124 



The Farmstead 



visible form, the l3nilding may be made hideous 

 and unnecessarily expensive by careless or igno- 

 rant treatment of external details. 



Most of the farmers who now occupy the 

 country west of the Alleghanies came from the 

 east and brought with them a varied assortment 

 of styles of architecture inherited from the 

 many European countries from which they or 

 their ancestors came. These people, though of 

 limited means, had pride and tenacity of pur- 

 pose, and they could not easily change to the 

 plain and appropriate exterior treatment of the 

 farm house. This inheritance and persistence, as 

 shown in the farm houses of the middle states, 

 is fitly illustrated by the expensive and heavy 



Fig. 35. The sway-liaek house. 



return cornice, the massive columns, and the 

 complicated and ornate entablatures which are 

 supposed to adorn an otherwise plain house. 



