Unwittingly the ship construction, slightly
modified, was adopted. In this frame the westerner departed radically
from the style of his ancestors, but he could not be satisfied with a
plain oversail projection. He could not afford the heavy box cornice.
Having succeeded so well on the frame, he set about inventing a new
style of decoration for the projecting eaves, but the cornice was not a
success. The decorations shown in Figs. 41 and 42 serve to make hideous
many a cheap dry-goods-box house, which blisters and cracks in the hot
prairie winds. These houses sometimes receive no paint or one coat, or
at most two, and in a few years, what with storm and sun, mischievous
boys and wind cracks, this ginger-bread, dog-eared cornice, made of inch
lumber by the use of scroll saw, looks as dilapidated as a college boy
after a cane-rush.
[Illustration: Fig. 40. The balloon frame.]
[Illustration: Fig. 42. The jig-saw cornice.]
[Illustration: Fig. 41.
Too elaborate and short-lived.]
The thought of permanent beauty, as well as economy and usefulness,
should enter into the plans of a house. But what is beauty? I am well
aware that many of my readers will not agree with me, for
“The standard of beauty ofttimes it doth vary:
Two pretty girls are Eliza and Mary.”
They may be very unlike, yet both beautiful. From the farmer’s
standpoint it may be said that the chief characteristics of beauty are
fitness, naturalness and simplicity.
CHAPTER VIII
_BUILDING THE HOUSE--GENERAL LAY-OUT_
The reader will understand that no attempt is made to treat this subject
in detail nor strictly from the architect’s viewpoint. A casual
observation will make it self-evident that the structures on farms have
received little attention as to beauty of form, economy of construction,
or adaptation of means to ends. Like many others, I have noted all this
and have made a somewhat careful study of the causes which usually have
produced this want of harmony, durability, adaptability and economy in
the construction of rural homesteads.
The many illustrations of detail are designed to emphasize underlying
principles. Principles are always the same: details may be varied to
suit conditions. While the numerous illustrations are meant to explain
the details, it is believed that they will also give help to a large
part of the rural population who have had little opportunity to secure
any adequate instruction in the art and science of home building.
Usually the cellar would better be extended under the entire house,
although it is neither wise nor healthy to store large quantities of
material in it which, if not cared for, may decay and vitiate the air in
the rooms above. If the cellar be properly constructed there is no
objection to storing family supplies of fruit and vegetables for the
winter in this partly underground room. Large quantities of vegetables
held for future sale should not find storage in the house cellar. Now
that the floors of houses are made tight, often double with paper
between, and carpets or rugs to cover them, the cold no longer enters
the cellar through the floor. The cellar wall may therefore extend
upwards on three sides, well above ground, that opportunity may be given
for the introduction of light and air. With only single-glazed cellar
windows, no building paper, and floors and boarding of unseasoned
lumber, the pioneer was compelled to place the cellar well under ground,
or bank the walls with manure if the winter’s supply of vegetables was
to be made secure.
[Illustration: Fig. 43. Cellar under the upright only.]
[Illustration: Fig. 44. Cellar under the entire house.]
A common form of the foundation for farm houses is shown in Fig. 43--a
main structure, reinforced by a wing which, in most cases, has no cellar
under it. Fig. 44 shows the cellar under the whole structure. If the
walls of the unexcavated wing are placed 3¹⁄₂ feet below ground, as they
should be in a cold climate, and extend 2 feet above ground, it will
take more stone to construct the foundation walls of the house with a
cellar under only a part than when it extends under the entire
structure. The stone saved by leaving out the wall between the two
sections of the house will more than suffice for building the walls of
the wing to their full height. In the latter case, it would cost
slightly more for excavation than in the former. Since cellars, when
appropriately used, are in some respects the most useful and cheapest
rooms in the structure, there is no economy in not placing them under
the entire house. A cellar may be divided by 4-inch brick walls into
various rooms, corresponding in shape to those above, thereby securing
for the partitions in the superstructure, separate compartments, in
order that the vegetables, fruit, milk, and furnace may be separate one
from the other.
[Illustration: Fig. 45. A footing course under the cellar wall.]
[Illustration: Fig. 46. Showing a layer of material to stop vermin.]
To prevent rats from entering the cellar under the walls, either one of
two methods may be adopted. A footing-course projecting beyond the
outside of the wall arrests the rodents, for having dug down to it they
have not sufficient intelligence to dig around the footing-course (Fig.
45). Or the desired result may be accomplished by placing a thin layer
of refuse broken glass against the outside of the wall two to three feet
from the surface of the ground (Fig. 46). Cellars would be much improved
if they had higher ceilings. At least 7 feet should be allowed between
the cellar floor and the under side of the overhead joists. All cellars
should have concrete floors and plastered ceilings, for both warmth and
cleanliness. In an extremely rigorous climate, the upper angle of the
wall should be lathed and plastered as shown in Fig. 47.
[Illustration: Fig. 47. Protecting the cellar from frost by plastering
across the upper corners.]
If the front cellar wall and the greater part of the side walls extend 2
to 3 feet above the earth, a good sized window (which may be single- or
double-glazed) can be secured. The rear walls should extend not more
than one foot above ground. If the earth slopes rearward, then grade up
to the wall until not more than two steps will be necessary to reach the
kitchen floor; it is easier to climb a gentle ascent than steps. The
front steps are used but a comparatively few times, while the rear ones
are used many times, so it matters little if the front of the house is
several steps above grade.
It makes a visitor unhappy to know that the busy housewife must descend
three steps, walk forty feet and ascend two steps to reach the well
platform, then reverse the journey, to secure the drink of cold water
desired (Fig. 48). The illustration in Fig. 49 shows how the farmer
solved the difficulty by building an elevated plank walk from the
kitchen to the well. Fig. 50 shows how he might have solved it in
another way.
[Illustration: Fig. 48. The daily route to the well.]
[Illustration: Fig. 49. A short-cut to the well.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50. An elevated earth walk to the well.]
The hillside wall may be kept dry and the cellar free from water by
drainage or by backing the wall with loose rubble stone, or by both
(Fig. 51).
[Illustration: Fig. 51.
A rubble stone backing and a drain at the bottom.]
BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS
The walls should be placed below the frost line and have fairly broad
bases, standing on naturally or artificially drained earth. Perhaps no
part of the house structure receives so little attention as do the
foundation walls; therefore, I shall enter somewhat into the details of
construction. Bricks which have been recently burned and those which do
not contain considerable quantities of moisture should be thoroughly wet
before they are placed in the wall. If the mortar sets too quickly by
reason of the dryness of the bricks, a strong wall cannot be secured,
however good the mortar may be in which they are laid.
The foundation walls for most houses, however, are made of stones laid
in mortar composed of lime or cement, or a mixture of the two, and sand.
A large proportion of all the sand used for foundation work is markedly
inferior, and the mortar is usually very imperfectly mixed. If water
lime is used with the sand it is frequently old, and if old, inferior.
Even the cements deteriorate somewhat with age, and the common stone
lime is often used after it is partially or entirely air-slaked. If the
binding material be inferior and the sand have quantities of fine earth
or vegetable matter mixed with it, it will be seen how impossible it is
to secure a strong and binding mortar. Even if fresh lime and sharp sand
are used, in accordance with the usual specifications in building
contracts, the mortar bond may still be weak by reason of careless or
imperfect mixing. All mortar, even that used for laying stones and
bricks, should be mixed until a lime film surrounds every particle of
sand. Plastering the outside of the wall below the grade line and
pointing the wall above cannot make a firm, good wall out of one which
has been carelessly laid or one bedded in inferior mortar.
Chimneys may provide for one or more flues. Better draft is likely to be
secured when separate flues are provided for each stove or heater than
when one flue serves for two or more stoves. The diagram, Fig. 52,
shows three flues in one stack or chimney. One is for the furnace,
another for the fireplace, and another for the laundry stove.
[Illustration: Fig. 52. Three flues in the chimney, one of them leading
from a fire-place.]
All chimneys should have broad footing courses, which should rest on
solid earth to prevent settling. They should not be supported by means
of brackets (Fig. 53) or on the tops of small cupboards attached to the
wall. Chimney walls of only 4-inch thickness are not safe; if they be
double, or 8 inches thick, the number of bricks required are increased
by more than 100 per cent, and the cost of the foundation is also
increased. The heavy walls are objectionable by reason of added weight
and cost, and because of the room they occupy. The introduction of
fire-clay chimney lining makes it possible to construct safe chimneys
with 4-inch walls. Then, too, the lining costs rather less than the
extra course of brick, and the completed flue is smooth and of uniform
dimensions on the inside.
[Illustration: Fig. 53.
Chimney standing on a bracket.]
The openings made in the frame for the chimney are often too small, in
which case the chimney is likely to be “hung” on either the joists or
rafters. There should be a clear space between the woodwork and chimney.
If the opening in the frame is too small, the mason will be tempted to
clip the brick where the chimney passes by the wood and then restore the
chimney to its full size when the obstruction is passed. This results in
hanging the chimney on some member of the frame. Should the foundation
settle, the wall may part and sparks may then easily reach the dry wood
in the room or at the roof of the house.
It is believed that the farmer, after reading these lines, may secure a
good wall and one which fulfils the specifications, if he watches the
work carefully as it progresses. If he does, he will have a much better
wall than the average. Since the material and the kind of work desired
vary so widely, it is not wise to lay down any fast rule for the
proportions of the binding material and sand which may be used. It may
be said, however, that the proportions vary from 1 of lime or cement to
2 of sand, to 1 of the former and 6 of the latter.
WOODEN HOUSES--THE FRAME
Almost any variety of wood will suffice for the frame of the house,
provided it does not twist and spring out of shape too much before or
after it is put into the building. Since the sills are to be placed on
solid, continuous walls, they need not be large. The only objection to
box and small sills is that they may allow too easy access of air and
rodents from the walls of the rooms to the cellar, and vice versa,
unless the spaces above the sills and between the studding are bricked
in as high as the top of the first tier of joists. A rough floor laid
before the upright studding is placed is shown in Fig. 54. This first
floor should be laid diagonally, for the one which is laid immediately
upon it should not be placed either parallel or at right angles to the
boards of the first floor, or parallel with the joists. A little
reflection will reveal the reasons for all this.
[Illustration: Fig. 54. The rough floor laid before the studding is
erected.]
Joists should be bridged. Fig. 55 shows the more common method of
bridging. The joists may be 2 × 8 in small, inexpensive houses, and 2 ×
10 or 2 × 12 in large ones, bridged once in a 12-foot span, twice in a
16-, and three times in an 18- or 20-foot span. The bridging is of the
utmost importance and should never be omitted, as it serves to
strengthen the floor joints and prevents the disagreeable trembling of
the floors so annoying in many of the older houses.
[Illustration: Fig. 55. Bridging the joists.]
The studding for a balloon frame is either 2 × 4, 2 × 5 or 2 × 6, and
the length desired. The 2 × 4 studding are too light for an ample
two-story house, and they do not give enough thickness of wall for the
most desirable window- and door-jambs. The doors are not held firmly in
place, and when they are closed quickly by the wind or by children, the
plastering is injured. Studding 5 inches broad, fortified by outside
diagonal boarding (Fig. 56), gives the ideal conditions unless the house
is unusually large, in which case the studding should be 6 inches broad.
The diagonal boarding costs a trifle more in material and labor than the
horizontal, but it is so much superior that the extra expense may well
be incurred. Every board forms a double brace, one where nailed to the
studding and one where the siding or “clap boards” are nailed to the
rough boards and the studs. Nothing has yet been discovered which is so
satisfactory, and which gives such strength and protection to the frame
as does this preliminary diagonal boarding, covered with paper. When
completed it forms a wall open enough to prevent dry rot and tight
enough to prevent the entrance of wind.
[Illustration: Fig. 56. A wall strengthened by diagonal sheathing.]
The second-story joists rest on stringers or light girders 1 × 5 inches,
as shown in Fig. 57. If the girder is set flush with the inside of the
stud, A, the laths must lie directly upon the face of the girt. This
gives no room for the mortar to form clinches behind the lath. This
5-inch girder swells when the mortar is put on and shrinks when it
dries, which may result in a crack in the wall in the angle near A.
Since, by reason of faulty construction, there are no clinches behind
the lath, the plastering becomes loosened, and this is likely to be the
beginning of serious trouble. If the girder is let in so that its face
is not flush with the inside of the stud and then furrowed out with
small pieces of lath, the effects of the shrinking of the girder will be
obviated and room will be left for clinches behind the lath.
[Illustration: Fig. 57. Second-story joist.]
In windy, cold climates, where lumber is at all abundant, a second
boarding may be placed inside, covered with paper and furrowed out with
a single thickness of lath to allow, as in the former case, the
formation of clinches. There is no objection to boarding horizontally on
the inside, if the outside has been boarded diagonally. The term “rough
boarding” has been used, but it should be said that the boarding which
forms the first covering, sometimes called sheathing, should be brought
to uniform thickness and matched or rabbeted.
Wherever greater strength of wall is desired than can be formed by a
single 2 × 5 studding, as at the corners, or by a single 2 × 10 joist,
as where partitions are to be placed, it is better to spike two or more
pieces together than to have pieces sawed of the dimensions desired.
These made-up pieces or timbers are stronger than solid pieces of the
same character and dimensions, since the continuity of the cross-grain
of the wood is broken in the made-up pieces. In the construction of
large bridges the timbers, where exposed to the weather, are made up of
smaller timbers, since they are then not only stronger but more durable
and less subject to dry rot than if they are solid (Fig. 58).
[Illustration: Fig. 58. Construction of a large bridge.]
Plates are made up of material 2 inches thick and as broad as the
studding is wide, doubled, with joints mismatched. This most valuable
principle of building up timbers of several thin pieces is a somewhat
recent practice. Where very large timbers are required, as in trussed or
self-supporting roofs, the timbers of which are not exposed to view,
they are frequently made up of boards 1 inch thick and as broad as the
vertical dimensions desired. This method is sometimes used in
constructing timbers for both houses and barns (Fig. 59).
Roofs of houses are, of necessity, extremely variable, as the house is
not planned to suit the roof, but the roof to suit the house. Flat metal
roofs of all kinds should be avoided, as far as possible, on the farm
house, however well they may be adapted to buildings in the city. Metal
roofs are not objectionable in themselves, but only when they are laid
flat on farm houses.
[Illustration: Fig. 59. A made-up plate, constructed of boards.]
[Illustration: Fig. 60. Showing the principle of construction of Fig.
59.]
The pitch of roofs, like their shape, is also variable. Nothing below
one-third pitch should be used except for special conditions. In Fig.
38, page 127, is an illustration of the common pitch of roofs in fashion
fifty years ago. Some roofs were even flatter than the one shown. The
fashion now is to construct house roofs with nearly or quite half pitch.
While steep roofs are desirable if made of wood, there is some danger
that the change from the nearly flat roof to the steep one will be
carried too far (see Fig. 13, page 95). Various pitches of roofs are
shown in Fig. 61. Steep roofs do not require as strong rafters, thrust
less upon the plates, are more durable, and are less likely to leak than
flat roofs.
[Illustration: Fig. 61. Pitches of roofs.--¹⁄₂, ¹⁄₃, ¹⁄₄, ¹⁄₈.]
Since roofs are of various pitches, they require rafters of various
lengths and bevels. Farmers and many carpenters have much difficulty in
getting the length and bevels of both rafters and braces. Most
carpenters’ squares have so-called brace rules stamped upon their
tongues.[3] These give the length of the brace for the shorter and more
common runs,[4] but they do not give the angles of the ends of the
brace. Then, too, the length is given in inches and hundredths of
inches, and carpenters’ squares are not divided into hundredths, so this
complicated brace-rule is as useful as a steam whistle on an ox-cart.
[3] The short end of the square.
[4] The perpendicular and horizontal distances covered by the brace.
The methods by which the length and bevels of any member of a frame
which departs from any other member at an angle are so easily understood
that the wonder is that all are not familiar with them. For a simple
illustration, let it be supposed that rafters for a building 18 feet
broad, with one-third pitch, are to be laid out (Fig. 62). The rafter,
R, takes the form of a brace. The run is 9 feet horizontally or half the
width of the building, and 6 feet perpendicularly. If the square be laid
upon the stick designed for the rafter, as 6 is to 9, one side of the
square will give the shorter and the other the longer angle or bevel
(Fig. 63). If the square is laid on 12 times at 9 and 6 inches, it will
give the length of the rafter, for 12 times 9 is 108, half the width of
the building, and 12 times 6 is 72, the height of the peak above the
plates. If the square is laid on 18 × 12 inches, the proportion is
preserved, and hence the angles; the square would only have to be laid
on six times.
[Illustration: Fig. 62. Laying out a roof.]
[Illustration: Fig. 63. Laying out a rafter.]
[Illustration: Fig. 64. Laying out a timber.]
[Illustration: Fig. 65. A brace.]
Consider a building 20 feet broad and 6 inches above one-third pitch.
The half of 20 feet equals 10 feet, or 120 inches. Seven feet 2 inches
(86 inches) is the height of the peak above the plate. It is quickly
seen that this problem, like the other, can be solved in more than one
way. If the long end of the square is laid on at 20 inches and the short
end at 14¹⁄₃ inches, and this is repeated six times, both the bevels and
the length will be secured (Fig. 64), for 6 multiplied by 20 equals 120
inches, half the width of the building, and 6 multiplied by 14¹⁄₃ equals
86 inches, the height of the peak. Or the long end of the square might
be laid on at 24 and the short end at 15¹⁄₅ five times, but squares are
not marked in fifths of inches, hence the previous method would be
best.[5] The same results would be reached by laying the square on at 15
and 10³⁄₄ inches; eight steps would then be required instead of six. The
longer and fewer the steps within the limits of the square, the better.
[5] Since the square is laid on, see Figs. 61, 62, in the same manner
as for cutting a stair; each one of these spaces is called a “step.”
If it is desired to cut a brace 3 × 4 feet run, 3 steps, using the
lengths 12 and 16, will give both the length of the brace and the bevels
(Fig. 65). Take a rafter which has a projection requiring a notch to be
cut in the lower side, and the same rule will apply. The line A, Fig.
66, is horizontal and the face of the plate is perpendicular; therefore,
the line B must be at right angles to A. The only thing now to be
determined is how deep the notch shall be, for it is evident that if the
line A represents the long end of the square and B the short end of the
square, the notch will fit the plate.
[Illustration: Fig. 66. Adjusting to the plate.]
[Illustration: Fig. 67. The rafter.]
[Illustration: Fig. 68. The rafter trimmed on the outer end.]
That part of the rafter which extends over the building may be reduced
in size, but usually it is well to leave it entire (as in Fig. 67) if
the house is large. If the lower end of the rafter should appear too
heavy, it may be treated as in Fig. 68. The bevels at the ends of the
rafters are the same as at A and B (Fig. 66).
The outlines of a story-and-a-half house, which form is most undesirable
for various reasons, are shown in Fig. 69. The chambers cannot be well
lighted or aired. The outlines of the room interfere with the placing
of furniture, and such chambers are far more uncomfortable in warm
weather than are those in two-story houses. It will be seen that the
collar-beam, C, must be placed so far above the foot of the rafters in
order to get a fair height of ceiling, that it has little binding power,
and that the building cannot be tied together at the plates in the
center, since the tie would interfere with the door in the cross wall.
It will also be seen that the second-story joists are so far below the
plates that their power to hold the building together is small. Many of
the one-and-a-half-story houses have “sway-backed” peaks because of
this faulty construction. (See Fig. 35, page 124, broken-back house.) If
story-and-a-half houses must be built, then they should be covered by
roofs having at least one-half pitch, in which case the collar-beams
could be placed relatively lower and the thrust on the plates would be
very much diminished by the steeper roof (Fig. 70). One-, two-, three-
or more storied houses are easily and certainly prevented from spreading
since one tier of joists always coincides with the foot of the rafters,
to which they can be securely fastened. Fortunately, the
story-and-a-half house is less constructed than formerly.
[Illustration: Fig. 69. Outline of a story-and-a-half house.]
[Illustration: Fig. 70. Half pitch and an efficient collar-beam.]
CHAPTER IX
_BUILDING THE HOUSE, CONCLUDED.--OUTSIDE COVERING, PAINTING_
That part of the house which of necessity must be exposed to the
buffetings of snow and rain, wind and sun, should be considered more
carefully than any other part except the foundation. If economy demands,
the doors, floors, bath rooms, and wardrobes may be of plain and
inexpensive material, for later they may be replaced when means justify
additional expenditure; but if the outside covering be faulty, the house
is a partial failure from the beginning.
The first principle to be observed is to place all projections intended
to serve as water-tables at somewhat acute angles, for if placed at
nearly right angles with the sides of the house, rains accompanied by
heavy winds will certainly reach the framework. The water-tables which
crown the top of the base-board are more exposed than those which are
higher up, and therefore should be steep and rabbeted to prevent the
water from reaching the sills. The too usual method is shown in Fig. 71.
An enlarged view of a better style of water-table is shown in Fig. 72.
[Illustration: Fig. 71. A faulty water-table.]
[Illustration: Fig. 72. A good water-table.]
Outside window frame sills which have insufficient pitch tend to become
water-soaked, and not infrequently the lower member of the window itself
rots by reason of the water which drives in and remains under the sill
of the window for considerable periods of time. Figs. 73 and 74 show
perfect and faulty methods of construction.
[Illustration: Fig. 73. Perfect construction of window sill.]
[Illustration: Fig. 74.
Faulty construction.]
The siding of a house for various reasons would better be put on
horizontally, although material put on this way, unless it is kept well
painted, is not so durable as when placed vertically. The horizontal
covering is more beautiful, lends itself better to the numerous
openings, and gives better protection from cold and wind than does the
vertical covering. If the building is not to be painted, then the
covering would better be placed vertically. Nearly all wooden houses are
covered with either thin lap-siding or inch siding, prepared in various
ways and known by various names. The inch or novelty siding was first
introduced in the West, and costs but little more than the lap-siding,
because, being thicker, it can be made of somewhat inferior lumber. The
novelty or rabbeted covering gives greater strength to the building and
is much more quickly and cheaply put on. It may be said that this style
of covering is extremely faulty if placed on the building in the usual
way, namely, before the doors and windows and corner boards are in
position. If the same method of placing the material be practiced as in
placing the lap-siding, then the objections to this class of siding
disappear to a certain extent. The diagram, Fig. 75, shows the novelty,
or drop, or O G siding (A), the rabbeted (B) and lap-siding (C). It will
readily be seen that if a drop (A) or rabbeted (B) siding be put on
before the window frames are placed, as is the usual custom, an opening
(x) is left under the facing of the window frame which extends through
to the studding. This permits the rain, in a driving storm, to pass
horizontally along this opening to the studding and then downward along
the framework of the building. Many instances could be cited in which
these openings have had to be filled by triangular blocks of wood or
putty, and even then the water was not entirely excluded.
[Illustration: Fig. 75.
Forms of siding.]
This method of covering houses or even barns with this new kind of
siding is usually disappointing and wasteful of material. All that is
gained is a little more facility and cheapness in placing the covering.
If it is put on, as it should be, after the window and door frames are
set, it is more difficult and more expensive to place than lap-siding.
No way of covering a wooden house has been found superior to the
one-half inch lap-siding with joints tight enough at the frames and
corners, in conjunction with the paint, to make water-tight joints. The
lap should not be less than one inch, and the nails should be so placed
that in case of considerable shrinkage in the siding the inside will
give or even check, instead of the outside (z). If made as at y, the
outside will check. This implies that the nails are to be driven rather
more than one-half inch above the edge of the siding. The nails which
hold the outer covering should either be set and puttied, or the heads
should be left even with or slightly above the surface of the wood, that
the paint may cover all parts of the nail head. If the nails are driven
too far in the heads are not fully covered and protected by the paint,
in which case they will rust and present an unsightly appearance.
Some one has said that if a woman’s feet, hands, and head are well and
appropriately clothed, the balance of the dress may be plain and simple,
and yet she will have an elegant appearance. So, if a house has a good
foundation and a suitable and well-placed roof, the balance of the
outside may be extremely plain and yet it will be beautiful. Some of our
modern houses rest on unpointed, poorly constructed, and narrow
foundations, are bedecked with peaks, pigeon lofts, and dog-eared
cornices, and remind one of the suspenderless, barefooted darky crowned
with a cast-off silk hat.
If the foundation is too small and shabbily built, no amount of paint
and cornice can relieve the house from a look of shabby gentility. A few
brown or cream-colored stones or bricks, when placed on the outside of
the foundation where it shows above ground, will give dignity, beauty
and a substantial look to the whole house. It may do for it what a
nickel does for one’s shoes.
The roof of the farm house, and for that matter of all other houses,
should, in the trying climate of America, have an ample projection. An
abbreviated cornice may be admissible if the building is constructed of
stone which is of sufficient density to resist the American tooth of
time. Fig. 76 shows a section of an abbreviated and a well extended
cornice. The house which has this short-cut cornice stands within a few
hundred feet of the one with the wide projecting eaves. During the past
twenty years it has been necessary to paint the former twice as often
as the latter.
[Illustration: Fig. 76.
Deep and narrow cornices.]
The roof covering would better be of slate or tiles, for the time has
passed for building temporary, make-shift houses, though they might have
served their purpose well in a new and rapidly developing country. With
rare exceptions, the houses to be built in the future should be
permanently located, well built, and of durable material. The slates
which compose a roof should be not more than 8 inches wide and should
not be put on roofs of less than one-third pitch, since they are only
double-lapped and do not lie as closely, one upon the other, as do
shingles, which are laid triple-lapped. Slate and tile roofs are
comparatively heavy, and hence require stronger roof structures than
shingles.
The roof boarding for slate roofs should be matched--tongued and
grooved--and covered with paper to prevent cold and draughts of air from
passing into the attic. Since slates, on account of their somewhat rough
surfaces, do not lie closely together, the wind is likely to pass
through the cracks in the roof, if there are any, and carry snow and
rain into the upper part of the house; therefore the roof covering
immediately under the slates should be virtually air-tight. The roof
boards for a shingle roof should be narrow and laid with openings of
from 1¹⁄₂ to 2 inches between the boards. Rain and snow seldom drive up
and through the shingle roof, and since wooden roofs are more likely to
rot out than to wear out, the more perfectly the shingles are dried out
after a storm the better. The narrow roof boards and the spaces between
them allow the shingles to dry quickly, and therefore are better than
matched boards.
The short, or common, shingle of commerce is 16 inches long, ³⁄₈- to
¹⁄₂-inch thick at one end, and ¹⁄₈ of an inch at the other, and is
computed at 4 inches wide. A bunch of shingles contains one fourth of a
thousand. It should have 25 double courses and the band should be 20
inches long. Not infrequently there is a course or two wanting, or the
bands are an inch or so short. Having this data, one can easily
determine if the bunch is of legal size. A little cheating is not
uncommonly done by placing the shingles in the bunch loosely. This can
be detected by examining the bunches at the thick ends of the shingles.
Theoretically, 1,000 shingles should cover 10 feet square, or 100 square
feet, known in carpentry as “a square,” if the shingles are laid 4
inches to the weather. Since shingles are usually laid 4¹⁄₂ to 5 inches
to the weather, 1,000 shingles should cover about 120 square feet.
Two-thirds of the lower part of the roof may be laid 4¹⁄₂ inches, and
the upper third 4³⁄₄ or 5 inches to the weather, if the roof is not
flat.
If shingles are treated with lime water or diluted gas tar, or be
painted as they are laid, the life of the roof may be prolonged. The
painting of roofs with tar or common earth or mineral paints, after they
are laid, does little or no good in preserving them. Sometimes painting
is resorted to to make the roof harmonize with the color of the sides of
the building.
Neither extremely narrow nor extremely wide shingles are desirable.
Those from 3 to 6 inches wide, when carefully laid, are satisfactory.
Each shingle should receive but two nails; one is usually enough, and
these should be placed about ³⁄₄ of an inch from the edges, and about 1
inch above the point where the butts of the next course will come. When
the courses above are laid upon the shingle having but one nail, two or
three other nails, which are driven in the courses above, will serve to
help hold it in position. The joints of shingle roofs should be double
broken: that is, the joints in the shingles of one course should not
coincide with the joints of the first or second course below. Consult
Fig. 77.
[Illustration: Fig. 77. The laying of shingles.]
If two nails be driven in the sides of an unseasoned shingle, when it
shrinks it is likely to split in the middle; and in laying a roof the
joint immediately above the course under consideration is likely to come
at or near the middle of the shingle, which splits by reason of the
shrinking. The case is still worse when three nails are put in a
shingle, for then it is almost certain to split in the middle and
immediately in line with the joint in the course above.
Unscientific placing of shingles and insufficient mixing of mortar
results in an unsatisfactory house, both inside and outside, however
good the materials may be.
[Illustration: Fig. 78. A veneered wall.]
VENEERED HOUSES
A most excellent way to secure a warm, durable house, and one that will
require the minimum of care-taking, is to first construct a 4-inch wall
after the balloon pattern, as has been previously described. To this
frame, sheathing surfaced on one side is attached. The 4-inch brick wall
is securely fastened to the wooden structure by means of 30-penny
spikes, one at each studding, which are driven in at the top of every
seven courses of brick. (See Fig. 78.) A wooden house may also be
veneered with stone, the veneering being held in place by means of metal
anchors attached to the boarding.
The foundation needs to be a little stronger than for the wooden house,
and must be provided with a stone water-table for receiving the
veneering.
In a veneered house, all the lightness and dryness of a wooden house are
secured on the inside and on the outside all the durability and solidity
of a brick or stone house. When the veneering is of hard-burned,
cream-colored or neutrally tinted brick or brown stone, the effect is
extremely pleasing. The first cost of such a house is somewhat more than
an all-wood house, but its greater durability and freedom from constant
repairs makes it no more expensive in the end. When one builds such a
house and covers it with a steep slate roof, he feels that he has
builded for many coming generations.
It is not necessary to speak in detail of stone and brick houses, since
such structures are quite expensive, and their construction should
always be placed in the hands of experts. It may be well, however, to
discuss them generally. The cost of building brick houses is nearly
twice as great as those of wood; stone houses cost more than brick
houses. The foundations of brick or stone structures must be broad and
placed deep in the ground, to sustain the great weight placed upon them.
However much pains has been taken, the walls of the superstructure often
crack by reason of the unequal settling of the foundation or by unequal
strain on the walls, due to the window and door openings. Once the walls
are cracked they become unsightly, and cannot well be restored without
being rebuilt. Unless the windows are extra large the house will not be
well lighted because of the thick walls. (See Fig. 24, p. 108.) The
walls do not heat and cool as quickly as do wooden walls, hence brick
and especially stone houses are likely to be damp, since the warm air of
the rooms tends to part with its moisture when it comes in contact with
the relatively cool walls. This tendency of the walls to condense
moisture may be obviated by studding and plastering them on the inside,
but all this adds to the expense. Until building material becomes much
less expensive than it now is, the farmer would better build either a
wooden or veneered house.
[Illustration: Fig. 79. Re-siding an old wall.]
OLD HOUSES
Houses which were built some time ago and before building paper and
better methods of construction were in vogue, are usually too cold and
often extremely unsatisfactory. The outside covering may be warped and
cracked and too often paintless. Where these conditions prevail the
house may be re-sided without removing the old covering. The window
frames, corner boards, and like members which receive the siding are
built out by placing bands around the frames and on the corner boards of
sufficient thickness to receive the new second siding. Strong building
paper is then placed over the old siding, and strips one inch thick and
two inches broad are nailed immediately upon it and over the several
studs of the old frame. (Fig. 79.) The house is now ready to receive new
siding. If paper be laid on the floors and a well seasoned second floor
be laid upon it, they will be greatly improved at slight cost.
[Illustration: Fig. 80. Faulty gutter or eave trough.]
[Illustration: Fig. 81. Well constructed gutter.]
Eave troughs should be placed outside the perpendicular line of the
walls to prevent water from entering the house should the troughs leak
or overflow from being filled with ice. Eave troughs are frequently made
of tin which is too narrow, in which case, especially on flat roofs, the
water will back up under the shingles and run over that part of the
gutter which lies hidden in the roof. The elevation of the front edge of
the gutter should be at least 2 inches below the extreme upper edge of
the tin of which the gutter is made. (Compare Figs. 80 and 81.) Gutters
placed at the end of the rafters are usually not as durable as those
placed on the roof, but if carefully put up so that they will keep their
position they serve their purpose well and may be made to give
additional beauty to the eaves of the roof. The conductors which lead
the water from the gutters to the ground should be made large and of
corrugated material, that expansion may be provided for should they
become filled with ice.
What has been said about using too narrow tin for gutters is doubly
applicable to the valleys. Open valleys are better than closed. All tin
used for gutters or valleys should be painted on both sides before it is
placed upon the roof, and all used about the outside of the building
should be kept well painted, as it is more economical to paint often
than to mend leaks.
PAINTING THE HOUSE
After much solicitude and money have been expended on the construction
of the house, it is poor economy to let it suffer for want of paint. Not
infrequently the house is planned so large, or so much is spent on its
erection that means are not at hand for fully protecting the outside
with suitable paints.
As to the colors of paints or their combinations, little can be said,
since tastes and conditions are extremely variable. A farm house should
have its own distinctive features, and its own personality, and while it
may be similar to many other houses it should not be a duplicate of any
other one.
In manufacturing towns long rows of houses are built, each one the exact
duplicate of all the others in shape, dimensions, and color. The effect
is abominable. This illustration of exact imitation only goes to show
how necessary it is to have diversity of style in the houses themselves
and variation in the colors of the paints if the maximum beauty of the
home and adaptation to landscape and site are secured. In painting the
farm house beauty should not be ignored, but beauty may not be
compatible with durability and necessary economy. The farm home may and
should be placed in such beautiful environment that the paint which
covers it sinks into comparative insignificance as compared to the
painting of the city house; therefore the elements of economy and
durability play as important parts in the painting of farm houses as
does beauty. Even a great, plain, two-story white farm house with green
window-blinds can be made to look beautiful and home-like if it has a
suitable setting of noble trees.
If the outside covering of the house is placed some time before it
receives its first coat of paint, the wood tends to check and usually
becomes too dry for applying it. If exposed for some days to the direct
rays of the sun before painting, so much of the oil of the paint will
be taken up by the wood that there will not be enough left to bind the
mineral matter of the paint to the wood. This is especially the case
where an attempt is made to complete the painting by the application of
but two coats, in which case, the first or prime coat must contain
relatively much mineral material and little oil, and must be spread
thickly if the surfaces are to be well covered by the two coats. Not
infrequently, the outside woodwork is swollen and somewhat displaced by
rains before the roof is in place. Even after it has dried out the ideal
conditions are not secured. The roof should be placed as soon as the
siding is completed, or if possible before. The carpenter should put on
the first, or prime, coat as fast as the house is sided; that is, the
woodwork which has been placed from one scaffold or stage should be
painted from the scaffold before the one above is constructed. The
corner boards, window sash, and frame should receive one coat of paint
before they leave the shop. The prime coat may be of yellow ochre mixed
with some white lead, since the after painting with the desired color
will cover the yellow if two coats be applied. Good yellow ochre is a
most durable paint when properly mixed and spread, although it may be
said that the more white lead used in the prime coat the better. Yellow
ochre should contain a large per cent of iron; when ochres are composed
largely of colored clay they are inferior. The paint for the first coat
should, in any case, be thin, since the oil which it contains plays an
important part. This first coat tends, or should tend, to fill the wood
with oil so that the oil in the after coat will mostly remain with the
paint, and not leave it and pass into the wood, thereby destroying its
binding force. Too much stress can hardly be laid on the necessity of
rubbing the first coat into the wood by vigorous use of the brush. To
realize the value of this principle one has but to visit a first-class
carriage manufactory and observe the methods which are in use to prepare
a carriage body for its final coat of dark paint and varnish. In too
many cases the first coat of paint is mixed too thickly and is not
pressed into the pores of the wood as it should be, in which case the
paint may either peel or rub off in a few years. The country boy dressed
in his best black suit often has a reminder of this if he chances to
lean against the outside of the old country church while “waiting for
meeting to take up.”
All outside painting, with the exception of the first coat, should be
done, as far as possible, in cool weather. Early spring and late fall,
when flies and dust are not present, are the best. If the house is
built in the summer, the second coat may be put on in the fall and the
third coat the following spring. The paint of the second coat may be a
little thicker than that of the first, and that of the third a little
thicker than the second. If the best job is desired the paint for all
three coats should be mixed thinner than is customary, in which case a
fourth coat will be required the following fall. The house will now have
a polish similar to the well painted carriage body, and, like it, will
resist moisture and remain good for a long time. If a building is to be
painted at all it would better be painted at the beginning and be kept
well painted, as it is the more economical in the end. Better curtail
the size of the house than to build it so large that the outside
covering must be neglected.
The oil used in paints is usually derived from the vegetable oil found
in flax or linseed. Although many other kinds of oils have been tried,
nothing has been discovered which can take the place, in paints, of
linseed oil. This is most remarkable, for there are many vegetable oils
which are very similar to this one. Linseed oil is expensive as compared
with several other kinds, hence many attempts have been made to find an
oil equally as good for painting; so far as I am able to learn, none
have been discovered. Linseed oil in paints, when dried, forms a hard,
tough, gluey coating which serves to bind firmly the particles of paint
together, and to the wood, and to exclude water as no other oil does;
hence if any other oil is mixed with the linseed oil, it is said to be
adulterated. At the present time linseed oil is adulterated in some
cases, and it is believed that this adulteration is the chief cause of
the lack of durability in many of the ready-mixed paints. If linseed oil
be mixed with other oils which are wanting in its valuable
characteristic, it is certain that such oils will not bind the particles
of paint together as they should be bound.
At present the only protection is to purchase guaranteed pure oil of
dealers who are reliable beyond peradventure. Outside painting should be
done with unboiled oil unless, on account of the weather, boiled oil
must be used to hasten drying. In extreme cases a drier (litharge) is
used. The drying process should not be rapid in outside painting, as
slow drying promotes durability.
The substances mixed with the oil to form paints are extremely variable
in composition and color. Some are good, and are usually relatively high
priced. Others are inferior and relatively low priced. Now that so many
brands of ready-mixed paints of many tints are in common use, it is
impracticable to analyze all of them and determine their quality so that
the inferior may be distinguished from the superior. There appears to be
but two ways out of this serious dilemma: use the best brands of the
ready-mixed paints and await results, or purchase pure white lead and
zinc paints and pure oil, and tint to suit tastes and conditions.
Heretofore, to do this successfully has required much skill and
patience, especially if the house was to be painted in many colors.
Paints are now so universally adulterated that I deem it my duty to call
attention to a company which virtually guarantees the material sold. The
National Lead Company makes white paints of pure white lead and pure
linseed oil. It also manufactures pure tinting colors, at least the
company so advertise, and without doubt would be liable for damages
should the paints prove to be adulterated. Sample tint cards are
furnished and directions given as to the quantity and kind of tinting
material to be mixed with the white paint to give the desired color. All
this greatly simplifies painting, and if these paints are pure, as
represented, the farmer will have no difficulty in securing pure paint
of any tint desired.
The farmer who desires a beautifully painted house, and simplicity, may
well restrict the colors of the paints he uses to two, being careful
that they are in harmony, one with the other, and with the character of
the house and its surroundings.
The following figures show the composition of some common paints (No. 1
was analyzed at the Cornell Exp. Sta., the others at the Iowa Station):
I. The paint known as white lead, when pure, is a basic carbonate of
lead mixed in oil. A sample showed--
White lead 93.62%
Oil and undetermined 6.38%
There was no evidence of adulteration.
II. White lead--
White lead 41.12%
Barium sulfate 30.29%
Zinc oxide 28.59%
Adulterated with barium sulfate and zinc oxide. Barium sulfate is very
heavy; in fact, in nature it is known as heavy spar.
III. Venetian red, dry--
Ferric oxide 24.12%
Calcium carbonate } 66.36%
Calcium sulfate }
Undetermined 9.52%
Adulterated with calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate. Venetian red
is ferric oxide, or a natural red oxide of iron. Calcium carbonate is
chalk or limestone, and calcium sulfate is plaster.
IV. Venetian red in oil--
Ferric oxide 12.82%
Calcium sulfate 3.54%
Barium sulfate 63.98%
Oil and undetermined 19.66%
--------
100.00%
Adulterated with barium sulfate and calcium sulfate.
CHAPTER X
_INSIDE FINISH, HEATING, AND VENTILATION_
As a rule, houses are built too quickly. The frame timbers are only
partly seasoned when placed; the rains which fall before the house is
roofed-in and the dampness caused by plastering all conspire to swell
and make damp all portions of the wooden parts of the structure.
Formerly, the casings of doors and windows and the floors were placed
before the rooms were plastered; the better practice of plastering on
“grounds”[6] and placing the woodwork after the mortar is dry is now
observed by the builders of all good houses. In most cases even these
improved methods of construction do not result in securing what is
wanted--tight floors and doors and casings which will not shrink and
warp out of shape. Nearly all of this trouble may be traced to two
principal causes: the lumber which constitutes the inside finish may not
be thoroughly seasoned, or the house may be so damp that the finish
swells after it is placed. In either case, when the house becomes
thoroughly dried out by artificial heat or otherwise, unsightly and
dirt-holding cracks will appear. When expensive hard wood polished
floors are laid, pains is taken to provide against shrinkage by
kiln-drying the floor boards and by laying them where the air and sun
unite to take up extraneous moisture in the rooms and in the floor
boards used.
[6] Narrow strips of sufficient thickness to receive the lath and
plaster, placed on the frame and other places where needed.
Comparatively few persons can afford hard wood floors, but this fact
does not preclude having floors without wide cracks, which serve to
retain dangerous and filthy material. There is no reason why tight
floors may not be made of hard pine or other suitable material, provided
a little extra pains be taken in their construction.
The laying of the floors should be the last carpenter work done in the
new house. All this implies that a rough, cheap floor has been laid when
the frame was constructed. The rough, diagonally laid sub-floor will
cost something extra, but it results in so many benefits that it should
never be dispensed with.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.
A plain base board.]
[Illustration: Fig. 83.
A complex base board.]
Windows and door frames must have inside casings, and baseboards,
kitchen wainscoting and picture moldings cannot well be dispensed with.
All these should be of the simplest and plainest construction. Fig. 82
shows a cross section of a plain baseboard, and Fig. 83 one of complex
construction. Two styles of facings are shown in Fig. 84. The one style
forms lodging places for dirt; the other reduces dust catching to the
minimum. I notice that some of the newer passenger coaches, though most
elegant, are built with smooth inside finish. With the exception of the
window sills there are no lodging places for dust and cinders. The
old-fashioned doors with thin panels, and numerous moldings have been
discarded, and those as plain and uniform in thickness as a pane of
window glass, substituted for them. The picture molding, as shown in
Fig. 85, may serve to support the picture and catch dirt as well. The
other illustration (Fig. 86) shows one which may serve quite as well for
the purpose desired without forming a dust shelf. If the window sashes
are made with plain bevels and not molded, and all other window
fixtures, as stops and the like, are constructed in the same way, the
labor of keeping the house clean will be greatly reduced.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.
Two styles of facing.]
[Illustration: Fig. 85.
The common but faulty picture moulding.]
The wainscoting and the ceilings, if they are made of wood, should be
constructed of wide boards, the cracks being covered with beveled
battens. The old-fashioned, beaded, narrow ceiling material is not only
difficult to keep tinted or varnished, but almost forbids cleanliness.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.
A sanitary picture molding.]
Most stairs are too steep; some are little better than ladders and more
dangerous. The risers in the main stairway should not exceed 6¹⁄₂
inches, nor the steps be less than 12 inches wide. The back stair may
have 7 to 7¹⁄₂ inches risers, and 10- to 11-inch steps. The best and
most beautiful stair has one or more broad landings. The spiral or
“corkscrew” stair is worst of all. The effort to economize space by
cramping the stair is almost universal. The difference between a cramped
stair and an ample one may not amount to more than 12 square feet of
space, equivalent to the top of a small table. True, the children may go
up an easy stair two steps at a time, but when their hair whitens they
will bless the man who knew the difference between an easy, dignified
stair and a step-ladder. Diminish the size of a room, add a foot to the
width of the house, do anything rather than cramp the stairway.
As far as possible paint should be kept off the inside woodwork. There
are but few varieties of wood which may not be made smooth; and by the
use of hard oil, which is really oil and varnish mixed together, all
woodwork becomes beautiful and can be easily cleaned. It appears almost
sacrilegious to cover the fine grain of our native woods with cheap,
adulterated paint. If some of the woods, such as ash, oak and chestnut,
be sawed “on the quarter” and properly finished, they become more
elegant and are in better taste than any of the imported high-priced
woods. The farm house should be plain, substantial, and durable, and in
many cases there is sufficient wealth to make it elegant and even
refined by decorating the walls with a few fine pictures and providing
useful books. We judge people somewhat by the furnishings of the rooms
in which they live, and by their appreciation of things which are really
beautiful and useful.
The comfort and elegance of the rooms depend quite as much on the
plastered walls as on their wooden finish. Few things are more annoying
than poor walls, which may fall at any time upon the furniture and rugs,
and may even endanger the lives of the little ones. With quick-lime and
sand and an honest and efficient workman, a good, durable wall may be
secured; provided, however, that the joists and studding are strong
enough to prevent vibration when the floors are walked upon or the doors
are closed quickly.
In plastering, the green-coat finish should not be adopted, since poorer
walls will inevitably be the result than by the scratch-coat method. To
the new settler on the prairies living in a covered wagon, the time
consumed in building a house was important; therefore the second coat of
plaster was put on a few hours after the first. The pressure required to
spread, level, and smooth the second coat often disturbed the clinches
formed by the first coat. The bond of these mortar clinches being broken
or disturbed, the wall was made weak. It is well known that if the bond
between the lath and mortar is once broken after the mortar sets, it
never reunites. The only safe way to place a wall when the common mortar
is used is by the scratch-coat method. This consists in allowing the
first coat to become fully dry, having, however, scratched the surface
of the plaster slightly soon after it is put on. When it is perfectly
dry the second coat is placed, and when this is dry, a third (skim) coat
may be added, which should be but little thicker than whitewash. This
leaves the wall smooth and nearly white. However, many walls are now
finished on the second coat which is left level but rough, and may be
tinted by mixing coloring material with the mortar. The quality of the
wall depends largely upon the mixing of the mortar and the amount of
firm troweling which it receives. The fewer interstices between the
particles of sand the better. Firm, persistent troweling tends to reduce
interstices, and hence to make the wall firm and strong. Plastered walls
are much strengthened by being painted, and wherever such painting is
appropriate, as in the bathroom, wardrobe, and kitchen, they should
receive two coats of light cream color or other warm-colored paint.
A new mixture, cement and hair, or wood-fiber, has been put on the
market, and is likely to be used extensively, for when properly used a
stronger, harder, and more durable wall is secured than by using the
ordinary stone lime and sand mortar. This cement is sold under a variety
of names, and is usually known by the builders under the generic name,
adamant or adamant plaster. It is put up in barrel packages, and sells
in central New York from $2 to $2.50 per barrel, wholesale. It is mixed
in small quantities immediately before using, in the proportion of one
of cement to two of sharp sand. One barrel suffices for thirty square
yards of two-coat work, three-fourth-inch grounds being used;
seven-eighth-inch grounds are required for three-coat work. As mortar
made of this material sets quickly, the laths should be thoroughly wet
before the mortar is applied, and the rooms should be closed while the
work is progressing, or the mortar will harden too rapidly. Not only
plastering mortar, but that used for other purposes which depends on
cement for its binding force, should not be allowed to dry out rapidly.
One serious objection is urged against walls made of cement mortar,--it
being said that they are so resonant as to be annoying. To overcome this
objection the walls of one public building were covered with burlap and
painted. Notwithstanding the objections raised against cement plastered
walls, they are likely to come into common use, since they are so
superior in hardness and durability to the old style wall.
Ordinarily, a full year should be allotted for building the house, and
it should not be occupied until it has become thoroughly dried out.
Perhaps this hint of the unsanitary condition of a damp house may be
sufficient for the American. In Germany the law requires that a new
house must have been completed a full half year before it may be
occupied.
HEATING AND VENTILATION
In the future as in the past, most farm houses, without doubt, will be
heated by stoves. However, some farmers will desire either an air,
water, or steam heater. Air heaters are dangerous, because if the valves
are not properly managed, the pipes may become superheated and may set
the building on fire. They carry fine dust into the rooms, and the heat
cannot be evenly distributed when the house is exposed to the full force
of the wind, as it usually is in the country. The system of heating by
means of hot water has many objections when used in the farm house. The
water in the pipes is likely to freeze at night in the unused rooms if
it is cut off; if it is left on, all the rooms must be heated, which is
frequently not desirable. Then, too, heat cannot be secured as quickly
in the morning as desired, and in case of too much heat, the rooms cool
slowly unless doors or windows are opened. The first cost of placing a
steam heating plant is expensive, but once in place it is most
satisfactory. Wherever steam power can be used to advantage in the
dairy, the steam plant might well be placed in one end of the summer
kitchen or in the wood house, where it may be separated from the balance
of the room by a partition. There is no more danger of fire from a
boiler than from a stove. The one plant which furnishes steam and hot
water for various purposes, such as churning, sawing wood, and pumping
water, need not be more expensive if it also is made to serve for
heating the house.
A simple contrivance now in common use,--when several buildings are
heated from a central station,--serves to govern the amount and pressure
of steam introduced into the building. The farm steam plant should be
situated, when possible, below the level of the radiators on the first
floor, that the warm water from the condensed steam may be used again in
the boiler instead of cold water. In the long run, this system would
heat the house more cheaply than stoves, require less care-taking, and
be cleaner and more satisfactory in every way.
Much has been written about ventilation; and too often the systems
applicable to ventilating large, overcrowded rooms and public halls have
been applied to dwellings. However complex and difficult the ventilation
of large buildings may be, the ventilation of a room in a dwelling is
simple. If there are two or more windows in a room, ideal ventilation
can be secured by raising the lower and lowering the upper sash as much
as desired. By this method three streams of air are allowed to enter or
leave the room, as there will be openings at the top, bottom and middle
of the windows. The impure air is largely found at the top of the room
and at the bottom. If, then, the warmer and lighter air is allowed to
escape at the top, the colder air will rush in at the bottom, which will
result in keeping it moving as water moves when the inflow is at or near
the bottom of a vessel and the outflow near the top. Whenever only one
window can be secured in the sleeping room, large transoms should be
placed over the doors into the hall. While this method does not
ventilate as well as the other, it serves to keep the air pure in the
chamber. When there are many rooms situated on one hall, the hall should
be ventilated by means of windows at its end, or at the top of the
house. Many farm houses are over-ventilated in winter, the cold air
entering the loose casements until the wash water expands and breaks the
pitcher. In such cases storm sashes are a necessity, and are more
economical than feather beds or coal in preserving a living
temperature.
CHAPTER XI
_HOUSE FURNISHING AND DECORATION_
House furnishings do not exist for themselves, but as a background for
the people who live among them. Just as the trees, rocks, fields and
animals have for their setting the green earth and the blue sky, and as
pictures have a background, a middle distance and a foreground, so human
beings have their setting. If the setting be more striking or more
elegant than the people for whom it exists, they are made uncomfortable
and overshadowed by it; if meaner and uglier than they, the people are
belittled by it. How many houses there are whose furnishings are much
more attractive than their inhabitants! A woman of superficial education
and trivial character has the distinction of having the most beautiful
library in her state; rows on rows of the best books, in beautiful
bindings, in a room of the most artistic design, and nobody to read
them. The contrast between the woman and her environment is pitiful.
The house and its contents should be an outgrowth of the tastes, habits
and occupation of its owners. 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. The equipment of the house should express this breadth, beauty,
and freedom of life. It follows from this that many pieces of furniture
and some kinds of decoration which are offered in the shops are quite
out of place in a country house. Imitation is, therefore, a dangerous
principle, for it is likely to lead to the choice and purchase of
articles which, however suitable for some other family and pretty in
themselves, are wholly inappropriate in the case of the purchaser.
There are three main considerations which should always be taken into
account in house-furnishing: health, suitability, and beauty. The order
of these is often reversed to the permanent injury of the housewife. The
first law of hygiene is that nothing can be suitable which is not
wholesome for those who are to use it; the first law of decorative art
is that nothing is beautiful which is not wholly suitable. If these
principles should be applied to the furnishing of country houses, they
would taboo dark, thick window draperies, nearly all bric-a-brac, heavy
upholstered furniture, parlor tea-tables filled with delicate (and
generally dusty) china, and many other things which have been copied
from the unwholesome and perhaps necessary customs of city life.
Taste is a matter of cultivation, as much as efficiency or honesty; the
habitual application of its fundamental principles in one’s own
household, and the seeing of beautiful things elsewhere, are the chief
means of its development. Man obtained his first conception of beauty
from the form and color which he saw in the world about him, and we have
only to apply the principles which are there apparent, in order to
develop good taste. Nature provides an immense and comparatively neutral
background; Nature always makes curves, never angles; Nature blends the
most sharply contrasting colors together in the butterfly’s wing, in the
poppies in a meadow, and in the feathers of the robin’s breast. The
greater part of the world is in soft colors, browns and grays, dull
greens and dull blues; the brilliant yellows, reds, pinks, purples and
blues are always in very small quantities against this very large,
neutral background. Since the furnishings of a house are the setting of
the people, none of them should be more conspicuous than the people.
Whatever brilliant color there is must be in relatively small
quantities against a soft background. Nothing either in form or color
should “stick out.”
If the general principles just laid down be applied to the details of
house furnishing, we shall find that many matters must be changed. Since
the housewife must usually do her own work with very little or, at most,
inadequate help, everything should be planned to save her strength. If
we remember, also, that the first effort of good housekeeping is to keep
dirt out of the house, and the second to get it out at once, it will
appear that carpets are unsanitary. It has already been shown that good
floors are now to be had easily and cheaply. If properly painted or
finished with oil and wax, they form the best foundation for tasteful
and cleanly housekeeping. Carpets not only keep the dirt in the house,
but they involve that annual bugbear, house-cleaning. Even when the
floors are old and poor, the space around the edge of a rug may be
puttied and painted so as to look very well when the rug is put down. By
rugs, I do not mean several little rugs, like oases in the slippery
surface, or at the doorways to trip the unwary, but a good,
generous-sized rug which just escapes the edges of the heavier furniture
around the sides of the room; which is substantial enough not to roll
up, and which is yet small enough to be carried in and out by one
person. If the woodwork and pictures be wiped with a damp cloth, the
windows washed, the floor dusted, and the rug beaten out of doors, now
and then, no such terrible upheaval as house-cleaning usually implies,
is necessary. Rugs may be had ready-made of ingrain, Japanese cotton,
and jute, Brussels, and more expensive materials, but should always be
heavy enough to lie flat without fastening and large enough to cover the
entire portion of the floor which is to be walked upon. The uncovered
space should usually not be wider than one and one-half feet.
All furniture that is not actually built into or fastened to the wall
and floors should be easily movable and easily cleaned. This at once
precludes the purchase of heavy, upholstered chairs and large sofas.
Wicker and rattan furniture, though not so artistic and costly as
antique wood, is very light, and with good removable hair cushions, may
be made quite as comfortable and far more cleanly than upholstered plush
and damask. The cushions may be beaten at the same time as the rugs, and
the dust thus taken out of the house. White enameled bedsteads and
washstands are rapidly superseding the heavy wooden ones. It is a
curious fact that although the persons of a family are of various sizes
and ages, chairs are still bought by the half dozen, without reference
to the people who are to sit upon them. Even in such minor matters as
chairs and tea-cups, some account should be taken of individuality.
If all furniture be selected with these simple principles in mind, i.
e., hygienic cleanliness, the minimum of labor for the housewife, and
the comfort of those who are to use it, there remains only one other way
in which to go astray: it may still be superlatively and positively
ugly; or it may be comfortable, sanitary, easily moved, and yet be
merely negatively ugly; or it may be made decorative by its graceful
form, the color of its covering, or the carving upon it. The first
principle of artistic decoration is that it must be wholly subordinated
to the use of the object which it adorns. For instance, windows are for
two purposes: to light the house and for seeing out. If a window opens
on a barnyard or some unpleasant prospect, you may put up a sash curtain
of light silk or muslin. Thus you obtain light but no view. But if you
wish to see out of the window, sash curtains are absurd. In the ordinary
private house, elaborate and heavy window curtains are out of place,
both for sanitary and artistic reasons. Whenever cleanliness is a prime
object, drapery should be movable and washable. Silk and velvet
draperies are only to be tolerated where there is a retinue of maids to
keep them clean.
The facility and cheapness of mill-work and lathe-work in wood has
vitiated the taste of Americans to a terrible degree. Nearly all
ready-made furniture is grooved, machine-carved, and ornamented in a way
to violate not only the principles of beauty, but of strength and
cleanliness as well. Ornament that does not _mean anything_ is not
merely commonplace but ugly. There are four chairs of different
patterns, and costing from $1.50 to $15, in the room where I sit; all of
them have legs. Now, legs are intended as a support, yet all these are
grooved and beaded and hollowed out in spots, so that twice as much
material as is necessary has been used to insure support. The
ornamentation is not pretty, the hollows are inevitably full of dust,
and they mean absolutely nothing to anybody who sees them. On the front
crosspiece of one large chair is glued a design of leaves in oak, by way
of ornament. If these had been carved out upon a beautiful strip of wood
by the hand of a cunning workman, they would at least have meant a man’s
thought and skill. As they are, they suggest merely a machine and a glue
pot, and thousands of others as hideous as they. Contrast with this
gingerbread furniture the plain, substantial colonial chairs and tables
and sideboards, made of beautiful wood, almost without ornamentation,
with shapely, slender, and strong legs and softly polished by hand.
Cheapness and quantity have been secured by machinery at the expense of
beauty and strength.
If the principle thus illustrated be true, then it follows that patterns
of any sort, whether in carpets, wall paper, china, or drapery, must be
very carefully used that they may not be more conspicuous than that
which they decorate. The floor and the wall are the basis both of
color-scheme and decoration. They are the background of the people who
are to live there; they should, therefore, be rather inconspicuous, soft
and indefinite in effect, and as becoming as possible to the human
figures. If the climate be sunny and the room well lighted, the walls
and floor may be dark and rich in effect; if the climate be uncertain
and often cloudy, or the room badly lighted, the effect should be light
and gay. Color is the chief means of producing this result: the walls
and floors of living rooms should be of soft, neutral brown, yellow,
red, green, or warm gray tints. Blue, though very lovely when carefully
used, is cold in effect, and seldom satisfactory for living rooms, while
the blue grays are positively chilling. Yellow in paler or richer
shades, depending on the lighting of the room, is uniformly cheerful
and satisfying; next to it rank the various terra cotta shades. Neither
rug nor wall-covering should have large, striking designs; if having
pattern at all, it should rather be of an indefinite, wandering design
like the Japanese jute rugs, or of small inconspicuous conventional
design, such as may be found in the best Brussels carpet.
If the floors, however, be poor and old they may be covered very
inexpensively with thick, strong building paper which comes in beautiful
tints and the rug may be laid on top of this; or with denim on top of
newspapers, which is only a little more expensive, and which may be had
in a variety of beautiful shades; or, best of all, with matting on top
of paper. Matting is especially desirable because the dust sifts through
below, and does not rise easily when swept. But the money spent to cover
up a poor floor would often serve to lay a good new one, and this should
be done whenever possible. For kitchen and, in some cases, for a dining
room floor as well, nothing is so satisfactory as linoleum. It is
impervious, warm, soft to the foot, easily kept in order by an
occasional coat of oil, and to be had in agreeable patterns. It may also
be used like denim, building paper, and matting, to cover up bad floors,
and as a basis for the rug; while more expensive, it is also much more
satisfactory than anything except a good hardwood floor. There is often
far too great contrast between the furnishings of the living room and
the parlor; between the “spare room” and the family bedrooms. The money
spent in elegance which is shut up in a room rarely used would serve to
add much to the comfort of the whole family. The guest will enjoy the
hospitality offered all the more if not treated too ceremoniously.
The furnishing of the living room should always include several easy
chairs, a good lounge, a place for books and magazines, and a thoroughly
good reading lamp. If it can be afforded, a small room off the sitting
room for writing and study is very desirable. It should contain book
shelves, a large writing table or desk, and a good lamp. But if the
extra room cannot be had, the desk and book shelves may be placed in the
parlor. There should certainly be some place where the children may
study or any member of the family may read and write uninterrupted. It
is as irksome to write without proper appliances as to bathe without
proper facilities.
The furniture and decorations of bedrooms can scarcely be too simple;
the walls may be lighter and gayer than those of living rooms. Blue and
white or pale green and white may be used as color-schemes for very
sunny bedrooms, yellow or pink and white for less sunny ones. One or two
single, white, enamelled iron bedsteads, a washstand, a bureau or a
chest of drawers with glass above, two or three low, light chairs, and a
table or desk at which one may write, is an ample furnishing, if there
be a good closet or wardrobe. The rug need be only large enough to cover
the space in front of the bed, bureau, and stand, if the floor be well
matched and painted or oiled. A bedroom should give the impression of
spotlessness and comfort; everything should be washable or cleanable;
unless used also as a sitting room, it should not have a superfluous
article in it. Mats, bric-a-brac, even many pictures, are quite out of
place.
Since cost, styles and tastes differ so widely in different localities,
no detailed directions can or should be given that will be generally
applicable. If the principles illustrated in this chapter be correct,
they will serve to guide and to develop the taste of many different
kinds of persons.
CHAPTER XII
_CLEANLINESS AND SANITATION--WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE_
Filth and disease have gone hand in hand from the beginning of the
world; but only during the last quarter-century have we known the true
cause of infection, and why it is so closely associated with dirt. The
danger of uncleanliness lies in the existence of certain microscopic
organisms belonging to the vegetable kingdom, known popularly as
microbes or germs, but more properly as bacteria. Bacteria, like the
plants with which we are more familiar, thrive in moisture and moderate
heat, but differ from them in many respects. Some of the more striking
differences are structure and method of reproduction, many of them
possessing the faculty of growing without sunlight. Bacteria are
composed of minute masses of vegetable matter which vary from one
ten-thousandth to one-thirty thousandth of an inch in length, and they
reproduce by simple division. This process of multiplication may occur
as often as once in half an hour; thus immense numbers may develop in a
very short time. Under conditions unfavorable for growth, some species
may form within their interior dense masses which are called spores.
These resemble the seeds of higher plants in their function of
distributing the species and in preserving life through intervals of
time unfavorable for continuous multiplication.
Bacteria may be classified in several ways, but for the discussion of
cleanliness and sanitation, the simplest division is into the harmless
and the injurious. The harmless forms live mostly on dead organic
matter, causing nitrification, fermentation, and putrefaction; they
break down the more complex organic compounds into simpler ones, so that
they can be used again as food for plants. Familiar examples of this are
seen in the decay of meat and vegetables. This class is more numerous,
much hardier than the other, and comprises an overwhelmingly large
proportion of the bacteria in nature.
Bacteria are found almost constantly in water, in soil, and in air.
Consequently they are present in all our food, except that which has
been heated to kill them. Certain bacteria are normal inhabitants of the
mouth, throat and intestines, while others find suitable conditions for
growth on the skin and in the accumulation of substances excreted in the
perspiration.
Owing to the short time which has been devoted to the study of bacteria
and their functions, closer attention has been paid to the harmful or
pathogenic bacteria because of their relation to human health. This
one-sided study of bacteriology has blinded us to the beneficent action
of many bacteria, and has caused us much unnecessary fear of their
presence in food.
The harmful bacteria cause disease either indirectly through poisons
which they excrete in food products, or directly by poisons or toxins
which they form when living within the body. Although harmless bacteria
are everywhere present, the pathogenic or harmful varieties are
ordinarily much less numerous. It should be understood, however, that
many of the so-called harmless bacteria are the cause of certain
decompositions of vegetable and animal matter with the formation of
substances which are detrimental to health. This is illustrated by the
occasional cases of meat, fish, and oyster poisoning. The pathogenic
bacteria, such as those of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and
the like, constitute, as has been already stated, a small number of
species. These are disseminated through various channels, such as the
milk and the water supply, and by persons directly. When they are
introduced into dirty and unwholesome homes, they find in the filth
suitable conditions for their multiplication, with the usual
consequence of causing more or less disease in the family. The human
body possesses more or less power of resistance to bacteria, but if
these natural forces cannot overcome their invasion, they in turn will
be successful and produce disease.
Once infected with disease-producing bacteria, a house should be
renovated from attic to cellar, and subjected to the action of agents
possessing the power of destroying the pathogenic organisms. Numerous
means are employed to kill bacteria, among them being the use of
disinfectants in the form of liquids or gases, and the application of
heat. The list of chemical disinfectants is long, but owing to their
cost, a relatively small number are available for the disinfection of
houses. The use of carbolic acid, copperas, whitewash, and the fumes of
burning sulfur are familiar disinfectants used for this purpose. Among
the disinfectants which can be applied directly to wounds, to prevent
suppuration, are weak solutions of corrosive sublimate and of carbolic
acid.
The greater number of bacteria, pathogenic or harmless, which do not
form spores, are destroyed by a temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit
for twenty minutes. Very few resist the boiling point; thus water may be
made safe by boiling, and milk by Pasteurizing at 155 degrees for
twenty minutes. Cold merely checks the growth of bacteria, but,
ordinarily, does not destroy them. Sunlight and fresh air are especially
unfavorable to them; therefore the house should be sunny, and beds,
bedrooms and living rooms thoroughly aired. If there be no organic
matter to serve as nutriment for them, they cannot multiply; therefore
the body, the clothing, and the dwelling should be kept as clean as
possible. For this reason the first test of good sanitation is the
immediate removal of all waste matter from the house, and the first
preventive of disease is personal cleanliness.
In Chapter VI suggestions have been made concerning the site, location,
and drainage of the farm house. The kind, number, and convenience of the
sanitary appliances, such as hot water boilers, closets, lavatories, and
baths, are chiefly dependent upon the water-supply. If there be an
abundance from a town water-main, or from a windmill or house-tank which
will give some pressure, the problem of plumbing is comparatively easy;
but if there be no such supply, it becomes far more difficult. A good
water supply _in the house_ is of the first importance; therefore, for
several reasons, plumbing conveniences lessen the work of the housewife
by half, they encourage the practice of that virtue which is “next to
godliness,” and if properly arranged they do away with many sanitary
dangers. Personal cleanliness is irksome enough with every convenience
for washing and bathing. When there is no convenience except a wash
basin and a quart or two of hot water, habitual cleanliness is
practically impossible. In this respect town and city life have an
immense advantage over rural life. A woman who had moved from town to
country for the sake of her husband’s health, was asked how she liked
it: she said, “It is delightful, but I sometimes think I cannot endure
it on account of this nasty privy and no bath-room.” Cleanliness of the
skin is hygienically far more important than cleanliness of clothing. In
athletics and gymnastics, the bath following the exercise is considered
an essential part of their hygienic value; how much more necessary,
then, is opportunity for frequent bathing, where the family, both in and
out of doors, do daily manual labor which causes much perspiration, and
which is often very dirty! The recent movement in cities to provide
public bath-houses for the poor in tenements should not outstrip the
farmer’s effort to obtain equally good facilities.
If there be a sufficient water supply available, there should be in
every house a hot water boiler of at least twenty gallons capacity,
attached to the kitchen range, to supply hot water for laundry work and
bathing; a kitchen sink and a bath-tub, each with hot and cold water
faucets and waste pipe to sewer or cesspool; and a water-closet. These
are the essentials; but, if possible, a stationary wash stand and two
laundry tubs, with hot and cold water pipes, should also be provided. In
the farm house it will save expense and many steps for the housewife,
and will encourage frequent use, if all these be located on the first
floor; the boiler in a cupboard in the wall of the kitchen, which may be
shut in summer and opened in winter; the sink in the kitchen, or if
preferred, in a pantry between the dining room and kitchen; the
bath-room and stationary washstand in a room either opening out of the
kitchen or out of the family bedroom, or out of a rear passage; the
water-closet should be in some well ventilated space, on an outside
wall, where the noise of the fixture will be as little heard as
possible. It should have an outside as well as an inside entrance. It is
customary to place the closet in the bath-room, but this often
interferes with the general use of the washstand and bath-tub by the
family, and should be avoided. The nearer all plumbing fixtures are to
each other, the less expensive they are to put in; therefore in
planning the first floor, this point should receive special
consideration.
Certain general principles apply to all plumbing, and may serve to test
the various kinds of fixtures offered for sale. All foul and effete
matter should be immediately and completely removed from the house; any
back current of foul air into the house should be prevented, and any
communication between the sewer or the cesspool and the water supply
should be made impossible. Fixtures should be as simple in construction
as possible and easily accessible. Pipes were formerly enclosed in the
walls, but in the finest new buildings in cities, are now placed
altogether in sight, and painted the color of the walls, or of the
woodwork. The sewer pipe, on reaching the level of the ground, should
pass directly out of the house, and should never be carried along under
the first floor of the house. In the southern states and on the Pacific
coast, pipes may run on the outside of the house, thus fulfilling
ideally the principle that waste matter should be removed from the house
as soon as possible. A few years ago there was much controversy over the
placing of vent pipes in traps and in branches. Gerhard and the older
sanitarians advise a complicated and elaborate use of them, but Putnam
and the more recent authorities consider thorough ventilation of the
soil pipe at top and bottom quite sufficient. The material of fixtures
should be good (not extravagant), and the workmanship should be of the
very best. The efficiency of any sanitary convenience depends almost as
much upon the care with which it is put in as upon its material and
style. But of all the principles of sanitary plumbing, probably the most
important is frequent and thorough flushing, if possible with hot water.
Any fixture will become foul and dangerous if there is not water enough
and under sufficient force to scour it out thoroughly.
Having laid down certain principles which apply to plumbing fixtures
generally, we may now consider these fixtures more in detail. Pipes
should be rather heavy. Waste pipes are generally too large, and
therefore do not scour well; they need be only three to four inches in
diameter for one or more closets in an ordinary house, and from one to
one and a-half inches for washbowls, sinks, and tubs; they should always
be of uniform size, i. e., “full-bore” throughout. Soil pipes should
never run level, but as nearly as possible at a uniform slope of not
less than one foot in fifty.
The kitchen sink may be of white porcelain, enameled iron, painted iron,
or granite ware, any of which materials are serviceable and desirable;
or of wood, lined with lead, zinc, copper or slate, all of which are
more or less undesirable, because after some use, the water and filth is
apt to get in between the wood and its covering, or because they are not
durable. The sink should have as little woodwork about it as possible,
since wood is porous and, therefore, collects filth. It should be set
open on brackets, and not over a dark, moist, dirt-collecting,
back-breaking closet. Flushing is especially important in the case of
the kitchen sink because of the grease. The best plumbing provides a
grease-trap outside the house, which may be easily cleaned; but whether
outside or immediately beneath the sink, the trap should have a
screw-plug, so that it may be frequently cleaned. It follows that the
kitchen waste pipe should not be too large, should have a good incline,
and if possible no abrupt curves, so that cooling grease in the water
may not harden on the sides of the pipe and finally fill it up. The use
of a cheap wire screen garbage basket in the sink will prevent the small
particles of waste from passing down the pipe.
Bath-tubs of white earthenware or “porcelain” are the most expensive,
the most durable and very heavy; of white enameled iron, are less
expensive and heavy, durable if carefully used, impervious and cleanly;
those of copper, tinned and planished, dent easily and the tinning
wears off, but are fairly durable and still less expensive; those of
wood-fiber are not very common, but are impervious, light and cleanly.
The stationary washstand bowl and top are usually of marble; the outlet
of the bowl should not be smaller than the wastepipe; the trap should be
near the bowl, and have a screw plug, so that obstructions may be easily
removed.
There is an immense variety of water-closets; those should be especially
avoided which have moveable machinery in connection with the bowl, such
as the pan, valve, and plunger closets. Some of these are very
inexpensive, but they are objectionable, either because they rust and
accumulate filth, or because they get out of order easily. The forms of
closets without movable machinery in connection with the bowl, that is,
in which the machinery is connected with the flushing cistern, such as
the hopper, the siphon-jet, and the washout closets, are to be
preferred. Any washout or hopper closet bought from a responsible firm
is likely to give satisfaction, if thoroughly flushed and kept in order.
Stationary laundry tubs are of less importance than these other plumbing
fixtures, since there are several excellent washing machines the use of
which does away with the necessity for them. If one must choose between
the two, the washing machine will be most useful; but if one wishes to
have laundry tubs also, they come in porcelain, soapstone, granite, and
wood, the latter being the least desirable.
If the water supply be limited, as when a tank is supplied by pumping
from a cistern, the hot water boiler, the bath-tub, and the stationary
washstand may be arranged almost as easily as when there is an abundance
of water; but it may be necessary to substitute the dry-closet for the
water-closet.
When no tank supply is available, and all water must be carried from a
cistern or from the well in the yard, the cost of plumbing is very small
and the discomfort very great. Warm water must be supplied chiefly from
a reservoir at the back of the range, thus making frequent bathing very
inconvenient, even if a regular bath-tub be provided. If, however, a
cesspool be built in the yard, the kitchen sink, the slop-hopper, the
bath-tub, and the laundry tub may have waste pipes to it. Such waste
pipes save just half the work, for the water has to be carried only to
the fixture, not away from it again. It thus seems worth while to have
the fixtures, even though they serve only half their purpose. A
slop-hopper with pipe to the cesspool, on the same level and near the
kitchen, for waste wash water, etc., from the chambers, saves many
steps, and is far more sanitary than throwing slops on the ground
outside the house or carrying them to the outhouse.
The chief problem is the outhouse, or privy vault. There is no more
disgusting or unsanitary feature of rural life than this ill-smelling,
dirty hole in the ground, from which the filth permeates the surrounding
soil, and may contaminate the water supply. Much discomfort and some
digestive ills arise from the necessity--especially for women--of going
a considerable distance in cold weather and at night, to such places.
The closet should, therefore, be as near the house as is compatible with
decency, and should be reached by a covered walkway. If properly built
and regularly disinfected and cleaned, it need be neither disgusting nor
unsanitary. The wooden house should never be papered nor carpeted, but
should be painted or whitewashed yearly and kept scrupulously clean. The
habitual use of ashes or dry earth in the receptacle and an occasional
application of some disinfectant, such as copperas or chloride of lime,
is necessary. If drawers are used in the privy, they may be hauled out
frequently by horse; and with the liberal use of road dust, no offense
arises. The writer knows a country house in which dry-earth closets are
under the house-roof, and yet there is no unpleasantness. Since the well
is so easily contaminated by the seeping through the soil of manure and
human waste matter, it is of the utmost importance that the privy vault
should be below the source of water supply and as far as possible from
it. In the following pages the details of construction of the privy
vault are given, the relative location of it, and the water supply.
Plumbing fixtures, like all other mechanical contrivances, to be
efficient, require to be kept in perfect order. Frequent, thorough
flushing with hot water whenever possible, and disinfection of the
closet and the sink, are especially desirable. If all fixtures be set
“open” and all pipes in sight, any leakage may be easily detected and
remedied. If the pipes be painted with white lead, the defect will be
discovered by the discoloration of the paint.
WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE
Water in abundance for the domestic animals should be provided by means
of artificial pools or lakes, situated on land higher than the barns,
but if they must be placed below the level of the buildings, aermotors
or windmills may be easily made to elevate it to any reasonable height.
It is difficult to explain why more miniature lakes, in which to store
water for all except culinary purposes, are not constructed. In Fig. 7
it is shown how easily these pools may be made without expensive stone
dams, and after the fashion of those constructed in many of the southern
states.
Wells, in many places, must be deep, and then often furnish but a meager
supply of water, while cisterns large enough to supply all wants are
expensive. In addition to artificial lakes, wells, and cisterns, there
are often streams, or best of all, springs, to be drawn upon. In any
case, a full and continuous supply of water should be provided before
buildings are constructed if annoyance, loss, and unnecessary labor are
to be obviated and the best sanitary conditions secured in the house.
Unless the water is brought into the house under a constant pressure,
one or more storage tanks should be provided. They should be placed at
such elevations as will secure at least some pressure on the first floor
above the cellar. The storage tank may have a capacity of from one to
five barrels, and may be constructed of rough or planed two-inch planks
and lined with galvanized iron, if the water is to be used for culinary
purposes; if not, it may be lined with lead. The tank, which may be of
any shape desired, may be placed on supports near the ceiling of the
bath-room, or the room which contains the commode, or at one end in the
upper part of the clothes-press; provided, however, that the discharge
pipe is made so large that under no contingencies will the tank
overflow. If the house is fairly large and the cistern capacious,
sufficient water may be pumped into the tank from the cistern in a few
minutes to supply all wants for the day. From the tank it will flow by
gravity into the hot water boiler and to all other points desired which
are not above the tank. If water be raised by means of an aermotor, a
storage tank will still be necessary, as the wind may fail to operate
the motor for an entire day. By whatever means water is secured, the
supply should be ample at all times. Springs and wells in the middle and
northern states, and cisterns in the southern states will, in most
cases, serve to supply the potable water needed, but these are too often
inadequate to supply the large demand for water made by the animals, and
the extra demand for water in the house made by cleaner and more
sanitary methods of living.
In using water in the household, it becomes mixed with a great variety
of organic substances which pollute it, and which tend to putrefaction
and decay. As these various organic substances break down, numerous
compounds are produced, many of which endanger not only health but life
itself; it is therefore evident that all soiled water should be removed
from the house immediately and by the shortest practical route. But what
to do with the polluted water after it has been removed from the rooms,
becomes one of the most difficult problems of modern civilization. The
first thought is to empty this sewage into streams and lakes; but those
living on the streams and in the cities must secure their water-supply
from these sources. It is evident, then, that the streams should not be
polluted. The next thought is to distribute the sewage over the land,
but this method is usually an expensive one, and seldom can enough sandy
land be secured to absorb and filter the vast quantities of sewage which
modern conditions make necessary.
On the farm the same difficulties are presented, and the problem to be
solved differs in degree rather than in kind. If dry-earth closets are
used on the farm, there is still the kitchen and laundry sewage to be
provided for. While disposing of this, provision may also be made for
the night-soil, thus obviating two systems of removing waste from the
house. However, the earth-closet will reduce the amount of liquid sewage
and increase the temptation to discharge it into the streams which,
above all things, should be avoided. If porous or sandy lands can be
found within reasonable distance of the dwelling, and yet not too near
to it to endanger health or pollute the water supply, a cesspool may be
constructed. A hole some ten feet in circumference and ten to twelve
feet deep, dug in the earth, walled with stone without mortar, may serve
for catching and filtering the sewage. On top of the wall, which should
not reach the surface of the ground by about two feet, lay two pieces of
railroad iron, and on these place large flat stones, covering all with
dirt, providing, however, for ventilation by means of a 4-inch iron
pipe, which should be long enough to reach a little above the surface of
the ground when all is completed.
[Illustration: Fig. 87. Plan of a cesspool.]
If the soil is not as porous as is desired, lay several tile or stone
drains at a depth of three to five feet, and extend them from the
cesspool some distance out into the field or grounds beyond. (Fig. 87.)
These drains should have free outlets, and the longer they are the
better. At the outlet of the drains plant willows or some other
water-loving, fast-growing trees. These will take up and utilize vast
quantities of liquid and decomposed solids, and if the household is of
only ordinary size no nuisance will result.
If water is limited and the dry-earth closet must be adopted, then the
cesspool for the kitchen and laundry liquids need not be made so large
as described, but may be built in the same manner. The dry-earth closet
may be built as follows: Construct a privy of suitable size, 5 to 20
feet from the most convenient rear door, and connect it by a covered
walk to the house. The small building should be placed not less than two
feet above the ground, on a good, tight wall, which should extend under
three sides of the building, the other side to be furnished with a
hinged door. Secure a large, iron-top, dump wheelbarrow, which may serve
to hold all fœcal matter. This may be emptied weekly or monthly into a
nearby trench, previously prepared. A few shovelfuls of earth thrown
upon the excreta will effectually arrest any offensive odors which might
otherwise arise. Before the ground freezes in the fall dig a trench of
sufficient length to contain the fœcal matter during the winter. In cold
weather the barrow may be inverted over the trench, and by the
application of a few quarts of hot water to the iron bottom the frozen
material will be released. When the ground thaws, the accumulated
matter may be covered. While the material is frozen there will be no
danger from it. It should be said that this trench would better be dug
near a row of trees or other strong-growing perennial plants. These will
quickly take up the products of the night-soil which might, in rare
cases, tend to contaminate the soil-water. If but little of the
night-soil be deposited in one place, the earth and plants--two most
efficient disinfectants--may be trusted to preserve good sanitary
conditions. However, pains should be taken to discover if, by any
possible means, the sewage may find its way into the well. An
intelligent inspection of the soil, the stratification of it and the
rocks, will reveal the direction which the soil-water takes; but if the
cesspool and the drains are placed some distance from the dwelling, no
contamination will take place under any circumstances, since the amount
of sewage is so small and the power of plants and soil to take up the
dangerous products of sewage is so great.
CHAPTER XIII
_HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION, ECONOMY, AND COMFORT_
In colonial times, before so many of the household operations were
transferred to shops and manufactories, women were producers almost as
much as men; but in modern times women are more and more concerned with
how money shall be spent. The woman is still a producer when she cooks
an egg, mends a garment, or sweeps a room; but the question of how much
or how little can be had out of the family income has become relatively
more and more her concern. In Europe, far more than in the United
States, attention is given by the women to the economical expenditure of
the family resources. A provincial French girl is trained from her
childhood for household duties. She assists her mother not only in order
to learn the finer arts of housewifery, but especially the judicious
expenditure of money. The French husband leaves the apportionment of the
family income almost wholly to his wife’s discretion.
There can be no doubt that the prosperity of the family depends quite as
much on the wise use of the income as upon the size of that income. The
first essential of good household management is that the housewife
should know definitely how much there is to spend. Nothing is more
productive of marital discontent than the habit which many husbands have
of doling out money to the wife at irregular times and in indefinite
amounts. It destroys the wife’s self-respect, it places her in a
degraded position before her children, and it removes all incentive to
thrift. It not infrequently supplies a powerful motive for deceit. If
the wife is inexperienced, unwise, or extravagant in the use of money,
so much the more reason why the husband should patiently and firmly
teach her how to spend, both for her own sake and that of the family
welfare. An arrangement by which the wife controls the expenditure of a
certain portion of the income is very easy whenever the man receives a
salary or regular daily wages. A regular income tends to develop thrift
and to teach people to avoid debt; but there is always a tendency to
live up to the limit of it, and the margin for saving and for extra
pleasures is always small. Salaried people seldom get deeply in debt,
but they as seldom become very rich.
On the other hand, whenever the family income is irregular, as from
farming and most other kinds of business, the problem of household
financiering is much more difficult and requires both greater
self-control and better judgment. It is usually possible for such
families to determine upon a definite minimum amount which may be
counted upon for ordinary living expenses. The margin above this may
vary widely, but if the scale of living be habitually adjusted to come
within the minimum income, there will be no terror of debt. The
expenditure of the surplus, when it comes, becomes a unique and
unexpected pleasure. Whatever the plan adopted for distributing the
family income, the wife should have at her command and should be
expected to live within, a definite share of the income.
After the minimum expenses of the family have been determined, the next
most important question is how and when they shall be paid out. Cash
payments are much to be preferred. They have two advantages: whoever
pays cash asks no favor of the tradesman, and commands the best quality
at a given price. The tradesman who lends money by allowing the payment
of bills to be postponed, must pay for his goods and must have interest
on the money necessary to carry on a credit business. He must
necessarily, therefore, reimburse himself by charging a higher price,
or by giving a poorer article. It should never be forgotten that credit
costs something. The cash customer is always considered a good customer,
and can always have the first choice of the market, and favors if any
are desired. Whenever monthly or quarterly bills are run, the debtor is
apt to acquire a most dangerous habit--the habit of spending now, to pay
at some future time. The more remote the time, the more dangerous the
habit. It is evident that the oftener bills are paid, the less
likelihood there is of mistakes and deceit. If bills must be run, it
should never be for longer than a month, and prompt payment of them is a
solemn obligation. The article should be done without rather than the
seller asked to wait for his money. Whatever plan the housewife adopts
will be conditioned by the customs of the locality in which she lives
and by the habits of the local tradesman.
Women waste much time and energy in buying things one by one; they spend
in this way, too, much more than they realize, and then they wonder
where the money has gone. China, linen, and the stock of clothing
necessary for changes of season, should be bought by the set, or
quantity, marked and prepared for use at regular intervals. Women buy a
collar or two, a pair of stockings, a bit of ribbon, a bread plate, a
few glasses, etc., and then are surprised that they seem to have very
little for the money. Unless the housewife be really poor, or unless the
money be doled out to her irregularly, it will invariably pay to buy in
quantity things which are not perishable, and which the household wears
out and, therefore, habitually needs. Handkerchiefs, stockings,
underclothing, china, drinking glasses, cost less by the dozen and
half-dozen than by the piece. Lamp chimneys are continually broken,
toilet paper and soap used up, yet very few housekeepers realize that
they waste both time and energy, beside suffering inconvenience, when
they buy these one at a time. Buying piecemeal is demoralizing, as well
as wasteful, because it is unsystematic. Successful housekeeping
involves attention to numberless details; if by periodic instead of
incessant attention some of these can be disposed of in the mass, there
will be immense saving of energy.
Many housekeepers will object to this, either because it involves the
immediate expenditure of a larger sum of money for one class of
articles, or because, not having more wholesome social and intellectual
interests, they find recreation in wandering from store to store, or
counter to counter, pricing much and buying little; or because they love
to find “a bargain.” The instinct to get something “cheap,” that is, to
get something for nothing, or, more properly, to get more than we pay
for, lies very deep in human nature. Because women have usually lived
from hand to mouth, without foresight, it has perhaps been exaggerated
in them. There are the bargain-hunters, and there are the
bargain-scorners; both are doubtless equally illogical. When an article
is phenomenally cheap, it is so, usually, either because too many of its
kind are on the market, or because the seller is sacrificing a normal
profit to draw general custom, or because the people who have produced
it have done so at less than a decent living wage, or because it is
going or gone out of fashion. Good buyers are rightfully suspicious of
bargains. No one should be willing to buy or use articles which have
been produced at starvation wages under wretched sanitary conditions. It
is never good economy to buy things which are gone out of fashion unless
one is quite _satisfied to be out of fashion_. If the article offered on
the bargain counter be of good quality, and in staple use in the
household, it is often well worth buying. Flannels, linens, sometimes
woolen dress goods of inconspicuous patterns, may be bought at the end
of the season much cheaper than at the beginning, and are a good
investment if one has money to spare and is sure what is going to be
needed by the family. Over against the money saved in securing a
bargain, must always be reckoned the time and energy used in finding it,
and the risks that its quality may prove inferior, or that it may be
unsuitable when finally used. If a woman has nothing better to do with
her time and strength than to hunt bargains, there is nothing further to
be said; but if she has, it is usually more economical and more
satisfactory to buy the articles needed for definite use at a reliable
place and at a fair price.
All the suggestions that have been made imply accurate knowledge on the
part of the housekeeper. A thoroughly trained housekeeper of long
experience may possibly keep all the household detail in hand without
keeping books of account, but it is absolutely impossible for the
inexperienced or unsystematic housekeeper to do so. The mental training
involved in keeping an accurate account of family income and expenditure
is as valuable as a course in mathematics. For her own self-discipline,
as well as for the better distribution of the family income, every
housekeeper should keep an itemized account. Until she can balance her
account accurately at the end of every month she has not learned the a b
c of thorough housekeeping. After having learned to do this easily, she
may, perhaps, allow herself a very small margin for those “sundries”
which have not been put down, and which would waste valuable time to
hunt out. Every housewife knows by experience that it is not the regular
meat and grocery bills that eat up the income; if adequate care is taken
of them, they can be reduced to a definite scale and kept there; but it
is the incidentals. A system of accurate accounts will speedily show how
many of these are extravagant or unnecessary. Book-keeping is a bugbear
to most women, chiefly because the system which they undertake is too
complicated. The simplest form is the best. Any blank book may be used;
put down on the right hand side everything bought; on the left side all
money received; at the end of the week or month the total sum of the
right-hand column plus the money still on hand should equal the total of
the left-hand column. If it does not, some item has been omitted or not
accurately entered. It is better in the beginning to balance the account
at least once a week, for then inaccuracies can be more easily traced.
The secret of success is to put down at the time of the transaction what
has been received and spent. When the account has been balanced, a
second step is much more interesting. In another book or in the back of
the day-book, if it be large enough, open several accounts on separate
pages, as follows: groceries, meats, fuel, clothing, subscriptions and
charities, incidentals, etc. Copy each item from the day-book into its
proper account; at the end of a month or year, by adding up these
separate accounts, the housewife can tell exactly what proportion of the
income has been spent for each class. Mr. Lawes, the famous English
agriculturist, when traveling in America, was able to quote accurately
the cost of the various items of expenditure in his own house.
Economy is a relative, not an absolute thing. Economy of money is often
wastefulness of life, yet extravagance, on the other hand, is a serious
cause of human degeneration. With the exception of poor management, poor
service is probably the most wasteful factor of all in the household,
yet there are conditions in which poor service is certainly less
wasteful of the family resources, than none at all. The end of
housekeeping is the health, comfort, and serenity of the family. The two
main factors in producing this result are the family income and the
mother’s strength and energy. Saving, however desirable, is merely an
incidental end. The mother’s intelligence, therefore, if she be in
command of her fair share of the income, must be used to save not only
money but her own resources. The lack of nutritious, palatable food and
of nursing in illness, the lack of service when the mother is weakened
by labor and child-bearing, is sometimes economy with most disastrous
results. Health and serenity are worth more to the family than houses
and a bank account. A good education given to an intelligent child is
worth ten times its cost saved up for him to inherit in middle life.
Every device, therefore, which saves the housewife’s energy is a true
economy. A clothes-washing machine, a cabinet table, a slop-hopper for
kitchen and chamber waste-liquids, are all obtainable and of special
value in saving labor. In planning the kitchen, economy of steps in
reaching water and fuel should be considered. China should be kept
either in wall cupboards opening on one side into the dining-room, on
the other into the kitchen, or in a pantry between dining-room and
kitchen. Kitchen utensils need no longer be of black, heavy, ugly iron,
but of granite ware, nickel plate, and aluminum; they may be placed in
shelves close to the range, or hung along the wall beside it. A dumb
waiter or hand elevator, from kitchen to cellar, saves much going up and
down stairs. The height of sinks and work-tables should be adapted to
that of the woman who works over them. A tall stool--a clerk’s stool--in
the kitchen allows the housewife to sit while doing some kinds of work.
Distances between sink, range, dishes, and store-room, should be as
short as possible, while the ventilation and lighting of the kitchen
should be particularly good. Every step up and down from kitchen to
shed, or kitchen to cellar, is an extra drain on the overtaxed woman.
Small, cheap contrivances, such as dish-mops, iron dish-cloths,
pan-scrapers, small scrubbing-brushes, wire screen garbage-pans, and
many others, lighten the work and make it possible for the housewife to
be more dainty in her personal appearance.
In no respect does farm life differ more from city life than in the kind
of food provided and the method of serving it. The farmer’s table is
loaded down with a great abundance and variety of food, all placed on
the table at once, and often rich and indigestible. The city table has
half as much, both in variety and quantity, served daintily in courses.
The city housewife provides variety from meal to meal, seldom repeating
any dish, except the staple ones, more than once or twice a week; the
rural housewife puts a large variety of the same things on the table at
every meal. Abundance of well cooked, appetizing food there should be,
but variety from meal to meal, and from day to day, is far preferable to
excessive variety at any one meal. Not only is it better for the
digestion to eat of a very few kinds of food at one meal; but, since
novelty stimulates appetite, any particular dish will be more appetizing
if not served too frequently. The farmer’s family, while very economical
in the expenditure of money, is often very wasteful of food. Vegetables,
fruit, chickens, pork raised on the farm, seem to cost no money, but
they cost much vital energy, which is quite as valuable. The value of
milk, butter, and eggs is recognized, because it is customary to sell
them in town; but the cost in the labor of those who raise and those who
prepare food, is often overlooked. The farmer’s table is thus not only
overloaded, but really extravagant. Here, again, quality is more
desirable than variety; simplicity should accompany abundance.
Since rural life involves a certain degree of isolation, the family must
keep in touch with the world chiefly through literature. Even at the
sacrifice of some of the rich variety of food on the table or of new
clothes, books and papers should be provided. The local newspaper is apt
to contain little beside local gossip; it should be supplemented with an
agricultural paper and a family journal, a housekeeping magazine, a
children’s magazine, if there be children, and other general magazines
if they can be afforded. But better than the general magazines, would be
the gradual purchase of the standard works of history, travel, poetry,
and fiction. A musical instrument, a small library, and interesting
games will do more than admonition to keep young people at home.
Children naturally want a good time; if it is not provided for them at
home they will go to other and perhaps less desirable places to get it.
With the increase of appliances, and with the added social and
intellectual demands, country as well as city life is becoming more
complicated and exacting. The housewife, whose physical strength is
scarcely equal to the demands of housekeeping and child-bearing, must
develop her intelligence and whet her judgment. She must find easier and
wiser ways of doing the necessary drudgery, and make brains do an
increasing part of the labor formerly accomplished by muscle.
CHAPTER XIV
_THE HOME YARD_
The yard, as well as the house, should be planned. It should be
convenient, neat, handsome, restful. It will need planting with trees,
shrubs, herbs and grass; but these things should not be scattered
promiscuously over the place, for then they mean nothing. Every plant
should have some relation to the general plan or design of the place.
The first thing to consider in the making of a fit setting for the house
is to lay out the plan or design; the last thing is to select the
particular kinds of plants to be used. The place should be a picture. It
should be one thing, not many things. If the design is correct and the
planting is well done, all parts will be in harmony and the place will
appeal to one as a whole. If the bushes and trees are scattered
promiscuously over the yard, then there is no central idea and the
attention is fixed upon the details rather than upon the place. Figs. 88
and 89 illustrate these contrasts.
The one central thought or idea in home grounds is the house.
Therefore, make the house emphatic. Let it stand out boldly, as in Fig.
89. Keep the center of the place open. Do not clutter it with trees,
flower beds and other distracting things.
[Illustration: Fig. 88. The common or nursery type of planting.]
[Illustration: Fig. 89. The proper or pictorial type of planting.]
If the house is to be made emphatic, give it a flanking. Plant trees or
bushes, or both, on the sides. Back it up, also, with trees. If it sets
in front of a natural wood or an orchard, the effect is better. If the
country is bare and bald behind it, plant tall trees there.
[Illustration: Fig. 90. A modest and direct driveway.]
Make as few walks and drives as possible. They are always unsightly and
expensive. Let them lead to their destination by the most direct curves.
Do not make them crooked; for crooked walks and drives are expensive.
Gentle curves are more retired and modest than awkward and laborious
ones. Fig. 90 shows a good, easy curve. If possible, place the walk or
drive at the side, rather than in the center: avoid cutting up the lawn.
Most of the planting should be in masses. Plants present a bolder front
when standing together. A group is one thing; scattered shrubs are many
things, and they divert and distract the attention. By massing, one
secures endless combinations of light and shade, of color, and of form.
Against the mass-planting, flowers show off best; they have a
background, as a picture has when it hangs on a wall. One canna or
geranium standing just in front of heavy foliage makes more show than do
a dozen plants when standing in the middle of the lawn; it is more
easily cared for, and it does not spoil the lawn. A flower bed in the
middle of the sward spoils a lawn, as a spot soils the table-cloth.
Flowers at the side, or joined to the other planting, are a part of the
picture; in the middle of the lawn they are only a spot of color and
mean nothing except that the grower did not know where to put them.
[Illustration: Fig. 91. A good house; but the home is only half built.]
Take these suggestions to heart. Consider which you like the better,
Fig. 91 or 92. Consider, also, how Fig. 92 would look if plants were
scattered all over the yard.
[Illustration: Fig. 92. A house and a home.]
Plants are difficult to grow in little holes in the sod. The grass
takes the moisture. They are always in the way. The yard in Fig. 92 can
be mown with a field mower. The bushes take care of themselves. If one
dies, it matters little: others fill the gaps. If pigweeds come up
amongst them, little or no harm is done. They add to the variety of
foliage effect. One does not feel that he must stop his cultivating or
sheep-shearing to dig them out. In the fall, the leaves blow off the
open lawn and are held in the bushes; there they make an ideal mulch,
and they need not be removed in the spring. In front of this shrubbery
a space two or three feet wide may be left for flowers. Here sow and
plant with a free hand. Have sufficient poppies and hollyhocks and pinks
and lilies and petunias to supply every member of the family and every
neighbor. Against the background they glow like coals or lie as soft as
the snow.
Fill in the corners of the place. Round off the angularities. Throw a
mass of herbage into the corner by the steps (Fig. 93): then you will
not need to saw off the grass with a butcher knife. Plant a vine and
some low plants along the foundations.
[Illustration: Fig. 93. The corner by the steps.]
When these main or fundamental things are considered, then some of the
incidental things may be considered. If you are fond of some particular
plant, as the hydrangea, plant it in some prominent place in front of
the shrub border. You may want a tree to shade a window or a porch:
plant it. You may want a pile of odd stones and relics: put them in the
back yard, or at the side, where you may enjoy them unmolested. You may
have any kind of plant you want, only put it in the right place.
Have an eye to the views. Build your house with reference to them, if
you can. Do not plant so as to hide the good ones. Plant heavily in the
direction of offensive views. Plant so as to obscure the barnyard; or
else move the barnyard back of the barn, or clean it up. Leave the front
of the barn open: you want to see it from the house.
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.
LOCATION
The location of the proposed structure should be considered with the
most painstaking care before entering upon the construction of a new
building or the remodeling of an old one. 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. I never discovered this foolish mistake till years afterwards,
when age and study had improved my judgment and opportunity had been
given for wide observation and comparison. Now when I revisit the farm
it is all too plain as to where the barn should have been located.
This large barn made the house appear much smaller than before, and from
one approach the farm had the appearance of being untenanted, as the
barn hid the house. It is humiliating, but how could I have known better
at that time of life, with ideas of barn building inherited and with
neither book nor teacher to guide me?
[Illustration: Fig. 94. Too many barn roofs, and too near the house.]
[Illustration: Fig. 95. How these barns may be moved and concentrated.]
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. The lower level will assist to make the
barns inconspicuous. One hundred feet is the minimum distance which
should intervene between these inflammable and expensive structures,
except in a very cold climate, where the house and the barn may be
connected by a covered way. See Figs. 94 and 95. This way need not be
expensive, and should be so constructed that it can be pulled down in a
few minutes in case of fire. It need not be high, and the roof might
pitch but one way and be composed, in part at least, of glass. If the
entire roof was of glass one side of the covered walk might well be
used in the spring for growing early vegetables. If the manure be
properly cared for at the far end of the barn, good sanitary conditions
would be preserved.
The refuse of the stables, if left exposed at the barns in the summer,
forms breeding ground for flies, which reach the house if it be near.
The substitution of electric street cars, for horse cars which
necessitated numerous stables, has noticeably diminished flies in the
cities. 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. Why not
substitute paddocks or small fields of a few acres for the wasteful,
expensive barnyard? If the animals need exercise they should take it at
suitable times in closely-sodded fields, or covered yards, rather than
in confined barnyards filled with a mixture of straw, mud and manure. A
few acres near the barn might be surrounded with a woven wire fence,
which would serve admirably for an exercising yard. The sod on this
small area might become seriously injured in a year or two, but the
field would be enriched by the droppings of the animals. The field in
such case could be plowed and the wire used to enclose another paddock.
But it will be many years before the open barnyard can be, or will be,
entirely abandoned. What may, and should be done immediately, is to
place it at the rear, instead of at the front of the barn, and to cease
using it for baptizing manures, and as a storage area for miscellaneous
odds and ends. If some change is not made, the farm boy may find a
chamber window from which a more restful and inspiring view may be
secured than from the one through which he now views daily the evidences
of thriftlessness and waste.
PLANNING THE BARN
Make a good study of many barns at short range; note what features are
good, what faulty, what useless; by this means much will have been
learned and many mistakes will be avoided. Decide approximately the
capacity which will be required. First, draw a rectangular diagram of
the barn, then proceed to the proposed location and take a seat; make a
most careful study of the approach, the incline of the land, note where
fences and gates will be necessary, where and how the water is to be
introduced--in fact, take in the whole problem of the environment of the
proposed structure. Then imagine that you see the barn, and that you
have just arrived from town some stormy night with your wife and baby;
in imagination help them out of the carriage. Imagine you have a span of
young, restless horses which you have driven to get them used to city
ways before selling them. That will make you think of a platform onto
which the family may step from the carriage while you are holding the
colts. Consider how many big doors you will have to open before the
colts are made comfortable for the night. Are the democrat wagon and the
colts to be kept on the same floor, or one up-stairs and the other down?
Or is the carriage in one building situated four rods from the horses?
How many gates and doors have you opened and closed since you arrived?
Think it all over, and then go to the house and talk it over with your
wife, for some day she may drive to town, and on her return find that
both you and the farm hands are in the field, and that there is no one
to help her put the team away. After imagination has pictured the
conditions which are likely to prevail, then begin to cautiously modify
the rectangular diagram; surround it with dotted lines, which may
represent roads, fences, gates, lanes, and adjunct buildings. Then take
a rest; lay the sketch away for a time; study barns in the neighborhood;
council with the wife again, for she may have to go to the barn often.
After a year of faithful and intelligent planning you may be able to
place a well digested rough sketch of the proposed structure in the
hands of a draughtsman.
WATER SUPPLY
It would seem to be unnecessary to repeat the axiom, “No water, no plant
or animal life,” but so many buildings, both public and private, are
located and constructed before the problem of supplying an ample,
perennial supply of potable water is solved, that it seems necessary to
briefly treat this subject.
Several public institutions with which I have been familiar have erected
expensive structures before supplying water for them. Three and
sometimes five separate attempts were made to furnish water for the use
of the plant, none of which were entirely successful.
The amount of water needed and the conditions under which it must be
secured are so variable that few specific directions can be given. One
simple, certain and cheap way of securing water for the barn is usually
neglected. In some sections of the South, by reason of peculiar
geological formations, the practice of constructing pools or storage
reservoirs has become common. A slight depression or draw or swale is
selected and dammed by using the earth from the bottom of the proposed
pool and from the higher land adjoining. No stone or wood is necessary
to support the dam. The only precaution necessary is to have a broad
base (see Fig. 7), and to provide sufficiently large outflows or
spillways, one on either end of the dam, that the pool may never rise
higher than within two feet from the top of the dam. The surface soil,
if it contains much vegetable matter, should be scraped off a strip
three to four feet wide and as long as the dam, and the depression
filled with earth--clay is best--that contains little or no organic
matter. If the bottom of the dam where it meets the normal earth is
constructed with sods, or other material which will decay, in time the
water will find its way through the porous earth.
The pools of the South, to which reference has been made, sometimes have
an extreme depth of 12 to 15 feet, and may cover a fraction of an acre
or several acres. I have known one of these pools to furnish water for
a hundred head of cattle during a long continued drought. It is
difficult to explain why more pools, lakes and fish ponds are not
constructed. Possibly the reasons are that there is a prejudice against
them, and well there may be, since they are usually so shallow that the
water becomes impure, and since it is not generally realized that a
substantial dam can be erected by the use of earth alone. If it is
thought advisable not to allow the animals to go to the pool, it may be
fenced, since it is not expensive to lay a pipe in the dam, when it is
being constructed, on a level with the bottom of the pool, the outer end
of the pipe being furnished with a ball and cock to regulate the flow of
water into the trough.
Usually it is not advisable to build cisterns for storing water for barn
use, since they are too expensive if built as large as needed. A cow
requires from forty to eighty pounds of water daily in the summer. If
sixty pounds be taken as the average, it will be seen that it would
require a cistern of three hundred and fifty barrels capacity to supply
a herd of fifty animals for one month. In some cases the water of a
stream or well may be so highly charged with the products of magnesian
limestone as to produce goitre, in which case soft water should be
supplied for the horses.
Streams or springs are often available for summer, but they seldom
supply ideal water conditions in winter. Young animals, and especially
cows in milk, should not be required to drink water at a low temperature
or be forced to travel long distances for it in cold weather. The only
really satisfactory method of supplying the domestic animals with water
is to bring it into the barn, and if the water in the pipes is not under
pressure, a small storage tank may be placed in a mow and surrounded by
straw. Such storage tank may be built, if small, out of rough 2-inch
plank, spiked together, or, if large, of 2- by 4-inch scantling, spiked
flatwise one upon the other; in both cases the tank is lined with
galvanized iron. All barns provided with steam boilers should also be
provided with a few small steam pipes leading to the water boxes, that
the drinking water of the animals may be raised in winter to 98° Fahr.
Animals do not relish lukewarm water in the winter, but they really
enjoy hot water. The economy and safety of using hot drinking water will
justify the expense of providing it. This is especially true in the
winter dairy and when horses have severe winter work. An overheated,
tired horse may drink all the hot water he desires without danger. Water
taken into the stomach at 40° Fahr. must absorb heat enough from the
system to raise it to about 99°. To do this food must be burned, as
literally as coal is burned in the boiler to heat water. It requires
more units of heat to raise a pound of water one degree in temperature
than any other substance except two or three of the gases.
There are now so many styles of really good air motors or wind mills,
that water from wells may be pumped at a minimum cost into storage
tanks. There is no longer any excuse for pumping water by hand for any
considerable number of animals, nor for compelling them to seek water in
cold weather at some distant stream. As has been said, there are many
ways of securing a supply of water for the barn. The details of
accomplishing the results desired are many, but the result should always
be the same: an abundant supply of water within the barn under more or
less pressure. If this is not secured the plans of a barn, as a whole,
are unsatisfactory.
CHAPTER XVI
_BUILDING THE BARN--THE BASEMENT_
Squaring the foundation site is a simple operation, yet few are able to
perform it, and it is seldom that a surveyor is at hand. Buildings are
so generally placed with their fronts parallel to the highway or the
private way, that the road may be assumed to be the base line. Four
stakes set in the middle of the road, as shown in Fig. 96, establish the
base line, from which is measured the distance from the road at which it
is desired to place the building. The stakes A and B should be placed
farther apart than the width of the front of the building; they are
connected by a line which is parallel to the road and forms the
permanent base line. Next the stakes C and D are placed, and also
connected by a line. With a 10-foot pole, six feet are measured off on
either line, beginning at the intersection of the lines, and eight feet
on the other line. If the line C to D is at right angles to the line AB,
the 10-foot measure will just reach from 6 to 8, since 6 multiplied by
6, plus 8 multiplied by 8, equals 100, and the square root of 100 is
10. Should the 10-foot measure be longer than from 6 to 8, the stake D
is moved to the left until the pole reaches from 6 to 8; if the measure
is too short to reach from 6 to 8, the stake is moved to the right. All
of these measurements should be gone over two or three times, as in
moving the stake the lines may stretch or shrink. Either a pin or a
pencil mark may be used to indicate the measurements on the lines at 6
and 8.
[Illustration: Fig. 96. Locating the barn.]
If the building is to be 26 feet deep, that distance is measured on the
line CD and the same distance from the line AB. Stakes are then driven
and a line drawn from E to F, and in like manner a line is drawn from G
to H. The work is verified by squaring the last angle as in the first
case. The eight dots represent stakes driven in even with the surface
of the ground, at just 10 feet from the corners. Since it will be
necessary to remove the lines before the horse scraper can be used in
excavating, and as the construction stakes at the corners will be
disturbed, the short stakes become necessary that the lines may be
restored as the work proceeds and the excavation kept square and true.
It will be seen that a line drawn from A to B will restore the base
line, and in like manner the other lines may be quickly reproduced. It
will be necessary, too, to restore these lines before the foundation
wall is begun. By “plumbing” downward from the restored lines, other
lines may be placed in the bottom of the excavation, which will be
duplicates of those first drawn.
[Illustration: Fig. 97. The original incline or slope is too steep.]
[Illustration: Fig. 98. The original slope is not steep enough.]
EXCAVATION
Barns are now usually built with a basement story. This implies that the
building is to be placed on more or less sloping ground, in which case
the removal of some earth will be necessary. The basement story should
extend well above ground, to economize construction and to secure dry
walls and floors. It is a great mistake to place animals in cellars. The
dotted line in Fig. 97 shows an incline rather too steep; and in Fig.
98 one that is not steep enough. It is better to place the barn where
wanted, even if the incline has to be changed, than to place it in an
unhandy position that the best slope may be secured. It is not difficult
to construct a basement barn on level or nearly level land. In the
latter case, all of the basement walls may be of wood, since provision
can be made for a driveway to the second floor by means of a retaining
wall built some ten or twelve feet from the barn; the space between the
wall and the barn may be bridged (Fig. 99). Cast-off steel or iron rails
form durable and excellent sleepers for such a bridge, the plank being
kept in place by spiking two-inch pieces, one on either end on top of
the bridge plank. In case no retaining wall is built, and the earth lies
immediately against the basement wall (Fig. 100), dampness may be
largely prevented from reaching the stable and the animals by building a
second wall across the side or end of the barn, inclosing a space or
room for roots immediately under the driveway. The floor over this
root-cellar should be deafened to prevent frost entering from above
(Fig. 101). The second wall will remain comparatively dry, since no
damp earth rests against it. This location of the root-cellar makes it
convenient for unloading the roots through trap doors in the floor,
which are kept partly open for a time after the roots have been put in,
to prevent them from heating.
[Illustration: Fig. 99. Bridge into the barn.]
[Illustration: Fig. 100. An embankment entrance, with retaining walls
holding the corners.]
[Illustration: Fig. 101. Deafening or packing the floor, to keep out
cold.]
WALLS
The foundation walls for barns need not necessarily extend below frost,
if the earth is as dry as it should be; for a slight settling of the
building does not result in injury, as in the plastered house. All that
is necessary is to make the walls broad and strong and to have them well
drained.
[Illustration: Fig. 102. Good and faulty construction in a wall.]
Masons understand the necessity of bonding stone walls, and know how to
perform the work; but too often they are careless, and therefore need to
be supervised. In Fig. 102, a well bonded wall is shown at the left end,
and one imperfectly bonded at the other. If the wall should chance to
pull endwise a crack would appear to the right of the dotted line, since
in the seven layers shown there is but one stone, A, that has sufficient
contact to bond the two stones upon which it rests. The wall should also
have its face and back side tied together or bonded, or it may split
apart near the middle. Two walls, one of which is properly bonded, the
other is not, are shown in Fig. 103. One layer only of stone can be
shown in the diagram, but it will readily be seen that if the course
which is placed on the one shown is laid like it,--that is, if the
faulty bonding near the back side be continued for several courses--the
wall will pull apart. The small, narrow stones have been placed at the
back side of the wall, and the good stones in the front of the wall;
this is all very well, but some long stones should reach from the back
side of the wall to near the face, if the bond is made good. No stone
should reach entirely through the wall, since in cold weather the frost
will follow through such stones from face to rear.
[Illustration: Fig. 103. Poorly and properly bonded.]
There is no economy in using mortar which is poorly mixed or that which
contains too much sand and too little lime or cement. If the lime or
cement, that is, the binding material, does not come into immediate
contact with every particle of sand, then the mortar will be weak. If
not enough of the cement or lime is used, the bond will also be weak.
For stone walls _not more_ than four parts of sand to one of cement or
lime should be used. If the sand be sharp and clean a much stronger
mortar is secured than when it is composed in part of rotten sand mixed
with vegetable matter. If the materials are good and they are mixed in
the right proportion, still good mortar will not be secured unless they
be _thoroughly mixed_. The best masons use the least mortar, while poor
masons are wasteful of it.
The prices given below are not applicable to the whole United States,
but they may serve to decide the relative proportions of sand and lime
which should be used, and the kind of lime which can be used most
economically. Water lime retails at about eighty cents per barrel, and
three parts of sand and one of lime, if the latter is fresh, should make
a strong mortar. Water lime deteriorates rapidly with age, while the
higher priced cements deteriorate quite slowly. Stone lime should be
fresh and in no case air-slaked. It costs about one dollar a barrel and
may be mixed three of sand to one of lime. Rosendale cement costs about
$1.25 per barrel, and may be mixed four to one. Portland cement costs
about $3 per barrel, and if used instead of the cheaper materials named
above, may be mixed five to one. It should always be used for pointing
walls and in the construction of cemented floors, in which case it
should be mixed two or three to one. All this presupposes that the
mortar is so thoroughly mixed that a lime film will surround every
particle of sand.
The cement and water lime is mixed with the sand before it is wet, and
this dry mixing should be most thorough, as the strength of the mortar
is largely dependent on the uniform incorporation of the cement with the
sand. This mixing can be much more perfectly done when the material is
dry than after it is wet. Other precautions are necessary. The mortar
should contain the minimum of water which will permit it to work freely,
and when the mortar is used it should be solidified, that is, pushed
together by means of a trowel or by the material which is laid upon it.
In case of cement or grout floors, the material should be pounded
thoroughly. The object of all this is to compel each particle of sand to
firmly touch other particles. The tendency to “water-log” mortar, to
save labor in spreading it, is too common.
If, from any cause, the basement walls must be largely of stone, the
tendency for them to gather moisture may be somewhat overcome by
plastering them with cement mortar, or studding may be placed against
the walls upon which unmatched boards may be nailed (Fig. 104). The warm
air of the stable cannot then reach the relatively cold walls, and
little condensation will appear on the boards, since they are always
more nearly the temperature of the stable than are the stone.
Wooden basement walls are preferable in all ways to those constructed of
stone, grout or brick, wherever the earth does not rest against them.
An excellent method of constructing the walls of the basement story is
shown in a section of the first story, Fig. 104. The studding should be
2 × 6 inches, with short pieces of 2 × 4 placed edgewise between them to
serve as outside nailing girts.
[Illustration: Fig. 104. Lining the basement wall.]
A broad, steep water-table is placed just above the upper end of the
studding to receive the boarding above the basement and to improve the
outside appearance of the building. After the outside boarding of the
basement and the window frames are placed, the inside of the wall is
boarded horizontally with unmatched seasoned lumber, and as the boards
are being put on, the hollow wall space is filled with short straw or
straw and chaff. This construction has proved to be the most
satisfactory of any tried. The wall is cheap, durable, dry, excludes
the cold, and still allows a little fresh air to enter the stables
gradually. Objection has been made to this construction on the ground
that it harbors mice and rats. After having used buildings with walls of
this character for a quarter of a century, I must say that the objection
is not well taken.
FLOORS
The floor of the first story should be partly of wood and partly of
cement or of brick.
All voidings of the animals should be removed from the stable at least
once a day. Allowing the manure to drop through gratings, with the view
of letting it remain there more than one day, is decidedly wrong, and
any arrangement which does not admit of the thorough cleaning and airing
of the stable daily is objectionable. Nor is the practice of washing out
the stables economical, since it necessitates great waste of manure or
too great expense in caring for and removing the diluted excreta. If the
floors and stable be well cleaned with shovel and broom, and dusted with
gypsum, dry earth, sawdust, or chaffy material, good sanitary conditions
will be secured easily and cheaply. While the stables are being cleaned
and treated they should also be aired. The animals meantime should be
allowed to stretch their limbs, by which it is not meant that they
should be hooking one another around a muddy barnyard, or running foot
races up and down the lane. On the one hand, it may be all well enough
for those who sell animals at fabulous prices and have long bank
accounts, to procure water-proof blankets for them, and to accompany
them on their regular daily “constitutional.” The other extreme is where
the animals are fastened by the head or neck by contrivances not always
comfortable, and left standing for six months without being removed from
their stall. Is there not a happy medium between these two extremes?
[Illustration:
Top left rooms: 4′ × 10′ and 10′ × 11′.
Midway width: 10′.
Over-all width: 32′.
Bottom left room: 10′ × 11′.
Width of stalls: 3′ 6″.
Over-all length: 80′.
Room central bottom: 3′ × 6′.
Fig. 105. Basement cattle stable. At the right is a
cross-section of the stable, showing the convex cement midway.]
Animals are more comfortable on a wooden floor than on one built of
either brick, cement, or asphalt. Notwithstanding this, most of the
floor of the basement should be constructed of more durable material
than wood. If the animals are kept fully bedded, as they usually are
not, then it would be best to discard wooden floors entirely. Fig. 105
shows a basement floor designed for cattle. The part where the animals
stand is of wood, the balance of hard or pavement brick set edgewise on
a bed of sand. The cement or grout floor may be substituted for the
brick if desired. If the cracks between the bricks in the floor are
filled with thin cement mortar, the floor becomes water-tight, though
this is not necessary except in the gutters. The ground underneath the
wooden floor should be leveled and pounded, and covered with a thin
layer of salt to preserve the wood. The plank which forms the side of
the drip should be of oak or some other durable wood. The 2 × 4 pieces
to which the floor is nailed when first built, need not be replaced when
they rot, since the dirt underneath will be smooth and hard. The large
nails which fasten the floor to the oak piece at the rear and the
mangers combined will suffice to keep the floor plank in place; the only
object in placing the nailing pieces at first is to facilitate
construction. The plank of the floor should be of some uniform standard
width, as 8, 10, or 12 inches wide, that repairs may be made quickly
when the floor gives way.
STALLS
When a dairy of some size is kept, the cows may be arranged in double
rows. Fifty cows could be crowded into a barn 80 × 32 feet. But fifty
cows of 800 pounds each weigh 40,000 pounds; and if the stable is ten
feet from the top of the lower floor to the bottom of the upper floor,
it would contain only 25,600 cubic feet of air space. This is
manifestly too little, as 1 cubic foot of air space should be allowed
for each pound of live animal. Many stables, in fact most stables,
provide but one-half of a cubic foot of air space for each pound of live
animal kept in them; in such case it is impossible to keep the air
approximately pure or the stable decently sweet. To realize what this
means, suppose a bedchamber be constructed for a man weighing 160
pounds. If one foot of air space be provided for each pound of live
weight, the chamber might be built 4 feet wide, 7 feet long and 6 feet
high. This would give 168 cubic feet of air space. If the bedchamber be
made proportionally as large as are most cow stables, its dimensions
would be 3 feet wide, 6¹⁄₂ feet long and 4¹⁄₂ feet high. To insure good
air in such a sleeping room one side of it would have to be knocked out.
[Illustration: Fig. 106. A swing window for stable.]
If one or two box-stalls and one feed-bin are provided in an 80 ×
32-foot barn, with 12-foot ceilings (Fig. 105), and room for a hallway,
3 feet wide, be left at one end of the building, it will then
accommodate thirty-nine animals. Each one would have 800 cubic feet of
air space, the required amount. The first story of most cow stables is
about seven feet. It is seen how easily the stable may be overcrowded. A
high story gives opportunity for long windows and for placing them well
up from the floor, and for good ventilation. If the ceiling is to be
reduced in height, which it well may be, the building should be
proportionately longer.
A section of a part of the inside of the wall with swing windows is
shown in Fig. 106. The windows should be of one sash and hung near the
middle, as shown, by means of a piece of iron ³⁄₈ of an inch in diameter
and 4 inches long. A hole for the reception of the iron, and of the same
size, is made through the window sash and extends into the jambs of the
frame about one inch. A button on the side of the jamb is used to hold
the window partly open when required. This allows cool air to pass in at
the bottom and the warm, vitiated air to pass out at the top in small,
broken streams. It will be noticed that in case of a storm no rain or
strong current of air can reach the stable. Usually too few and too
small windows are provided, through which the manure from the stables is
not unfrequently thrown.
Some additional ventilators should be provided; these may consist of
wooden tubes extending from the ceiling through the roof, so constructed
that the foul air may enter them. They need not be numerous or large, as
the windows when slightly open form excellent ventilators. Two things
should be kept prominently in view in ventilation: first, no strong
draughts of air, or, as a distinguished professor puts it, “great gobs
of raw air,” should be introduced; second, ventilators should ventilate
both at the ceiling and the floor, as in these two places will be found
the most impure air. Ample air space is most economically secured by
high ceilings, rather than by horizontal enlargement. The air can be
kept reasonably pure by the introduction, at several points near the
lower floor, of small volumes of slowly moving fresh air.
Two stairs should lead from the basement to the second floor in all
large barns to economize time; the openings in the upper floor had best
be provided with flap doors, which can be left open in muggy, warm
weather to assist ventilation, or closed in cold weather to economize
warmth.
Many varieties of stanchion for confining cattle in stalls are in use,
some really good, but mostly defective in one or more respects. It would
take too much space to describe all of the various contrivances and to
illustrate them and to call attention to their good and objectionable
points. Some confine the animals too closely, others give too much
freedom and allow them to become soiled; some are too expensive, and
some are not durable. I shall describe but one kind of fastening and
manger which, after trying numerous patent arrangements, has been found
to be excellent. It is quite possible that there are better ones. The
one thing which has been learned about stanchions by experimentation and
observation is that they may be so complicated and handy as to be
unhandy.
The size and character of the “drip,” the comfort and cleanliness of the
animals, the ease of fastening and unfastening, the noise or quiet of
the stable, and the effect on the animals, should all be considered.
While using one stanchion, the animals became wild and made frantic
efforts to pull their heads out when the attendant approached to
unfasten them. As soon as another fastening was introduced they became
docile. With one stanchion they would lie down more frequently than with
another. With one kind of manger the animals are tempted to hook one
another, and in reaching for food would fall upon their knees and
injure themselves. Most of the contrivances were not easily adjustable,
so that when the size, or rather length, of the animals varied the
standing room was either too short or too long. Some had posts to
sustain the stanchions; these intercepted the light and prevented an
unobstructed survey of the animal. They gave the stables a forbidding,
dark, prison-like appearance.
The individual stalls should be, for smallish animals, 3 feet 6 inches
from center to center, and 3 feet 8 inches for larger animals. The
partitions between the animals need extend only far enough backward and
upward to prevent them from reaching each other with their horns. When
dishorning is practiced the partitions may be lower than when it is not.
MANGERS AND TIES
The cross section of a floor and the skeleton of a bracket upon which
the mangers are built are shown in Fig. 107. The mangers of cattle
stables should be easily movable. This can be accomplished in the
following way: Construct one more bracket than the number of stalls
required in the line of mangers. Place one of the brackets at the end
and one intermediate between every pair of stalls; fasten them lightly
to the floor with nails, which should be removed when the mangers are
completed. Fig. 107 also shows the cross section of the brackets, with
bottom, front, and back side of the manger placed.
[Illustration: Fig. 107. The building of a manger.]
[Illustration: Fig. 108. Newton cattle tie.]
The Newton cattle tie (Fig. 108), though rather expensive, has proved
most satisfactory. It is made of one piece of round, durable wood, as
ash, about 1¹⁄₄ inches in diameter and bent at the corners, and is
furnished with a flat ring which encircles the bow at the middle, to
which is attached a swivel; to this is fastened a rope to encircle the
animal’s neck, the rope being furnished with suitable fastenings at the
ends. The bows are attached to the divisions on a level or a little
above the animal’s throat when standing; when lying down the bow rests
on top of the manger, which is about 1¹⁄₂ feet lower than the ends of
the bow. It will be seen that since the bow describes an arc of a circle
in passing downward, it tends to pull the animal towards the manger when
it lies down, and hence away from the soiled drip.
In midsummer window curtains, drawn during milking time, serve to quiet
the flies and the cows, as does also a light spraying of the animals
with kerosene before they are turned out in the morning. A blanket
tacked over the entrance door to the cow stable will brush most of the
flies off the cattle as they enter.
CHAPTER XVII
_BUILDING THE BARN--THE SUPERSTRUCTURE_
The kind of superstructure best to be adopted for the barn depends on
many conditions. The balloon construction may be used for small barns,
but large ones naturally require large timbers or many small ones, hence
the old style of frame-work, with some modification, is usually adopted.
In modern barn buildings the main timbers are reduced in size, more and
lighter braces are used in lieu of the large mortised and pinned braces.
They are cut with smooth, angled ends and spiked to posts and beams. A
brace of 2 × 4 inches is inexpensive, and allows of following the old
rule of placing a brace in every angle made by the principal timbers.
Another modification should be adopted: the joists, so far as possible,
should rest on sills and beams and not be gained into them. It is unwise
and unscientific to cut gains for the reception of the ends of the
joists at considerable expense, since such gains weaken both joists and
sills. In most cases the joists may be placed on top of the sills,
thereby obviating the necessity of framing, while preserving the
strength of sill and joist entire. When it is desirable, as it often is
in small structures, to have the top of the sill or beam coincide with
the tops of the joists, it is cheaper and better to use a rather light
timber and fortify it by nailing upon it 2 × 4-inch studding (Fig. 109),
thereby avoiding the necessity of cutting gains, while giving additional
strength to the timber which supports the joists.
[Illustration: Fig. 109. Laying the joist.]
The joists in barns should be bridged as in houses. That part of the
barn floor which is above the root-cellar should be deafened, as shown
in Fig. 101. Cleats nailed on the sides of the joists serve to support
the short boards which carry the deafening material. The 2-inch space
between the false and the true floor is filled with mortar composed of
about five or six parts of sand to one of lime or cement. If all of the
floor driven upon above the basement is deafened, it will deaden sound
and promote warmth in the lower story.
While the balloon frame has been almost universally adopted in the
construction of houses, it is only recently that large barn frames have
been successfully constructed on the same general principles. The plank
frame has now been so modified and improved that it serves well for the
largest farm building. All of the frame timbers are sawed two inches
thick and of variable widths, as required. Instead of uniting the
timbers by means of mortise and tenon, they are fastened with wire
spikes. This new method secures as strong a frame as the old, and saves
from 30 to 40 per cent of material, while the plank frame is more easily
and cheaply erected than the large timbered frame is. The 2-inch frame
material can be so placed as to direction and position that it will
secure the maximum of strength with the minimum of lumber.
[Illustration: Fig. 110. Barn frame.]
[Illustration: Fig. 111. Cross-section of the frame.]
[Illustration: Fig. 112. Built-up post.]
The illustration (Fig. 110) shows one end of a 67 × 97-ft. barn, posts
18 ft. long, recently erected at the Pennsylvania Agricultural College.
A cross-section at one side of the driving floor is also shown (Fig.
111). A cross-section of a built-up post is seen in Fig. 112. It will be
seen that the building is firmly tied together, the roof fully
supported, and that no timbers obstruct the unloading of provender by
horse power. This new method of constructing large frames is so little
known and the principles involved are so valuable that I append a foot
note at the risk of being misunderstood.[7] Since long, large timbers
have become expensive, it is probable that the plank frame will become
as common in the near future, in barn building, as the balloon frame is
in house building.
[7] Shawver Bros., Bellefontaine, Ohio, furnish models and bills of
material for plank barns at a low cost.
It is frequently convenient to place horses or other animals on the
second floor above other animals, or above a covered yard, in which case
a tight floor may be made as follows (Fig. 113): Lay an unmatched, rough
inch floor; upon this place strong, tarred building-paper, with joints
well lapped. Saw and prepare the 2-inch planks which are to form the
floors. For every four hundred square feet of floor, procure one barrel
of hard Trinidad asphalt and three gallons of gas tar. A large iron
kettle may be used for heating and mixing the material, which should be
in the proportion of about one to ten. With an ax remove the barrel, and
chop off and place in the kettle pieces of asphalt until it is not much
more than one-half full, then add the due proportion of gas tar. The
kettle should be placed in a rude arch and at a little distance from the
building. By means of a slow fire heat the material. When all is ready,
dip the hot mixture into a galvanized iron pail and pour it in a small
stream on the paper, spreading to the width of the plank intended to be
laid, by means of a shingle or paddle. Lay the plank in the hot
material, being careful that when it is spiked down the hot asphalt does
not fly up into the face. Then proceed to lay other planks in like
manner. Finally pour some of the material into the cracks if there
should be any.[8]
[8] A floor laid, as described, seventeen years ago, is still in good
repair.
[Illustration: Fig. 113. Making a barn floor.]
Should the floor become worn in time and need repairing, even up the
surface by spreading thin cement mortar upon it, and upon this lay a
second plank floor. The cement mortar will assist in making the floor
water-tight and in preventing dry rot. Barn floors which have become
much worn from driving over them may be treated in like manner. Where it
seems advisable to place cows on the second floor, and over a manure
cellar, the following plan may be adopted: A tight floor, as in the
former case, is built with drips as shown; a small hole is placed
between each pair of stalls, through which the voidings of the animals
may be dropped into the story below, the floor of which is concreted.
The objection might be raised that the manure underneath the animals
would be objectionable; but since the floor of the stable described is
tight when the openings in the drip are closed, and the story below is
well lighted and ventilated, the objection does not hold good.
As far as possible, horses should stand with their heads away from the
windows, as draughts of air and glaring sunlight are trying to their
eyes. A few box stalls are convenient, and assist in providing the two
cubic feet of air space which should be allowed for each pound of live
weight in the horse barn. The stable should be so situated that the
fumes of ammonia arising from it cannot reach the harness and carriages,
if they are highly polished and expensive. The horse stable may often be
placed on the second floor of the wing, as it brings it on a level with
the main driving floor and near to where the wagons are likely to be
kept. The story beneath the horses makes an acceptable covered yard. An
office, which may be warmed, and a repair room should be provided in one
corner of the barn or in a small detached building near to it.
If the farm is ample, and large amounts of hay and grain are to be
stored, instead of building a wagon house, the main barn might be
extended twenty feet, more or less, in length. This additional room may
be used for carriages and light harness in part, and in part for the
storage of grain, meal, and the like. The space underneath this room
would serve to enlarge the cow stable. The place for washing carriages
might also be located on the lower floor, where it would serve for
storing the milk wagon as well, and the space above it could be devoted
to storing hay and the like. Barn windows should have small panes of
glass, as the cross bars of the windows serve not only to hold the glass
but as fenders also. Since the glass in barn windows is likely to be
broken, the cost of repairs is reduced to a minimum if the panes are
small.
A cupola, if it is large and well proportioned, may add beauty to the
barn and serve to ventilate the mows, thereby making them cooler for the
workmen than they otherwise would be. It may also give opportunity for
lighting the mows and the floors, thereby avoiding the necessity of
windows at the side of the mows, where they are likely to be broken and
where they are covered as soon as the barn is partly filled.
Hay and grain contain 20 to 25 per cent of moisture when stored, and
hence tend to become warm. The hot, moist air, due to this heating,
ascends to the roof or cupola and forms an easier passage to the earth
for electrical discharges than the normal air of the building does.
Thunder storms prevail largely about the time barns are filled, hence
they should be provided with good lightning rods, that an easier and
safer way may be provided for the discharges than by the ascending warm,
moist air of the building. (See lightning rods, Chap. XX.)
Barns not more than sixty feet wide may be covered by self-supporting
roofs. The curb or gambrel form is the best. If the gables are clipped,
the cost will not be materially increased, while the structure will be
much improved in looks. Barns should have strong, wide, projecting
roofs; a few extra rows of shingles at the eaves will serve to protect
the outside covering and the framework, and will improve the looks of
the structure. Should it be decided to paint the barn, an ample
projection will greatly reduce the expense of keeping the paint
presentable. Financially speaking, it does not pay to paint the barn
unless the boarding is placed horizontally. The boarding of many
unpainted barns is still in a good state of preservation, although they
were built more than three-fourths of a century ago, and had roofs
projecting but a few inches over sides and ends. Protected by a roof
projection of one to two feet, rough, vertical barn boards may last for
one to two hundred years without paint. It may be said, then, that
properly constructed barns are painted to improve their looks and not to
preserve them. When the barns are well removed from the house and
virtually hidden by trees, they may be left unpainted, but where they
are conspicuous they should be painted, that the barn may not mar the
beauty of the home. The oxide of iron, which usually has a red or
reddish tinge, mixed with pure oil, forms a most desirable and
satisfactory barn paint. (See Painting the House, Chap. IX.)
CHAPTER XVIII
_REMODELING OLD BARNS_
It is more difficult to remodel old barns than to build new ones. If the
attempt be made to unite several of the detached buildings with the view
of making them into one symmetrical structure, much study will be
required. The frames of the old buildings are so strong and durable that
they should not be thrown aside as useless until it is certain that to
utilize them would be more expensive than to tear them down and erect
others of new material. Those massive oak sills and posts and poplar
swing-beams have for me a meaning and charm which is lacking in the
light plank and balloon frame constructed of knotty, wind-shaken hemlock
or some other cheap wood. It needs no argument to prove that the
numerous detached rural buildings so often seen on the farm should be
remodeled; but how? To illustrate, let the buildings shown in Fig. 114,
which is from a photograph, be taken. Move the four largest buildings to
some suitable site without taking the frames down, and out of the
timbers of the other structures build a basement story. It will take
just one-half as much material to board the new structure as the four
old ones, plus that required to fill the gaps where the old structures
do not join (see plan, Fig. 115). These openings, eight and twelve feet,
are all so short that the frames may be made continuous by means of
light pieces of material, which will serve for nailing girts. When the
old buildings have been united, some of the inside posts may be in
inconvenient positions. If so, trusses appropriately placed in the mow
story will permit the removal of the obstructing post, as shown in Figs.
116 and 117.
[Illustration: Fig. 114. The scattered buildings on a farm. The profit
of the farm is absorbed in doing the chores.]
If a steep curb roof, which may be self-supporting (Fig. 118), be
adopted, the remodeled structure (Fig. 119) will have more than three
times the available space that the four old structures had. It is
probable that there would be nearly enough dimension stuff in the seven
other small structures to construct the basement story.
[Illustration: Fig. 115. Plan for condensing the buildings shown in Fig.
114.]
But it may chance that no basement story is wanted. If so, the building
might be arranged as before, or two more of the small structures might
be united to the four larger ones which it was proposed to use in the
former case. The barn would then present a rather low appearance; but if
the peaks of the curb roof were properly treated, that is, clipped (Fig.
120), the structure would not be void of beauty. The rebuilt structure,
in any case, should be placed on continuous walls, not on stone piers.
If the posts of the old structures are of unequal length, the wall which
supports those having the shorter posts may be built higher than for
those having the longer posts, provided, however, there is not too great
a difference in the length of the posts of the several small structures.
If there are four or more feet difference, it would then be best to
splice the short posts.
[Illustration: Fig. 116. Trussing where a post is removed.]
[Illustration: Fig. 117. A trussed frame, where a post is removed.]
[Illustration: Fig. 118. Old style of roof below, and new style curb
roof above.]
The first story in most of the old barns is entirely too low. This may
be remedied by building the outside supporting walls of the proposed
remodeled building two to three feet above the level of the ground. This
will add as much to the lower story as the wall is above the ground,
less the room required for placing the basement floor. If treated in
this manner the old inside sills, sleepers, and joists should be removed
and the inside post supported on stone or brick piers. All this will
give opportunity to construct the basement floors on the ground, or near
to it, and of such shape and material as the new plans call for. In
this case the floor might well be made of grout, since lumber is
expensive, and an effort should be made to build permanent and durable
structures. If stable floors are placed well up from the ground and have
numerous cracks between the planks, they are extremely uncomfortable for
the animals. They are, perhaps, the most uncomfortable of all floors, as
the air finds access to the stable through the floor, and it is nearly
impossible to keep such stables comfortable in cold weather. Such
construction of floors is also wasteful of manures, tends to produce
“scratches” and other foot and leg diseases in horses, and is unsanitary
and altogether undesirable.
[Illustration: Fig. 119. This shows the farmstead in Fig. 114, after the
barns are gathered in.]
Finally, it may be said that when these separate structures are treated
in this inexpensive manner without added basement, the available
capacity of the building would be double that of the old ones, the time
of performing the work in the barns would be greatly diminished, and
the discomfort of both man and beast would be ameliorated. For the sake
of the farm boy and for the animal which he cares for, to say nothing of
economy, beauty and neatness, may I not ask those who have these
scattered, unhandy, uncomfortable barns, to study well the illustrations
given, which show the old and the new arrangement?
[Illustration: Fig. 120. Treatment of the gable.]
The accompanying illustration (Fig. 121) of English farm buildings may
be of interest, though this style of barn and the arrangement would not
be suitable in America, with its rigorous climate and expensive farm
labor.
[Illustration: Fig. 121. English farmsteading plan.]
CHAPTER XIX
_OUTBUILDINGS AND ACCESSORIES_
There are various farm buildings which are better when more or less
detached from the main barn; and some of these may now be mentioned.
[Illustration: Fig. 122. A poultry establishment sufficient for 150
hens.]
[Illustration: Fig. 123. A moveable coop.]
POULTRY HOUSES
Until recently comparatively few persons have been financially
successful in the poultry business when large numbers of fowls were kept
in close quarters, as the many abandoned dilapidated yard fences and
buildings testify. The reason for such failures was due, usually, to
allowing too many fowls to run in one flock. It takes a genius to see
and note the conditions of each individual animal once daily in a flock
of several hundred birds. Break the flock up into several small ones,
each of uniform size and character, and the individual fowl may then be
more easily noted. A single diseased bird, if not removed, may serve to
inoculate a whole flock with some contagious disease. If the flock
contains but twenty to thirty individuals, the chance of discovering a
drooping bird is greatly increased. This indicates that the poultry
house or houses should be easily divided into rather small compartments.
Poultry houses usually are about 12 feet wide and not more than 30 to 40
feet long. If more room is wanted than one house furnishes, another
structure should be erected some little distance from any other one.
This will give better opportunity to arrange for large runs or yards
than does one long, continuous building. I have yet to see a large
poultry establishment furnished with yards as large as they should be,
and I have seen but few yards which were properly or fully shaded. The
runs should be large and relatively narrow, and set to fruit trees. The
plum is best, and may be set the usual distance apart. The trees should
be sprayed and cared for as in well kept orchards, since the fruit may
chance to be more profitable than the poultry. For the health of the
fowls and the welfare of the trees, clean culture of the runs should be
adopted. In the case of poultry buildings, the distributive method of
construction should be adopted rather than the concentrated one. If the
undertaking is begun with a well matured plan, these several small
structures may not be unsightly when viewed as a whole. An illustration
is given of a modest poultry plant large enough for 150 hens and 500
chicks, provided, however, that most of the chicks are sold when from
three to six months old (Fig. 122). These structures are built on grout
foundation walls to exclude vermin and moisture. The floors are of wood,
the sills and plates 2 × 4 inches. The boarding is vertical and double,
with paper between the two boardings. The outside boards are planed and
battened; the roof boards, which are laid close together, are covered
with paper and then shingled. The windows provide for light and, in
part, for ventilation. These structures are dry on the inside, and the
temperature, though not always above the freezing point in cold
weather, is comfortable. The buildings might be reduced in number or in
size, except the brooder house, and yet provide for the same number of
birds, if movable coops for the smaller chickens were provided. The
illustration (Fig. 123) shows a durable, light, movable coop large
enough for twenty half pound chicks. The coop was designed for use on
the lawn. It is inexpensive, and protects the chicks from all their
ordinary enemies, both day and night. It weighs but 75 pounds, and can
be moved easily by a child by means of a strap attached to one end. When
used on the lawn, the coop should be moved and cleaned at least once
daily, as fresh pasture for the chicks is thereby provided, injury to
the grass prevented, the lawn being benefited by the excrements. The
coop shown is 4 × 8 feet and 20 inches high, unfloored except the
covered section, which has a tight floor, and roosts and suitable
wooden and screen doors. A brood of chicks in such a coop would form
superior facilities for nature-study work.
[Illustration: Fig. 124. A large portable coop.]
[Illustration: Fig. 125. Bracing the corners of the frame.]
When poultry-raising is carried on on a large scale, the movable coops
might be built 12 × 6 or 16 × 8 feet (Fig. 124), the latter the largest
size which is easily movable without the aid of a horse. The corners of
the sills should be mitered and held together by triangular pieces (Fig.
125). These coops will be found to be entirely satisfactory when used in
a pasture or grass paddock near the chicken house. While experimenting
with them, it was found that the birds did better when as many as thirty
or more chicks were assigned to each large coop than when kept in the
large, grassless runs.
The following bill of particulars may be of assistance in the
construction of a lawn chicken-coop:
Sills 1 × 4 inches.
Posts 2 × 2 inches, 20 inches long.
Braces 1 × 1 inch.
Plates 1 × 2 inches.
The covered part of the coop is made of ³⁄₈-inch matched and beaded
hard pine; the floor of any light wood ¹⁄₂-inch or ³⁄₄-inch, matched,
but not beaded.
PIGGERIES
[Illustration: Fig. 126. Temporary shelter for a brood sow.]
A piggery of any considerable size is the most difficult to plan of all
farm structures. One of two methods may be adopted in the East with
fairly satisfactory results. If there are woods and some pasture land
adjoining or near to the barns, cheap separate pens (Fig. 126), one for
each brood animal, may be built near the border of the wood or on the
edge of it. There need be little more than a slanting roof, with the
triangular corners at the ends boarded to keep out the wind. The earth
forms a most comfortable bed if kept dry and covered thinly with leaves
or straw. Of course, these pens are not suitable for brood animals
farrowing during the winter months. Where but one litter of pigs is
raised annually, there is little difficulty; if two litters a year be
desired, the first one should be farrowed in April or May, and the other
in September or October. In either case these cheap detached pens may be
not only satisfactory, but they will serve to fit into a system of
pig-raising which may be carried on at the minimum of labor and expense
and supplementary foods. By means of a tank or barrel mounted on wheels
the animals may be fed, either once or twice daily, in large troughs
placed in the pasture. This system presupposes ample areas of grass and
woodland, which should furnish not only a healthful run for the animals
but much food for them.
Usually the mistake is made of confining pigs in small pens, which may
or may not have attached to them small yards or runs. These are always
devoid of grass, and offensively dusty and filthy a part of the year,
and an impassable mud hole at other times. Wherever circumstances will
permit, there should be allotted to each brood animal and her offspring
one-fourth acre of land. Two small fields might be provided, one of
which would serve for pasture ground for all the animals, while the
other would be used for raising crops for soiling the pigs or for other
purposes. When the lot became fertilized from the droppings of the
animals and the grass injured, it should be plowed, cropped and seeded,
the animals being pastured meantime in the other field.
[Illustration: Fig. 127. Pig pens. At the left is shown a vertical
section, with the roof over the rear. Yard on the right.]
Cheap but somewhat more elaborate pens are shown in Fig. 127. These may
be built in detached pairs, or several pens may be placed in
juxtaposition. Each pen, including the small outside yard and feeding
floor, both unroofed, is 16 × 16 feet. The part roofed is 8 × 8 feet.
After the pigs have attained some size, all doors are opened and the
entire herd may be grazed in one field.
[Illustration: Fig. 128. A more elaborate piggery.]
[Illustration: Fig. 129. Elevation of the house shown in Fig. 128.]
A better but more expensive piggery, Figs. 128 and 129, shows five pens,
though the plan lends itself to a greater or lesser number. The area
devoted to each bed is 8 × 8 feet. The driveway, which also serves for
temporary storage of manures, is 8 feet wide and extends lengthwise
through the building. The floor of the driveway should be about one foot
lower than the feeding and sleeping floors at the middle, and should be
paved or asphalted. (See cross section, Fig. 129.) The feeding floor
upon which the troughs rest may be 4 or 5 feet long, and should descend
towards the driving floor. Ordinary gates are hung to the posts which
serve, with the boarding, to separate the pens. These gates are fastened
at the other end of the posts which separate the feeding compartments.
When so fastened each brood animal has a bedroom 8 × 8, a receptacle for
manure 8 × 8, and a feeding floor 4 × 8 feet. This arrangement
presupposes that most of the foods will be fed in the troughs. If, when
the animals are first placed in the pens, the paved portion of the
floor be soiled with dirt and water, the excreta thereafter will be
deposited by the animals on this floor and not in the bedroom. The pig
is really a cleanly animal if it is given a few timely sensible hints.
When it is desired to remove the manure the gates are all swung to the
right or left, as most convenient, and they then serve to fasten all of
the animals in the bed compartments, and the driveway is left
unobstructed. One of the outside openings to the driveway should also be
provided with a gate to swing in, as well as an ordinary door to swing
out. These pens may all be thrown open in the summer when it is desired
to pasture the herd.
The illustration shows a small wing attached which may serve many useful
purposes. A matched upper floor and abundant light and ventilation
should be provided. The roof story may be used for housing some corn in
the ear and straw for bedding. In cold weather the upper floor should
have some straw left on it to promote warmth in the pens below.
The object in discussing these three styles of piggeries has been to
emphasize cleanliness, economy of labor in caring for the animals, the
comfort of the animals, prevention of wanton waste of manure, and
economy in the production of healthy swine in piggeries so arranged that
the animals may be conveniently grazed during the summer, and kept
reasonably clean and comfortable in winter.
THE SILO
The Egyptians, the Romans, and the American Indians all stored grain in
pits or silos which were air-tight, or as nearly so as large rude
structures could be made. The custom of using silos for storing grain in
Spain and France never became common, though several attempts were made
to preserve large quantities of grain for several years, that the
overproduction of one year might be kept until there were deficient
harvests.
The subject of ensilaging green “roughage” material attracted attention
in the United States soon after 1870. As early as 1875, Doctor Manly
Miles, then connected with the Illinois Industrial University, was
fairly successful in preserving the green tops of broom corn in an
earthen silo. Interest in the subject of preserving green material in
silos was widely aroused in America by the appearance of a book on
ensilage, translated in 1878-9. The book was published in France in
1877, by M. Auguste Goffart.
When the practice of ensilaging green material for feeding animals was
first introduced into the United States there was much discussion as to
the construction of silos. Many advocated building them of stones,
brick, or grout, though some were built of wood. As a rule, they were
built either square or in the form of a parallelogram, in a few cases
octagonal. Experience soon showed that the silage was preserved better
in the wooden silo than in those constructed of other material. For this
reason, and because the wooden silo is most cheaply constructed, wood is
now in universal use for building them.
At first heavy frames were erected which were covered with two, three,
and even four thicknesses of boards. Sometimes building paper was placed
between the inner and outer boards. The octagon and the round silo soon
supplanted those having square corners. As built, too often the walls
could not be or were not fully ventilated. The thick walls remained more
or less damp throughout the entire year or, if dried out when empty,
lack of ventilation superinduced dry rot. Cases were not infrequent
where silos were found to be practically useless without rebuilding in
four or five years. Where everything was at its best, the frequent
shrinking and swelling of the wood resulted finally in so destroying its
elasticity that it did not return to its normal size when the silo was
refilled. Since there was no means of tightening these silos the air
soon entered them freely, which resulted in serious loss of fodder. By
reason of the costliness and defects of stone and grout silos, and the
failure in many cases of square-cornered wooden ones to preserve the
material satisfactorily, and because of their perishable nature, much
attention has been given to the shape and material of silos.
[Illustration: Fig. 130. The stave silo.]
From all the evidence attainable, the conclusion is reached that the
round, tall, stave silo is best. It is simple in construction,
inexpensive as compared with most other kinds, and reasonably durable.
The fact that it dries out fully during the summer, thereby destroying
all germs of decay, coupled with the other fact that at any time it can
be made tight by means of the hoops which serve to hold the staves in
place, makes the round, stave silo par excellent. The staves should be
two inches thick and from four to six inches wide, bevelled to suit the
size of the structure. The hoops are usually of round galvanized iron
one-half inch in diameter. They are placed about three feet apart, the
spaces between the hoops being wider near the top than they are near the
bottom. The hoops are made in sections of variable lengths; the ends of
each section are furnished with lugs, that the hoop may be shortened and
the silo tightened with ease. The illustration (Fig. 130) shows an
emergency silo built of rough green hemlock plank unbevelled, hooped
with “American woven wire fence.” It is 24 feet high, 12 feet in
diameter, cost $35, and has a nominal capacity of 50 tons. A flat board
roof serves to keep out the snow and most of the rain. It is placed in
the open to test its durability. It has been in use one year, and so far
it is entirely satisfactory, though the staves would be better if they
had been beveled.
How long will this inexpensive silo last? That remains to be determined.
Judging from other silos of similar construction which were erected
several years ago, I judge it will last 15 or 20 years with slight
repairs. When left thus exposed, will the silage freeze during the
winter? In extremely cold weather in central New York, when the
thermometer drops to 10° or 15° below zero, the material at the top will
freeze. If straw be spread over the silage to the depth of a few inches,
it will prevent the escape of heat and freezing. A portion of the straw
covering is thrown back out of the way, the silage wanted removed, and
the covering returned. Such precaution is only necessary during a few of
the coldest days.
CHAPTER XX
_PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING_
A flash of lightning is one of the most feared of nature’s
manifestations of power; and yet by the use of proper precautions its
ability to injure persons and property can be lessened greatly.
Speculations as to the nature of lightning were vague until Benjamin
Franklin boldly sent a kite into the teeth of a storm and tapped the
accumulated electricity in the cloud to charge one of his storage jars.
He connected the cloud with his jar by a wire made of a material which
he knew would conduct the electrical charge, and at the same time he
took the precaution not to hold the end of this wire himself. He
introduced between the end of the wire and his hand a piece of silk
cord, which is a non-conductor of electricity. Had he taken hold of the
end of the wire, the charge would have passed through him with probably
fatal results.
What is lightning? One naturally inquires for the reason of this storage
of electrical energy in the clouds. The explanation is not
forthcoming--at least there is none which is entirely satisfactory--but
the facts are well known. The mass of water-vapor which forms the clouds
becomes electrically charged just as a rubber comb does when rubbed on
the hair on a dry day, or as an ebonite ruler does when rubbed on a
cat-skin. Perhaps by contact with the air, which is in motion, the
particles of water become charged, and by the union of multitudes of
these the clouds are charged to a tremendous pressure. Lightning can be
produced artificially on a small scale by means of electric machines,
and the results of study of these artificial discharges have been to
show the following facts: The air is not a conductor of electricity, but
when the electrical pressure between two points becomes sufficiently
great the electric charge jumps suddenly between the two points at which
the pressure exists. It punctures a hole for itself through the air.
Lightning is the result. This discharge is very violent, and it is
accompanied by a strong smell of ozone, which is only very strong
oxygen. If one were to examine the points of the electric machine
between which the discharge took place, they might be found either hot
or cold, depending upon their size and the material of which they were
made. Some materials offer more resistance to the passage of the
electric charge than others, and when a considerable resistance is
offered, heat is produced in appreciable amounts at the places at which
the resistance is met. The application of this principle will be seen
when the effects of real lightning are considered.
In Figs. 131, 132, and 133 are shown lightning flashes taken by Mr. W.
N. Jennings.[9] These flashes are so soon over that without the aid of
the sensitive photographic plate it would be impossible to study them.
It will be noticed that the path of the charge is not straight, but
quite irregular; this path being that in which there is the least
resistance to the passage of the electricity. One strange phenomenon
which is brought out clearly in the pictures is that the discharge very
frequently divides into several branches. This is because it finds easy
paths in several directions and divides into smaller discharges, thus
finally disappearing.
[9] These three pictures are drawn, by permission, from photographic
illustrations by Mr. Jennings in Journal of the Franklin Institute,
vol. 133 (1892).
[Illustration: Fig. 131. Horizontal discharge of lightning.]
[Illustration: Fig. 132.
Meandering discharge.]
[Illustration: Fig. 133. Tree-form discharge.]
_Protection from lightning._--Having noticed briefly something of the
nature of lightning, the next point to be considered is its control, so
that the dangerous effects of a sudden discharge may be avoided. It has
long been known that by repeating Franklin’s experiment and connecting
the clouds with the earth, dangerous flashes of lightning can be avoided
to some extent; and this fact has given rise to much swindling on the
part of the “lightning-rod man,” who has frequently imposed on the
people through their fear of the results of lightning bolts. Any person
of average intelligence, with the knowledge of a few simple principles,
can put up a rod himself for the protection of his barn or dwelling at a
very reasonable expense.
METAL ROOFS
It has been noticed that metal roofs protect buildings even when no
lightning rods are used, especially if there are tin or iron water
pipes running to the ground. Even steam and gas pipes are good if
connected with the roof. Tin and copper roofs are not so common in the
country as in the city, and this is one of the many reasons why city
houses are less frequently struck by lightning than country ones. Copper
roofs are not used now as they once were on account of the great
expense; but from the electrical standpoint they are an excellent
protection to a house in a thunder storm. The writer has noticed in a
room in a city house, in which steam heat is used, that the lightning
will come in and down on the steam pipes without doing any harm. If one
will go into a telegraph station during a storm he will frequently
notice the discharges of lightning which take place through devices
provided for the purpose, and this without the least fire risk. This is
an illustration of the fact that, if properly provided for, the
dangerous element can be largely eliminated from a lightning discharge.
PROTECTING WOODEN ROOFS
If a metal roof is out of the question, the protection of the wooden
roof must be provided for. Very little attention has been paid in this
country to the proper erection and maintenance of lightning rods. It is
not sufficient to put up a point in an out-of-the-way place, and with a
careless ground connection, and then expect immunity from lightning. The
lightning rod will protect a wooden-roofed building if it is properly
installed; and in order that this simple but important piece of
apparatus be thoroughly understood it will now be considered in detail.
In the first place, it should be noted that there are two forms of
electric discharge or lightning which are provided for in equipping a
building with lightning protection: the brush discharge and the
disruptive discharge. The brush-form is so named because the fine
streamers of sparks which are emitted have somewhat the appearance of a
brush. This discharge is harmless, and one of the important functions of
the bunch of points on the upper end of the lightning rod is to quietly
take from the surrounding atmosphere the electricity there generated,
and thus prevent its accumulation to a dangerous extent. Very high
towers, such as steel windmills, high trees, and steeples do the
community a good service in this respect. But sometimes the discharges
cannot be dissipated through the brush form, but reach a high pressure,
and exhibit themselves with great violence, producing the booming and
crackling noise of thunder. This is the second form; and although the
points may be useful in this case too, yet if they are too far apart the
discharge may not seek them, but may take a shorter path through the
moist hay from which the hot, damp air is rising to the roof and forming
another lightning conductor. Protection from this can be partly provided
by the use of several points, not over forty feet apart; but in cases in
which lightning is very violent and frequent, the conductor should be
run all around the edges of the roof, and in several places to the
ground.
An experiment made by a noted electrician some years ago will illustrate
this point: A frame was made of iron wire in the shape of a barn, the
wire representing the edges of the walls and roof. The frame was
connected to the ground, or “grounded,” as the electricians say, and
then artificial lightning was allowed to play upon it from a distance of
a foot or more above. This gave a model about in proportion to the real
barn and actual lightning. All the discharge followed the wire frame,
and did not ignite a dummy of gun-cotton which was placed inside. The
instant that the metal barn frame was removed the dummy was struck and
burned violently. One can draw his own conclusions from an experiment of
this sort.
[Illustration: Fig. 134. Proper adjustment of lightning rods on a barn.]
A barn properly fitted with lightning rods is shown in Fig. 134. The
location of the points is such that there is not more than forty feet
between two adjacent ones. The rod projects about six feet above the
roof, and these projections are all connected by means of rod of the
same form as the vertical conductors. Sharp turns are avoided in
erecting the conductor, for an electric discharge would prefer to go
straight through the air rather than turn a corner.
It will now be necessary to go into some practical details of the
construction of lightning rods, and the suggestions that will be made
have been included here because good points or rods may not always be
readily obtainable. Their manufacture is easy and can be performed with
the limited facilities of a small village. If the raw materials have to
be bought at a distance, this can be easily done by correspondence.
Parts of the system: The equipment will consist of three parts--the
conductor and its support, the points, and the ground connection.
[Illustration: Fig. 135.
Supporting a rod.]
The conductor, or so-called “rod,” first demands attention. All metals
conduct electricity to some extent, but certain ones are very much
better than others. For example, lead, platinum, brass, and iron are
poor conductors, which is equivalent to saying that they heat up readily
on the passage of an electric current. On the other hand, silver,
copper, and aluminum are good conductors. In making a lightning rod, the
best all-round conductor should be used, when cost and conductivity are
the basis for the selection. As an example, take the metals iron,
copper, and aluminum for comparison. Iron is cheapest in price per
pound, but its electrical conductivity is small, while copper, though
more expensive, has so much more conductivity that to get rid of a
certain charge of electricity requires much less of it. So with
aluminum, which has slightly less conductivity and which costs more than
copper, but which is so light that a rod having the same conducting
ability when made of this metal actually costs less than one made of
copper, and the price of aluminum is constantly lessening, while that of
copper cannot fall much on account of the limited supply. To compare
actual figures, call the conductivity of copper 100, then that of steel
or iron will be about 18, and that of aluminum about 60. As to relative
weights, copper weighs about 550 pounds per cubic foot, iron or steel
480, and aluminum 160. As the prices of these materials are constantly
varying, it would be impossible to say at this time what the relative
costs would be at any other time; but it can be said that on the score
of cost there is little choice among them. For a number of reasons aside
from cost, copper is at present the best material, and these reasons
are: That it is smaller than the others for a given conducting ability,
and thus is more sightly; that it is easier to support on account of
this small size, and that it can be readily soldered to the ground
plate, which will be considered later.
In addition to the material of the lightning rod, its form is a matter
of considerable importance. The cable forms have been used extensively
and successfully, but the ribbon or flat form is better on account of
the smaller cost, and because there is a greater area exposed for the
dissipation of the heat generated by the lightning in passing from the
points to the ground. A rectangular section of three-quarters by
one-eighth of an inch is recommended.
In supporting the conductor from the wall or roof, it should be
separated or “insulated” from these surfaces. There is a slight chance
that the lightning might leave the conductor if the building were wet. A
more important reason for the use of the insulator is that the heat
which is generated on the surface of the rod when a heavy discharge
occurs will not be able, if supported away from the wall, to heat up any
inflammable material near it. Fig. 135 shows a method of support in
which one of the standard insulators used in running electric light and
other wires is employed. These insulators, which are made of porcelain
and iron, can be screwed into the wood or into a plug driven into the
joints between the stones very readily. The insulator shown is
manufactured by the General Electric Company, of Schenectady, New York,
and similar ones are made by other manufacturers of electrical
materials.
[Illustration: Fig. 136. Efficient points for a lightning rod.]
In order to attract the discharge, the rods must project some distance
above the roof, about 6 feet being the proper height. This projection
must be supported, and there are two ways to do this. The first is to
screw or nail a piece of timber to the side of the building, projecting
about 5 feet above the roof. Two insulators on this will provide the
necessary support for the rod. As this might be considered unsightly in
some places, a neater but more expensive method is to use a piece of
³⁄₄-inch copper, brass or iron rod for the upper 9 or 10 feet of the
rod. This can be easily joined and soldered to the copper ribbon and is
strong enough to support itself in any wind. A brace from the vertical
to the horizontal rod will provide additional support if desired, and
will give a more substantial appearance. At the point at which the
horizontal rod passes through a timber support, in case such plan is
used, a hole 1¹⁄₂ inches should be bored in the timber to avoid any risk
of its being burned. In joining the horizontal to the vertical rod, the
former should be bent up at right angles for an inch, and the surfaces
should then be well cleaned and soldered.
The points for attracting the discharge should be made very carefully,
and with a view to accommodating the brush discharge particularly. As a
rule, the more points in the bunch at the head of the rod the better
will the brush discharge be attracted; and for the same reason these
points should be sharp and bright. These facts have been determined by
experiment, from which it has been learned that the discharge is quieter
and at a lower pressure from sharp, bright terminals than from others.
Aluminum wire fulfils the requirements for the points better than any
other metal of reasonable cost. Unfortunately this metal is difficult to
solder, but if the directions here given are carefully followed there
will be no difficulty in producing a good bunch.
The sketch (Fig. 136) shows the general construction. In the end of a
block of copper of the dimensions shown, drill a hole ⁵⁄₈ of an inch in
diameter and 1 inch deep. Cut off a number of pieces of aluminum wire,
of about ¹⁄₁₆ of an inch in diameter, about 4 inches long. This wire
can be obtained from the Pittsburg Reduction Company, of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania. These wires must then be filed to sharp points on one end,
the opposite ends being roughened with coarse sandpaper. Push as many of
the wires into the hole in the block as it will hold and bend the points
back so as to form a brush. Now heat some solder in a ladle and pour in
around the lower ends of the aluminum wires, having first taken the
precaution to heat the copper block so that the solder will flow well.
The conductor rod is then soldered into a slot filed in the lower end of
the block, and the bunch of points is complete.
The ground connection is the most important part of the whole equipment.
With poor ground connections, the rods become a menace to a building
rather than a protection. Examples could be cited where buildings were
actually struck and destroyed, even though “apparently properly rodded.”
In one case the wire entered but two inches into dry soil, while in
another the lower end was buried in concrete. It is absolutely essential
that the lower end of the rod be connected with moist earth in some way,
as this is the only method which will insure safety. If there are water
pipes in the building, they should be attached to the rod in the
basement in addition to the main ground connection.
As the charge is to be dissipated in the earth, it will be necessary to
expose a considerable area of metal under ground. If a spring is near,
the rod should be run to the vicinity of the spring and there soldered
to the ground plate, which should be below the level of the surface of
the spring. Moist soil is the only kind which will conduct electricity,
hence the insistence on a moist place for the terminal of the rod. In
case the plate must be planted some distance from water, either it must
go quite deep or it may be placed in a barrel of charcoal or coke buried
under the surface. These materials will hold whatever water they
receive, and it is a simple matter to wet the soil above such a terminal
from time to time. The plate itself should be of copper and of an area
of at least 25 square feet, including both sides. An old copper boiler,
flattened out, makes a cheap and effective ground plate.
There is no doubt that many buildings have been saved from destruction
by means of properly installed lightning rods, and it is plain that they
are not difficult nor expensive to install.
CHAPTER XXI
_THE FIELDS_
While it is the primary object of this book to discuss the lay-out of
buildings and their accessories, it would be incomplete if something
were not said of the general plan of the fields themselves.
FENCES
Some ten years since, someone estimated that for every dollar’s worth of
live stock kept in New York another dollar was expended in fences to
restrain it. It is probable that this estimate is below rather than
above the facts. Be this as it may, the first cost of fences and their
maintenance is a serious draft on the resources of the farmer.
[Illustration: Fig. 137. The old-time fence system on the right; the
present condition on the left.]
In the pioneer days, when even the best of fencing material was so
abundant that it was burned to clear the land, there was great
temptation to split the tender logs into great rails and construct
fences with them. Each winter a few acres of land were cleared and each
year’s clearing was surrounded by a great ten-rail fence, which served
to discourage some of the larger wild animals from destroying the crops.
It is easily seen why our ancestors in the wooded districts fenced the
farm into small fields. In some cases the surface stones were so
numerous on the land that the larger ones had to be removed to make way
for the plow. Naturally they were used for constructing fences, for the
most economical way to get rid of these too numerous stones was to make
fences of them. The haul was short and the fences could be increased in
width and height until storage room was provided for all the rocks which
the farmer cared to remove. So here, too, the temptation was great to
fence the farm into small fields. The following diagrams show the fields
and the fences as they were on the old homestead, and also as they are
at the present time (Fig. 137).
Changed agricultural conditions imply fewer fences and the adoption, in
part at least, of the soiling system. Then, too, the introduction of the
horn-fly makes a radical change imperative in the summering of the
dairy. This worst of all dairy pests robs the cow of flesh and the owner
of profit.
Now that the silo is an assured success, except under rare conditions,
soiling, or the partial soiling system, should be adopted on many
farms, especially in the dairy districts. The object should be to
provide a continuous and full supply of food, and comfortable conditions
for the animals at all times. In May and June the pastures are succulent
and the grasses usually abundant, and the annoying flies are not
present. When the animals are first turned out on the pastures the
nights may be too cold and damp for comfort, in which case they may be
stabled and fed a small supplemental ration; in fact, cows in milk
should always receive some dry, concentrated food for the first few
weeks after they are turned out to grass. Often the early grass is
over-succulent and deficient in food constituents to such an extent that
the cows cannot eat enough to sustain life and produce the most
profitable quantities of milk. When the pastures begin to fail, the
flies appear and the days are hot, manifestly the animals will be most
comfortable in the stables in the day time and in the pastures at night.
This system will permit of reducing the pastures nearly one-half, and
the removal of all fences except those which surround the permanent
pasture land. If it is desired occasionally to pasture a part of the
unenclosed land, a light woven wire fence, which can be easily erected
and removed, may be constructed. All changes in the present system of
summering animals should be towards smaller areas of pasture-land, fewer
fences, more comfortable conditions for animals, economy of effort, and
control of food-supplies for the animals at all seasons of the year.
In most of the states the laws require each farmer to restrain his own
animals without the aid of the neighbors; hence the road-fence, often
the most unsightly and ill kept of all the fences, may be discarded. How
many of the inside fences would best be removed depends upon
circumstances; but certain it is that a more rational system of
restraining and feeding cattle will be adopted than the one now almost
universally in use. We cannot destroy the hornfly; we can remove the
useless fences and house the animals in stables from which the
pestiferous flesh- and milk-reducing flies are excluded.
ORCHARDS
In some fruit districts the farmers are cutting down their orchards,
saying that they cannot afford to bother with them, and that
fruit-raising must be carried on in a large way by specialists to be
profitable. This is tantamount to saying that they are not intelligent
and enterprising enough to manage six or eight acres of orchard
successfully, while their neighbor is competent to care for ten times
that acreage. The man who owns the smaller orchard should, other things
being equal, secure a relatively larger profit than the owner of the
large orchard, since he will be able to give it more personal attention.
The man who overcomes the difficulties of fruit-raising is constantly
adding to his education and power, while the man who is appalled with
the difficulties of orcharding, and falls back on rye, buckwheat and
oats as money-crops, sinks in intelligence and loses courage. The
orchard, when intelligently cared for, seldom fails to give much larger
profits than a like area devoted to the cereals. As a rule, the most
difficult crop to raise or the most difficult business is the one which
brings the most liberal reward after the difficulties have been
surmounted.
When convenient, the orchard might well be set to the north or west of
the buildings, in most sections of the United States, but not so close
to them as to prevent a good air passage between it and the dwelling.
Low-headed fruit trees should not be set in the house yard or near to
it. The trees in most orchards are set too close together, and even when
set appropriate distances apart it will be found to be unprofitable, in
the long run, to grow two crops on the same land at the same time, as
wheat or oats and apples. Specific directions for the care and
management of orchards can now be found in well written books and
bulletins; therefore there is no occasion for treating orchards in
detail here. 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.
FARM GARDEN
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 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. 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 138. Plan of a home garden.]
The garden should be about four times as long as it is broad, unfenced
when possible, near to the house, and should be, in miniature, a farm
with the cereals, grasses, and large fruits left out (Fig. 138). The
side farthest from the dwelling should be devoted to the perennial
plants, such as grapes, currants and other bush-fruits. Everything
should be planted in straight rows, with spaces sufficiently wide
between the rows to admit of horse-hoe culture. The grapes and
blackberries might occupy one row, the raspberries and currants a second
row, rhubarb, asparagus and like plants a third row. The spaces between
these various fruits should be eight feet, as it is poor economy to so
crowd vines and bushes as to force them to struggle the year through for
plant-food and moisture. A rod or two of land, more or less, virtually
amounts to nothing on the farm; crowding the plants is only admissible
in the city or village. Here the plants may receive unusual care, and
often may be irrigated at fruiting time from the city hydrant. The rows
of ordinary vegetables may be thirty inches apart, except in case of
such plants as onions, lettuce, and early beets. These small,
slow-growing esculents should be planted in double rows. Starting from
the last row of potatoes a thirty inch space is measured off, a row of
lettuce planted, and then one foot from this a row of beets or onions;
then leave a space thirty inches wide and again plant double rows, if
more of the small esculents are wanted. The larger spaces may be
cultivated by horse-hoe and the smaller spaces by hand-hoe. The entire
garden which is to be planted in the spring should be kept fertile and
plowed early in the spring, leaving that part of it which is not
designed for immediate planting unharrowed. It may be necessary to
replow. 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. Then, too, land which has produced one crop is
likely to be deficient in moisture, while land that has been plowed two
or three times during the summer and kept well harrowed will be moist
and contain an abundance of readily available plant-food. Early in the
spring, when the land is cold and often too moist, it is best to leave
the soil rough for a time if it is not to be planted immediately, that
it may become somewhat dry and warm. As a rule, the garden should not be
fenced, but the chickens should be restrained by fences a part of the
time; at other times they may have free access to the garden, where they
are often very beneficial in reducing the insect enemies.
INDEX
Abandoned lands, significance of, 31.
Agricultural statistics, 8; what they do not show, 10.
Agriculturists, what they have done, 8.
Air space required in cow stables, 281.
Anglo-Saxon, cause of superiority, 50.
Animal, necessity of exercise for, 278; voidings, how cared for in
stables, 277.
Asphalt for stable floors, 292.
Bailey, Professor L. H., quoted, 7.
Bailey, chap. xiv, 237.
Balloon frames, 129.
Barns, 288; basement, location of, 268; building the basement, 266;
connected by covered way to house, 257; discussion of, 249; distance
to locate from house, 257; economy in construction, 253; excavations
for, 268; high large ones preferable, 253; location of, 255;
octagonal, discussion of, 254; planning, 259; size required, 249;
water supply for, 261; why large ones are required, 250.
Barnyards, open ones objectionable, 258; paddocks are preferable to,
259.
Basement barns, bridging for, 269; location of, 268; on level ground,
269; floors, how to construct, 277; walls, how to prevent dampness on,
275; wood preferable to stone, 275.
Beauty and utility should be combined, 107.
Bonanza farming, cause of decline, 36-38.
Brick used in stable floors, 278.
Building the barn, chap. xvii, 288; framing, 289; horse stables, 294;
lightning rods on barns, 296; painting the barn, 296; plank frames,
290; protecting the root-cellar, 289; repairing old barn floors, 293;
roof of barns, 296; stable floors, 292; windows, 295.
Cattle, stanchions for, 284.
Cement, Portland, cost and mixing of, 274; proportion of, to sand in
mortar, 273.
Changes in houses, considerations, 85.
Children, city and country compared, 3.
Cisterns as a source of water supply, 263.
Cleanliness, and sanitation, water supply and sewage, chap. xii, 204;
bacteria, harmful and beneficial, 204-206; bath room, 210; bath tubs,
213; cess pools, 220; closets, 210; disinfectants, 207; dry-earth
closets, 222; kitchen sink, 212; laundry, 214; outhouses, 216;
personal cleanliness, 209; pipes, 212; sewage, 219; water closets,
214; water supply, 217.
College buildings and what they illustrate, 104.
Colleges. Land Grant, aim of, 14; endowment, 14; data of incomes, 15.
Competence, how obtained, 20.
Concentration of barns, 84.
Counsel at the right time, 69.
Country churches, 119.
Country life, what it stands for, 74; what things have no place in it,
74.
Country school houses, 119-122.
Cows, air space required for, 280, 281; mangers for, section of, 286.
Crops, good and poor, 27; specialized, baleful results of, 33.
Dams for artificial pools, how to construct, 262.
Decorations inside, 193.
Deeds and abstracts, 67.
Demolins, M., quoted, 50.
Economy, 224.
Educating the eye and judgment, 107.
Education, by contact with nature, 4; higher, concentration necessary,
52; higher, in the past, 13; industrial, 14.
Evolution of high wages, 25.
External construction, principles of, 108.
Farm buildings, concentrated and distributive, 251; concentrated
system preferable, 252; examples of mistakes, 89.
Farm laborers, wages received by, 253.
Farmers’ contribution to economic status of the United States, 9.
Farms, selection of--climatic conditions, 55; cheap lands, 56; water
supply, 57.
Farms overloaded with buildings, 88.
“Farming doesn’t pay,” 6.
Fences, 336.
Fields, the, chap. xxi, 336.
Filigree work, not for farm houses, 96.
First impressions, 116.
Floors, basement, how to construct, 277; cows to stand upon, 280;
stable, wooden ones preferable, 278.
Foundations for buildings, how squared, 266.
Foundation walls, properly and improperly bonded, 272.
Frost pockets, 76.
Furnishing, 193.
Garden, farm, 341; planting the, 342.
Gingerbread cornices, 130.
Ground floor unhealthy, 77.
Gypsum, use of in stables, 277.
Heating, 190.
Home education suggestions, 48.
Home, old (should be preserved), 112; suggestions for improvement of,
113.
Home training, 46.
Homestead, improving the old, 114.
Horn-fly, reference to, 337.
House, building the, chap. viii, 132; brick and stone houses, 169;
chimneys--flue linings, 140, openings for, 141; excluding vermin from
the, 135; foundations, building the, 138; mortar for foundations, 139;
protecting from frost, 136; the cellar, 133, 134; Wooden houses--the
frame, 142; bridging the joists, 143; cutting braces and rafters, 150;
diagonal boarding, 144; girders for second-story joists, 145; made-up
timbers, 146; old houses, 170; roofs--kinds of, 147, pitch of, 149;
studding, size of, 143; the story-and-a-half, 155.
House furnishing and decoration, chap. xi, 193; carpets vs. rugs, 196;
decorations, 200; draperies, 198; general principles, 193-196.
House, location of, 74; extremes, 75; on elevated lands, 76, 80, 82.
House of pioneer, where located, 75.
House, old farm, an example of a good, 90-91.
House sites--old and new, 84.
House sites to be avoided, 82; near middle of estate, 83; and highway,
83.
House with many gables, 96.
Houses, exposed and overshaded, 117, 118; planning, 94; studying other
models, 95; useless cost of, 95.
Houses, farm, not a direct source of income, 87; mistakes in building,
87; what they are for, 87.
Houses, old farm, 85.
Houses, veneered, 168.
Household administration, economy and comfort, chap. xiii, 224; a
definite income, 225; bargain-hunting, 229; cash vs. credit, 286;
economy of health, 232; keeping accounts, 230; reading matter, 235;
systematic buying, 227; the farmer’s diet, 234; the wife’s share, 225.
Improvements on the farm, 59.
Inappropriate styles of architecture, 124.
Inside finish, heating and ventilation, chap. x, 181; baseboards, 183;
facings, 186; finish, hard oil, 186; floors, 182; patent mortars, 188;
plastered walls, 186-188; picture moulding, 184; stairs, 185;
wainscoting, 185; Heating--steam recommended, 191; systems of,
compared, 190; Ventilation, 191.
Land for market-gardening, 61.
Lands, cheap, 56.
Lawns, 243.
Lawyer and the farmer, 73.
Lawyer, province of the true, 72.
Lawyers, 65.
Level country, disadvantages of location in, overcome, 78.
Leisure and study, 13.
Light and air, 106.
Lightning, artificial, 322; brush discharge, 326; discharges, 323;
disruptive discharge, 326; protection from, 324; protection from by
metal roofs, 324; protection from by steam and gas pipes, 325;
protecting wooden roofs from, 326.
Lightning protection, chap. xx, 321.
Lightning rods, 328-336; insulation of, 331; joints for, 333; the
conductor, 329; the ground connection, 334.
Lime, proportion of, to sand in mortar, 273.
Lime, stone, retail price of per bbl., 274; water, retail price of per
bbl., 274.
Lumbering, effect of, 38.
Manger for cows, cross-section of, 286; how constructed, 285.
Market-gardening, land for, 61.
Mistakes in locating, 100.
Mortar, amount of water to use in mixing, 275; how to mix, 273.
Nature study, 111.
Newton cattle tie illustrated and described, 286.
Norris, H. H., chap. xx, 321.
Occupation, selection of, 21.
Old barns, remodeling, 298.
Orchards, 340; care of, 341.
Outbuildings and accessories, chap. xix, 306; piggeries, 311; portable
coops, 309; poultry houses, 306; the silo, 316.
Outside covering, painting, chap. ix, 158; cornices, 164; painting the
house, 173; adulterated paints, 179; analyses of paints, 180; oils for
painting, 177; roofs--construction of, 165; shingles, 165; shingling,
167; siding--novelty and lap, 160; the projections, 158, 164; the
water-table, 158; valleys, 173.
Parents as teachers, 45.
Piggeries, 311.
Plain cornices, 126.
Plan, ground, not adapted to country, 98; adapted to country, 99, 101.
Plant-food, natural cheaper than artificial, 62.
Pools in level country, 78.
Pools in the South, how constructed, 262.
Poultry Houses, 306.
Quality in farm products, 32.
Red River valley soil, nitrogen in, 37.
Remodeling old barns, chap. xviii, 298; combining several old frames,
299; form of roof, 302; trussing to eliminate posts, 301.
Remuneration in agriculture, 7.
Renter and renting discussed, 40.
Road to farm, 63.
Road fences, may be discarded, 339.
Root cellar, location of in barn, 270.
Rosendale cement, proportion to mix, 274.
Rural life; advantages and disadvantages, 2; greatest advantage of, 5.
Rural population, wants and aspirations, 19.
Sanitation, 204.
Scenery, natural, its value, 58.
Schoenfeld, Mr. G., an intensive agriculturist, 22; his crops and
their value, 23.
School, district, sketch of a day in, 47.
School children, effects of massing, 44.
Schools, rural, 43.
Sewage, 204.
Shadows cast by walls, 106.
Ship construction of houses, 128.
Silos, 316.
Silo, reference to use of, 337.
Smith, Mrs. M. R., chap. xi, 193; chap. xii, 204; chap. xiii, 224.
Soil and subsoil for house location, 80.
Soiling system, referred to, 337, 338.
Stable floors, 292; wooden ones preferable, 278; drip in, how
constructed, 280; how to secure sanitary conditions in, 277;
stanchions for cattle, 284.
Stalls for cows, how constructed, 285.
Stock on the farms in U. S. in 1870 and 1890, 250.
Tillage, cost of, considered in land value, 62.
Types of dwelling houses, 109.
VanVleet, D.F., chap. v, 65.
Ventilation, 191; principles of, 283; secured by swing windows, 282.
Ventilators for stables, how constructed, 282.
Veranda--a poor example, 96; outlook from, 81; shading, 103.
Vistas and views brought into the landscape, 81.
Warner, Prof. Amos G., quoted, 3.
Walls, stone, how to bond, 272.
Water for animals, temperature best in winter, 264.
Water supply and sewage, 204.
Water supply, artificial pools for, 262; for animals, should be in
barn, 264; for buildings, 261; springs and streams, 264.
Water, cold, effect upon the animal, 265; lime, retail price of per
bbl., 274.
Wells, 71.
Wheat, production and cost of, 30.
Windows, swing, how constructed in stables, 282.
Writing, matters of importance should be in, 71.
Yard (the house yard), chap. xiv, 237; driveways and walks, 239;
flowers, 247; planting, scattered and in groups, 339; the lawn, 243;
vines and creepers, 247.
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Transcriber’s Notes
The language used in this e-book is that used in the source document;
inconsistent, unusual and archaic spelling, hyphenation and
capitalisation have been retained, except as mentioned under Changes
below.
Depending in the hard- and software used and their settings, not all
elements may display as intended. Some of the larger elements are best
viewed in a wide window or on a wide screen.
Page 152, Footnote [5]: the reference should be to Figs. 63 and 64.
Changes:
Illustrations have been moved outside text paragraphs. Footnotes have
been moved to directly underneath the paragraph in which they are
referenced.
Some minor obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected silently.
In multiplications and dimensions, x and × have been standardised to
×.
Page vi: The Index has been added to the Table of Contents.
Page 16-17: The table has been split in order to fit the available
width.
Page 144: ... window and door-jambs ... changed to ... window- and
door-jambs ....
Page 274: Rosedale cement changed to Rosendale cement.
Page 333: 1-16 changed to ¹⁄₁₆ for consistency.
Page 350: Schœnfield changed to Schoenfeld as in text; Van Vleet, D.
F. changed to VanVleet, D.F. as in Table of Contents.
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