Jity and not ornament in view. Not only the original 

 cost, but the very expence of keeping unnecessary build- 

 ings in repair, is a heavy burden upon any proper- 

 ty, which it is for the interest both of the landlord and 

 of the tenant to avoid. The house and offices should af- 

 ford ample convenience to the farmer in carrying on his 

 business. On the other hand, all superfluous buildings, 

 and useless decorations, ought to be avoided ; for, as Dr 

 Coventry has well observed, durable economy should be 

 preferred to shifting taste *. Nothing can be more absurd 

 than the enormous barns usually attached to all the great 

 farms in England. Grain in the straw keeps infinitely 

 better in the open air than in close barns ; it is less apt 

 to be destroyed by vermin, and saves the enormous ex- 

 pence of building and repairing great barns. Threshing 

 mills, when generally introduced, will soon prove the 

 absurdity of much useless erections. 



2. The accommodations really necessary, ought never 

 to be straitened in regard to room. The threshing-barn, 

 for instance, must be sufficiently spacious to contain two 

 stacks of grain in the straw ; and the straw-barn, as re- 

 commended by Mr Walker of Wooden, should be so 

 large as to pile up the whole of that straw when thresh- 

 ed, so that a considerable quantity of straw may al- 

 ways be kept in good order for fodder. Where cattle 

 are fed on straw, (which it would be better to dis- 

 pense with, if richer food, as will afterwards be ex- 

 plained, could be provided for them), the farmer would 

 otherwise be obliged to thresh more frequently than he 

 would wish to do. There ought to be a granary adja- 

 cent to the barn, in which the grain, when threshed, 



B 



* See Discourses on Agriculture, p. 5. 



