270 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



masses everything in this central court, which serves as front 

 yard, barnyard, and poultry yard, and into which open the stables, 

 the wagon and tool sheds, the granaries, etc. In this square is 

 also the inevitable fumicr or manure heap. Altogether it is a 

 convenient arrangement, but it does not make an attractive front 

 yard for the dwelling house. In Holland one frequently finds 

 everything in one building, the dwelling in the front, stables 

 in the back, and the haymow and grain bins in the middle. 

 Among people who are so scrupulously clean as the Dutch this 

 is an excellent arrangement. In parts of Italy one sees occa- 

 sionally a farm building, fairly large and commodious, built of 

 stone and roofed with tile, in which the ground floor serves as 

 stable, granary, etc., while the upper stories serve as a dwelling 

 house. Outside of New England, many people in this country 

 do not know that in this section the characteristic arrange- 

 ment is to have the barn and house connected, with the wood- 

 shed, tool house, and possibly a carriage house serving as the 

 connecting link. This is both convenient and economical, in 

 that it gives more room for less cost than could be got from 

 several disconnected buildings, and enables one to pass under 

 shelter from the house to the barn. It also serves as a spur to 

 cleanliness, since it would be unpleasant to have a foul and 

 odoriferous barn in such close proximity to the house. 



Problems of supervision and administration. The problems 

 of supervision and administration cannot be discussed at length 

 in a treatise of this kind. Nothing but actual experience and 

 training will fit a man for the actual direction of the farm work 

 from day to day and from hour to hour. There is probably no 

 other business enterprise of equal size which demands of its 

 manager such resourcefulness, such decisiveness, such energy 

 and " push " as a farm. The seasonal character of the work 

 requires a constant and incessant changing of plans and solving 

 of new problems. One thing, however, needs to be said with the 



