TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
New Series. 
ALBANY, FEBBUABY, 1852. 
Yol. IX.— No. 2. 
The Sub-division of Farms. 
We once had occasion to spend some hours at the re¬ 
sidence of an acquaintance, who was a very successful 
raiser of fine fruits, and who had a profusion of garden 
luxuries from his well-treated grounds, but who, from 
some unaccountable cause had built a house that seemed 
to be, 
“ A mighty maze, and all without a plan.” 
For the rooms, instead of being arranged with a view to 
convenience, appeared to have been thrown together ac¬ 
cording to chance,—very much like a heap of railroad 
baggage after a collision. The common entrance was 
through the wood-house into the kitchen, which formed 
the sole means of access to the dining-room; and to pass 
from the latter to the parlor, it was necessary to 
walk through a portion of the open yard, or in common 
phrase “ to go out doors.” Now, this may seem emi¬ 
nently ludicrous to the lover of order, but certainly not 
more so than the arrangement of many a farm. How 
far, for example, would the reader of this article be com¬ 
pelled to travel, to find the farmer who is in the practice 
of passing through one field to reach another—who must 
cut a road through the grass of his meadow, to enter a 
field of ripened grain, or to demolish whole rows of un¬ 
ripe corn that he may draw to his barn the contents of 
the meadow. 
We have many volumes of instructions and illustrations 
to show us how to plan and build our houses,- but not 
one on laying-out farms. Is it because fences cost less 
than dwellings? This cannot be; for let any one who 
occupies a hundred acres, well fenced, but make the esti¬ 
mate,and he will find that he is compelled to keep up, even 
on this small domain, no less than four miles of parti¬ 
tion walls between his fields, and the cost, with repairs, 
to be quite equal to that of a good farm-house. Is it 
because easy access to all parts of a farm is not essen¬ 
tial to good husbandry? Can the farmer travel more 
easily a needless furlong, than the housewife can take five 
unnecessary steps from the kitchen to the dining-room? 
Is it easier for the farmer to draw a load of manure over 
a hill fifty feet high, or through a mudhole a foot and 
a-half deep, than his partner within doors to descend and 
return from that nuisance in domestic arrangement, a 
cellar kitchen? A moment’s reflection must show that 
a Avell planned sub-division of a farm lies at the very 
foundation of convenience, system, and economy. 
Let the reader carry out in figures the actual yearly 
cost of a single awkward defect. To drive a herd of 
cows a half mile between the barn-yard and pasture, 
may seem a slight task; but when this is repeated four 
times daily for eight months of the year, the aggregate 
distance to be traveled is greater than from Buffalo to 
the Atlantic; and not performed as the latter is with fire- 
car and.the tempest’s speed, but with the toilsome labor 
of the pedestrian or drover. A slight improvement in 
the plan might perhaps easily lessen this journey a hun¬ 
dred miles. When therefore the whole amount of other 
farm-travelling is taken into consideration, with loaded 
carts and without them, the subject of arrangement be¬ 
comes one of no mean importance. 
In furnishing specimen plans for laying-out farms, a 
difficulty will suggest itself, namely, the endless variation 
in their interior and exterior forms, in the position of 
hills and valleys, marsh and upland, in woods, springs, 
and water courses, and in intersections by the public 
road. This difficulty will however be greatly reduced, 
by adopting a few general plans with the leading princi¬ 
ples, which may be modified according to circumstances. 
The most simple piece of ground, and the most easily 
laid out, is the nearly level parallelogram. There are 
many such in the country, and when the size is moderate, 
they usually lie with a narrow end to the public road. 
Such a one may be easily laid out into fields as shown in 
the annexed figure, (Fig. 1,) where every field is entered 
