SECRETARY'S REPORT. 227' 



When any considerable number of our farmers' boys, from all 

 parts of the State, shall have had the advantage of such training 

 and illustrations as such a " Model Farm," " Farm School," " Uni- 

 versity," (or whatever other name may be given to the institution) 

 is intended to give, we shall see a change in agricultural architec- 

 ture. The inconveniences and discomforts now existing, will, in 

 new erections, be avoided, time and labor be economized, and beauty, 

 convenience, comfort and profit, take the place of ugliness, inconve- 

 nience, discomfort and loss. 



In order to do something to promote so desirable an end, I pro- 

 pose in this paper, to discuss the necessity of reform, the causes of 

 this necessity, the importance of a reform, and the means. 



The manufacturer so arranges his buildings, that every operation 

 is performed with the least possible expenditure of labor. He well 

 knows that this forms a large part of the cost of his fabrics, and fail- 

 ing to save here, he fails of success. With the farmer, more than 

 with any other class, does labor enter into the cost of his produc- 

 tions. The raw material, and the forms into which he molds it, 

 whether food or clothing, animal or vegetable, are all the product of 

 labor ; yet look where we will, throughout the State, and in almost 

 every instance we find farm buildings built without any reference to 

 the wants of the farmer, the economy of labor, or the comfort of 

 man or -beast. 



How rare the instances where a farmer has, before commencing 

 his buildings, made or procured any general plan, or even had one 

 in his own mind, and how still more rare the cases, where beauty of 

 design, and architectural appearance, had any place in that plan. 

 Very few fiirmers would think of the extravagance of paying a few 

 dollars to an architect for a plan of farm buildings ; yet by so doing 

 he would, in the end, save hundreds ; and by the substitution of 

 beauty for deformity, add to the money value of his estate. 



"All men have their prejudices," and none more than the far- 

 mer; and on this last topic, these prejudices would be saying, "give 

 me the useful ; let those who have money to spend, study the beau- 

 tiful." Let us lay aside, if we can, our prejudices, and we shall see 

 that the useful and the beautiful are not incompatible ; and that a 

 house and barn, built in good taste, well proportioned, and well situ- 

 ated, with respect to each other and to the natural features of the 



