On  the  Construction  of  Farm-Buildings. 
193 
times  huge  barns  will  be  seen  standing  alone,  or  with  a cattle-shed 
attached,  at  wide  intervals  over  a farm,  hardly  to  be  approached 
with  wheels  on  account  of  the  bad  roads  for  several  months  in  the 
year,  by  which,  though  there  may  be  an  apparent  saving  from 
shortening  the  carriage  at  certain  times  of  the  year,  it  will  be 
found,  on  the  whole,  that  time  and  labour  is  lost,  and  that  an 
opportunity  for  peculation  and  idleness  is  offered  to  the  workmen, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  cost  of  repairs,  &c.  Another  crying  evil  in 
most  farm-buildings  is,  that  the  manure  made  in  them  is  consider- 
ably reduced  in  value  by  being  exposed  in  wide  open  yards  to  the 
rain,  sun,  and  wind,  by  which  the  more  soluble  and  volatile  parts 
are  wasted,  and  a filthy  state  of  the  yards  is  always  maintained. 
We  have  been  sometimes  tempted  to  ask  a farmer,  from  whose 
yards  the  fertilising  streams  of  dark  liquor  were  flowing  into  the 
ditches  or  horse-pond,  wdiether  he  was  fond  of  strong  tea  ? The 
answer  being  generally  in  the  affirmative,  the  next  question  would 
be,  whether  he  thought  it  would  be  a good  plan  to  leave  the  tea- 
pot under  the  urn  and  to  set  the  water  running  through  it  before 
he  helped  himself  ? The  land  finds  this  washed  dung  nearly  as 
valueless  as  he  would  his  tea-leaves  treated  as  above. 
From  these  various  defects  there  results  a sacrifice  of  labour 
and  men’s  time,  whether  in  getting  the  corn  into  the  barn,  in 
disposing  of  the  straw  after  it  is  thrashed ; in  watering  and  feed- 
ing the  animals ; and,  in  short,  in  almost  every  operation  about 
the  homestead. 
Turning  from  the  exterior  aspect  of  the  buildings,  it  is  too 
often  found  that  the  construction  of  the  interior  of  each  is  as 
faulty  as  the  exterior  plan  of  the  whole.  Horses  are  deprived  of 
their  health  or  of  eye-sight  by  the  ammoniacal  exhalations  in 
close  and  pestilential  stables  ; cattle  are  plastered  over  with  their 
own  excrements,  and  a w'aste  of  food  is  caused  by  attempting  to 
fatten  animals  under  circumstances  in  which  most  of  what  they  con- 
sume is  appropriated  to  keeping  up  the  necessary  animal  warmth. 
Diseases  are  caused  in  young  stock  by  exposure  to  wet  and  cold, 
by  which  numbers  perish,  or  at  least  their  after-growth  is  stunted 
and  their  value  much  deteriorated. 
Now  in  place  of  this  too  common  state  of  things  it  must  evi- 
dently be  of  the  highest  importance,  in  order  to  make  the  most  of  a 
farm,  that  the  buildings  should  be  concentrated,  each  part  adjoin- 
ing as  nearly  as  possible  those  with  which  it  is  most  in  connexion 
in  the  routine  of  daily  work,  that  thus  time  and  hands  may  be 
economised,  and  a ready  superintendence  over  every  part  possible  • 
so  that,  in  short,  the  several  products  of  the  farm,  whether 
grain,  cattle  or  manure,  may  be  produced  in  the  greatest  excel- 
lence and  within  the  shortest  period.  If  we  observe  the  admir- 
able arrangements  for  economising  labour  displayed  in  most 
VOL.  XI.  O 
