Buildings and Yards. 



469 



stone walks. Every farmer should know how to make a cement walk 

 or a concrete foundation. The difficulty of securing good walks is aggra- 

 vated hy the common custom of placing the barn across the road from 

 the house. There are reasons, of course, for preferring the barn and resi- 

 dence on opposite sides of the highway — the highway serves as a lane 

 and the roadside as a yard; yet it is strange, after all, that a person is 

 willing to have a public thoroughfare cut through the most private and 



/ 



J. 



Fig. 291. — Useful end dignified porch post. 



personal part of his establishment. It would seem that a man would 

 want to have absolute control of the land lying between a farm house 

 and the barns. Yet whatever the position of the buildings, walks should 

 connect them and make them accessible in all kinds of weather; and 

 these walks should be broad, direct and permanent. I know a farmstead 

 in which the women for years have gone to the pump down and up the 



