Chapter XV: A Discussion of Barns

Modern agriculture requires large and commodious barns and other structures to house the crops, the animals, tools, and implements. Especially is this true when mixed farming is conducted in an intensified and economical way. In early days one or, at most, two low barns of 30 by 40 feet were supposed to supply all shelter accommodations required for a farm of one hundred acres. At the present time, on the same farms, may often be seen a barn 60 by 80 feet and double the height of the old structures, with a wing one-half of the capacity of the main barn to which it is attached, this single structure providing more than six times the cubic space of two of the old barns. One sizable farm in Tompkins county, New York, had, for many years, a single barn 30 by 40 feet with 14-foot posts. It now has a barn which provides more than fifteen times the room of the old one, and yet it is scarcely large enough to house the animals and crops of this modest farm.

Naturally, the questions arise, are these large structures necessary, and what changes in agriculture have taken place to create a need for such mammoth structures? They are necessarily expensive, and too often dwarf and belittle the house when placed near it.

Modern advanced farmers secure nearly or quite double the average yield of crops of their grandfathers. This is an indisputable fact, notwithstanding the hue and cry about the decadence of the rural population. The facts are that some are farming much better than the older generations and some much worse. Much of the good land is producing more bountifully than ever before, and some of the poorer lands have been so badly managed, and have become so depleted in their productive power as to be nearly worthless, and should be thrown out of cultivation and left to recuperate until unborn generations require them. More live stock is kept now than formerly. The number of milch cows, horses, and mules in the United States increased more than 50 per cent between 1870 and 1890, and other cattle increased during the same period 150 per cent. Notwithstanding this fact, the live stock on many farms has been greatly diminished.

Then, too, progressive farmers believe it to be economy to provide shelter for animals and crops, manures and implements. The old custom of stacking the hay and grain, of allowing the farm animals to toughen in the winter’s blast in field and barnyard, and the manures to leach and bleach under the eaves of the building has, in part, been abandoned and better methods substituted. These new methods require better, larger, and more commodious farm barns. The modern and humane thought is, to make all of the animals as comfortable, according to their needs and conditions, as is their owner in his well appointed house, and to protect everything that is worth protecting from the storms.

There are two fairly distinct methods of constructing farm buildings: the concentrated and the distributive. The one aims to provide the room needed by one or two large structures; the other by means of many detached small buildings, each, where practicable, devoted to a special purpose. The last method was the outgrowth of the conditions which usually prevailed in a new country. First came the rude house and the log stable. The stable was followed by the modest barn, usually of the regulation size, 30 by 40 feet, with 12-, 14-, or, in rare cases, 16-foot posts. As the arable land increased another barn was built, then a shed, then a wagon-house; followed by a corn-crib, a chicken-house, a pig-pen, and later a sheep-barn, cow-barn, a hay-barn, all the room in the first and second barns being by this time required for grain. Outside the grain districts the buildings were modified to suit conditions, but the practice of constructing many small structures was not changed.

The buildings were erected without any comprehensive plan as to the farmstead as a whole. This necessitated many fences, gates, yards, and a maze of muddy byways in which the dock and other weeds, discarded implements, and the flotsam and jetsam of the farm found opportunity to grow or to rot. Do what one might, the farmstead could never be made to look neat and tidy. Not infrequently, twelve to fifteen separate structures may be seen on a farm of eighty acres. The farmers who own these structures are not to be criticised too severely. They inherited the method of building and often the buildings, and no one, so far, has deigned to give them help by treating such plebeian subjects as the improvement of unsightly stys, stables, sheds, and barns.

If the concentrated method be adopted, in case of fire all is swept away; if the distributive, some of the buildings may be saved. There are so many things to be gained, however, by adopting the concentrated method that construction would better be along this line and then trust to the insurance company to make good the losses by fire, should any occur. Compare Figs. 114, 119.

Farm laborers receive fully double the wages, except in harvest time, which they did fifty years ago; therefore, the barns should be planned with the view of economizing labor. This can best be secured by rearing a single structure, rather than several, for it is evident that if the live stock, tools, implements and provender be placed in juxtaposition, economy in performing the work about the buildings will be secured. However, it is often convenient to have a separate building open on one side for storing farm wagons and heavy implements and tools.

Grain, hay and stover are all unloaded most economically by means of slings and hay fork, operated by horse-power, but the unloading by horse-power implies high barns, with mows measurably unobstructed by timbers. Economy of space also implies deep mows, since a mow twenty feet deep holds more than two mows ten feet deep. High, large buildings require far less outside boarding and roof than small, low, detached buildings which contain, together, the same storage capacity. Economy in construction and maintenance, convenience of temporarily sheltering and removing manures, ease of carrying on work in the building, and beauty, all indicate the wisdom of adopting the concentrated method in the construction of farm barns.

Efforts have been made to economize in barn construction by adopting the octagon form. This form secures a greater enclosed area for a given surface covering than the square or rectangular form. But all of the angles in the frame are more expensive to make than are right angles. It requires more labor and time to saw off a timber at an angle of 35 degrees than at right angles. True, this form lends itself to a roof structure free from obstructing timbers, but, on the other hand, it does not give opportunity for the placing of convenient tracks for elevating the provender. So far the pros and cons may be said to balance. It is only when the attempt is made to divide the octagon structure into stables and rooms, compartments and mows, that its inconvenient shape is fully realized. Everything is out of square. The divisions form obtuse and acute angles, or arcs of a circle, almost without number. All this implies extra expense in the internal construction and usually a great waste of space. The illustrations of these barns have a certain charm difficult to resist, but some of the most intelligent farmers who have made a study of the octagon barn and have used it, decide that rectangular barns are much to be preferred. Some who have built octagon barns speak well of them, but this might naturally be expected. A woman generally speaks well of her husband after she has secured him, however faulty he may be.

LOCATION

The location of the proposed structure should be considered with the most painstaking care before entering upon the construction of a new building or the remodeling of an old one. Too often a single idea dominates the location. Some thirty years since I decided to erect a large basement barn. The house, a modest, comfortable structure, was located at a suitable distance from the highway, on a gentle slope. To utilize the highway for driving the animals to and from pasture, and to save the use of the fourth of an acre of land and the building of some twenty rods of fence, the barn was located nearer the highway than the house. This necessitated locating the barnyard between the highway and the barn. I never discovered this foolish mistake till years afterwards, when age and study had improved my judgment and opportunity had been given for wide observation and comparison. Now when I revisit the farm it is all too plain as to where the barn should have been located. This large barn made the house appear much smaller than before, and from one approach the farm had the appearance of being untenanted, as the barn hid the house. It is humiliating, but how could I have known better at that time of life, with ideas of barn building inherited and with neither book nor teacher to guide me?

The barn should be located far enough from the house to prevent the aromas of the stables and kitchen from mingling, and at such a distance as not to seriously endanger either one, if the other should be destroyed by fire. If possible, the barn should be on lower ground than the house, that no wash or seepage from it may tend toward the house, and for other sanitary reasons. The lower level will assist to make the barns inconspicuous. One hundred feet is the minimum distance which should intervene between these inflammable and expensive structures, except in a very cold climate, where the house and the barn may be connected by a covered way. See Figs. 94 and 95. This way need not be expensive, and should be so constructed that it can be pulled down in a few minutes in case of fire. It need not be high, and the roof might pitch but one way and be composed, in part at least, of glass. If the entire roof was of glass one side of the covered walk might well be used in the spring for growing early vegetables. If the manure be properly cared for at the far end of the barn, good sanitary conditions would be preserved.

The refuse of the stables, if left exposed at the barns in the summer, forms breeding ground for flies, which reach the house if it be near. The substitution of electric street cars, for horse cars which necessitated numerous stables, has noticeably diminished flies in the cities. There should be room between the house and barn for a score or more of large trees, which may serve, in part, to screen each building from the other in case of fire, to shade the walk between the two buildings, and, in part, the barn itself. No tree is better adapted for this purpose than the white elm. The open barnyard should, wherever possible, be discarded, for it tends to increase the wasting of manures and the cost of getting them to the field; to the multiplication of fences and flies, and to unnecessary exposure of animals. Why not substitute paddocks or small fields of a few acres for the wasteful, expensive barnyard? If the animals need exercise they should take it at suitable times in closely-sodded fields, or covered yards, rather than in confined barnyards filled with a mixture of straw, mud and manure. A few acres near the barn might be surrounded with a woven wire fence, which would serve admirably for an exercising yard. The sod on this small area might become seriously injured in a year or two, but the field would be enriched by the droppings of the animals. The field in such case could be plowed and the wire used to enclose another paddock. But it will be many years before the open barnyard can be, or will be, entirely abandoned. What may, and should be done immediately, is to place it at the rear, instead of at the front of the barn, and to cease using it for baptizing manures, and as a storage area for miscellaneous odds and ends. If some change is not made, the farm boy may find a chamber window from which a more restful and inspiring view may be secured than from the one through which he now views daily the evidences of thriftlessness and waste.

PLANNING THE BARN

Make a good study of many barns at short range; note what features are good, what faulty, what useless; by this means much will have been learned and many mistakes will be avoided. Decide approximately the capacity which will be required. First, draw a rectangular diagram of the barn, then proceed to the proposed location and take a seat; make a most careful study of the approach, the incline of the land, note where fences and gates will be necessary, where and how the water is to be introduced--in fact, take in the whole problem of the environment of the proposed structure. Then imagine that you see the barn, and that you have just arrived from town some stormy night with your wife and baby; in imagination help them out of the carriage. Imagine you have a span of young, restless horses which you have driven to get them used to city ways before selling them. That will make you think of a platform onto which the family may step from the carriage while you are holding the colts. Consider how many big doors you will have to open before the colts are made comfortable for the night. Are the democrat wagon and the colts to be kept on the same floor, or one up-stairs and the other down? Or is the carriage in one building situated four rods from the horses? How many gates and doors have you opened and closed since you arrived? Think it all over, and then go to the house and talk it over with your wife, for some day she may drive to town, and on her return find that both you and the farm hands are in the field, and that there is no one to help her put the team away. After imagination has pictured the conditions which are likely to prevail, then begin to cautiously modify the rectangular diagram; surround it with dotted lines, which may represent roads, fences, gates, lanes, and adjunct buildings. Then take a rest; lay the sketch away for a time; study barns in the neighborhood; council with the wife again, for she may have to go to the barn often. After a year of faithful and intelligent planning you may be able to place a well digested rough sketch of the proposed structure in the hands of a draughtsman.

WATER SUPPLY

It would seem to be unnecessary to repeat the axiom, “No water, no plant or animal life,” but so many buildings, both public and private, are located and constructed before the problem of supplying an ample, perennial supply of potable water is solved, that it seems necessary to briefly treat this subject.

Several public institutions with which I have been familiar have erected expensive structures before supplying water for them. Three and sometimes five separate attempts were made to furnish water for the use of the plant, none of which were entirely successful.

The amount of water needed and the conditions under which it must be secured are so variable that few specific directions can be given. One simple, certain and cheap way of securing water for the barn is usually neglected. In some sections of the South, by reason of peculiar geological formations, the practice of constructing pools or storage reservoirs has become common. A slight depression or draw or swale is selected and dammed by using the earth from the bottom of the proposed pool and from the higher land adjoining. No stone or wood is necessary to support the dam. The only precaution necessary is to have a broad base (see Fig. 7), and to provide sufficiently large outflows or spillways, one on either end of the dam, that the pool may never rise higher than within two feet from the top of the dam. The surface soil, if it contains much vegetable matter, should be scraped off a strip three to four feet wide and as long as the dam, and the depression filled with earth--clay is best--that contains little or no organic matter. If the bottom of the dam where it meets the normal earth is constructed with sods, or other material which will decay, in time the water will find its way through the porous earth.

The pools of the South, to which reference has been made, sometimes have an extreme depth of 12 to 15 feet, and may cover a fraction of an acre or several acres. I have known one of these pools to furnish water for a hundred head of cattle during a long continued drought. It is difficult to explain why more pools, lakes and fish ponds are not constructed. Possibly the reasons are that there is a prejudice against them, and well there may be, since they are usually so shallow that the water becomes impure, and since it is not generally realized that a substantial dam can be erected by the use of earth alone. If it is thought advisable not to allow the animals to go to the pool, it may be fenced, since it is not expensive to lay a pipe in the dam, when it is being constructed, on a level with the bottom of the pool, the outer end of the pipe being furnished with a ball and cock to regulate the flow of water into the trough.

Usually it is not advisable to build cisterns for storing water for barn use, since they are too expensive if built as large as needed. A cow requires from forty to eighty pounds of water daily in the summer. If sixty pounds be taken as the average, it will be seen that it would require a cistern of three hundred and fifty barrels capacity to supply a herd of fifty animals for one month. In some cases the water of a stream or well may be so highly charged with the products of magnesian limestone as to produce goitre, in which case soft water should be supplied for the horses.

Streams or springs are often available for summer, but they seldom supply ideal water conditions in winter. Young animals, and especially cows in milk, should not be required to drink water at a low temperature or be forced to travel long distances for it in cold weather. The only really satisfactory method of supplying the domestic animals with water is to bring it into the barn, and if the water in the pipes is not under pressure, a small storage tank may be placed in a mow and surrounded by straw. Such storage tank may be built, if small, out of rough 2-inch plank, spiked together, or, if large, of 2- by 4-inch scantling, spiked flatwise one upon the other; in both cases the tank is lined with galvanized iron. All barns provided with steam boilers should also be provided with a few small steam pipes leading to the water boxes, that the drinking water of the animals may be raised in winter to 98° Fahr.

Animals do not relish lukewarm water in the winter, but they really enjoy hot water. The economy and safety of using hot drinking water will justify the expense of providing it. This is especially true in the winter dairy and when horses have severe winter work. An overheated, tired horse may drink all the hot water he desires without danger. Water taken into the stomach at 40° Fahr. must absorb heat enough from the system to raise it to about 99°. To do this food must be burned, as literally as coal is burned in the boiler to heat water. It requires more units of heat to raise a pound of water one degree in temperature than any other substance except two or three of the gases.

There are now so many styles of really good air motors or wind mills, that water from wells may be pumped at a minimum cost into storage tanks. There is no longer any excuse for pumping water by hand for any considerable number of animals, nor for compelling them to seek water in cold weather at some distant stream. As has been said, there are many ways of securing a supply of water for the barn. The details of accomplishing the results desired are many, but the result should always be the same: an abundant supply of water within the barn under more or less pressure. If this is not secured the plans of a barn, as a whole, are unsatisfactory.