94 MY FARM. 



the birds and bees will repeat it, among the flowers at 

 the southern door. 



Farm, Buildings. 



HAVING looked after the farm cottage, I come 

 now to speak of the equally homely subject of 

 barns and outbuildings. Of these, such as they were, 

 I found abundance upon the premises, standing at all 

 imaginable angles, and showing that extraordinary 

 confusion of arrangement for which many of our old- 

 fashioned farmers have a wonderful aptitude. Should 

 they all be swept away, and a new company of build- 

 ings erected ? The stanch timbers and the serviceable 

 condition of many of them forbade this, as well as 

 considerations of prudence. Besides which, I have no 

 admiration for that incongruity which often appears 

 at the hands of those who are suddenly smitten with 

 a love for the country of expensive and jaunty farm 

 architecture in contrast with a dilapidated farm. I 

 believe in a well-conditioned harmony between farm 

 products and the roofs that shelter them, and that 

 both should gain extent and fulness, by orderly pro- 

 gression. It has chanced to me to see here and there 

 through the countiy very admirable appliances of 

 machinery and buildings, which, on the score of both 

 cost and needfulness, were out of all proportion to the 



