SECRETARY'S REPORT. • 229 



wait till judgment has matured and means accumulated, but begin, 

 in most instances without money, to put up something to live in, 

 and something to shelter the hay and the steers from the weather ; 

 copying perhaps from the best models Avithin their knowledge, and 

 always designing, when they get able, to build a better house or 

 barn ; or to finish and improve the structures already erected. No 

 wonder, under such circumstances, that improvement goes on slowly, 

 and that houses and barns are without beauty, convenience or comfort. 



The importance of reform in rural architecture, arises from two 

 considerations, viz : its material and its moral influence ; its effect 

 on the pocket, and its effect on the character and habits of a people. 



Where a man's time and labor constitute almost his whole avail- 

 able capital, it requires no argument, to show that every unneces- 

 sary expenditure of it is a loss ; and yet many would be surprised 

 to see how much labor they perform, which might as well, with suit- 

 able arrangements, have been saved. The man who travels two 

 hundred rods daily, to do what might be done by traveling one hun- 

 dred rods, walks, in a year, more than one hundred miles, uselessly ; 

 and many do this. The woman, in house-work, who, by a better 

 arrangement of rooms, can save the same amount of travel — and it 

 might be done in many large farm houses — would have an additional 

 half hour each day, for reading or for rest. The putting of hay 

 into the barn, and putting the manure out ; the feeding and water- 

 ing of cattle ; the tending of hogs ; and supplying the house with 

 wood and water, are all susceptible of being done with much less 

 labor than they now require, in a great majority of cases. Each 

 half day spent by a farmer, in driving his cattle through snow drifts 

 or over icy roads, fifty rods or more, to the watering place, is so 

 much taken out of his income, as a half day of labor would earn. 

 Many a farmer can understand what are the trials and vexations of 

 this operation, in a driving storm, or a day like many in our winters, 

 and his cattle, shivering and trembling, say plainly enough, how 

 terrible to them is the process, by turning and making a rush for 

 the barn, at every opportunity ; choosing rather the sufferings of 

 thirst, than the terrors of the weather or the ice. How much loss 

 of beef and tallow results from such a course, it is not easy to estimate. 



How many give up the culture of root crops for cattle, from an 

 experience of the labor of feeding them out ; where for want of a 



