only a matter of ornament; but ornament is ludicrous on an ugly building. We must come to realize first of all that every building is good architecture or poor architecture, whether it is a chicken coop

or a palace. Good architecture, so far as externals are concerned, consists primarily in proportions, not in trimmings, excrescences, ornaments and oddities. What constitutes good proportion may not be declared off-hand, for what is good proportion for one kind of building may be poor proportion for another kind of

building. Every man

can test the question

Fig. 283. Good lines in a corn-crib. for himself, and he will soon become expert at it: let him challenge every building that he sees and ask whether it is pleasing in general shape. Is it compact and solid-looking, or awkward and gawky?

Perhaps the commonest faults with farmhouses are that they are high, staring, ill-shaped. Farmhouses are mentioned advisedly, for farm barns are usually much better in architectural form, and for the simple reason that no effort is expended to make them "handsome" or unusual-they are built for what they are and with no pretensions. Most of the old-fashioned farm buildings are pleasing in form, although they may be wholly lacking in convenience of plan. They are relatively broad on the ground, with ample cornices and eaves, stout chimneys, and big, simple porch posts. They seem to belong to the place. They look like real farm structures.

Fig. 285. Rough and good stone work, such as should be much commoner in farm buildings. A farm cottage in central New York.

Now we have copied the millinery architecture of the city. We have run our buildings up where they may be seen, and as if land were worth so much the square foot; and often we have loaded them with tatting. The porch posts have been run through the turning lathe until they are as slender as possible and yet hold the load, thus contradicting the very purposes for which posts are used the purpose to provide stability and solidity. The turner shows his skill by cutting them

almost in two in several places, and by shaping out various inharmonious forms on the same post. It is impossible that a cylindrical or square pillar of good proportions is made more beautiful or useful by having quirks and undulations run into it, although it may sometimes serve very well as one element in a scheme of ornament. The spindle-legged porch usually goes with a light-construction and weaklooking house. The reaction of the town on the country in the matter of architecture is stronger than most persons are aware. One rarely sees a new farmhouse adopting the old farmhouse models. Part of the reaction expresses itself in the desire of every person to have a house unlike every other person's. This is really commendable, only that this individuality should be secured by a different fundamental plan rather than by the introducing of mere oddities or accessories. Persons now are likely to feel that buildings must have what is called "style,"

Fig. 284. A house of simple and strong lines, well-suited to the country.
See Fig. 297.

and this results in a showy building with much effort expended on incidental parts,-scroll work, crests on the ridge, turrets, dormers, fantastic windows, spindle work, and the like. If any house should look to be strong and substantial, it should be the farmhouse. The farmhouse stands by itself. It is not built to sell, nor to serve a single generation. Land is substantial: the buildings go with the land.

It must not be understood that the country is worse than the city in respect of its buildings. In fact, the country is better off because its buildings are less ambitious and showy. It is difficult to conceive of a prospect more ugly than many village or city streets, with their

heterogeneous and formless houses. It is time to set farm people thinking about the "looks" of their buildings, and to say that there is as much opportunity for the exercise of good taste and for the display of good "architecture" in simple farm buildings as in city buildings.

It is not meant to advise the discarding of all ornament on buildings; but there is ornament of

proper kind and degree and of improper kind and degree: just what is proper or improper in any case must be determined for that case alone. A building devoid of all conspicuous ornament may be very attractive, if the general form is good and the openings properly proportioned to each other. The cheap ornament that is so commonly seen is added to relieve the "plainness" of the building; but plain buildings that is, simple and direct ones-are themselves the most satisfying buildings if the mass-effect

and construction are good. Let a person erect such a plain building in the midst of showy ones, and his friends will very likely compare it to a barn. The comparison may really be a compliment; in time the critics will come to like the simple structure and to tire of the others. The simple structure "wears."

In the days of hand-work, the trimmings and ornamental features were worked out by the men who built the house, and there was likely to be harmony in the style of workmanship. Now, the ornamental features are largely machine work, and they may have little relation to the remainder of the building. For these reasons, we need to exercise great care in the treatment of the "finishings" of a building.

Because a building is in keeping in the city, it does not follow that it will be in keeping in the country. The building should fit the place and the purpose. It should seem to belong just where it stands. It should not seem to be transplanted to the country. The traveler often wonders why the simple and unpretentious peasant cottages in Europe are so interesting. The reason is just because they are simple and unpretentious, and therefore individual. They seem to have grown up out of the land

farmhouse.

and to be a product of it, expressing merely the necessities of the builder. They were built slowly right where they stand, not carted in bodily from the mill and then set up. It is too bad that in those parts of North America where rock and stones abound, there are not more stone buildings. Unfortunately, stone

Fig. 289. A direct and useful house in the windy country of the plains.

buildings are expensive because of the great cost of masons' wages and the difficulty of securing masons in the country who can lay a good rough, untrimmed wall (Fig. 285); yet we ought to be developing a class of young farmers who themselves can utilize the native materials of their region.

Certain types of buildings are peculiar to great geographical regions or to people of a certain descent. In parts of New England one sees the house, woodshed and barn comprising one

continuous building (Figs. 29, 31, 160, pages 36, 38, 149). In most of the older parts of the country, a prevailing type is the "upright and wing" form. In compact villages and cities this form of house has been given up. It is a question whether it affords the most useful and convenient house for a farm or allows the most economical use of the materials. It lacks compactness; but it lends itself well to the parlor and the spare-room idea, for these apartments can all be placed in the upright and be out of the way. The family usually lives in the wing. One could write an essay on the type of mind in our ancestors that developed this particular form of house, relegating the family to one sphere and the company to another sphere. Another interesting discursive type is the "ell," which ambles off to one side. In marked contrast to all this, one finds beyond the

Missouri, and especially in California, the compact low-topped house, in which practically all the activities are under one roof. (Figs. 287, 288.) These houses may grow large by extensions rather than by wings, all the parts being under roofs of equal height. These buildings. are often models of concreteness and concentration, and usually they are comely. It is a wonder that some one has not adapted them to the East. In the South, the buildings are constructed for "air," with large rooms, high ceilings (lower ceilings with good ventilation might be better), abundant porches, and often with no underpinning. The old-fashioned box-corniced farmhouses are faulty in the small extent of veranda-commonly they had only a "stoop"-and also in the lowness of the upper story. Many of the newer houses have gained in high roomy chambers, but are likely to have lost in width and in too high and narrow gables. These old buildings were painted white. The Editor will not commit himself on the proper color for a

(Residence of J. E. Wing.) See Figs. 295, 296.

farmhouse; but the range of colors in mixed paints affords boundless opportunity for the display of "tastes." The question may be raised whether the pleasing effect of the white on the old buildings is not in part the simplicity and plainness and the fact that one cannot make disharmonies.

The remedies.

It is conceivable that the reader may agree with nearly all that has been said; yet he will ask what good it serves, since the farm buildings in most parts of the country are now all built. Some new farmsteads are being erected, however, either on wholly new sites or to replace old buildings, and practically all the present structures must be replaced within a generation or two. Yet the case is not hopeless even with existing buildings. Additions are made to old buildings, and too often these additions contradict the spirit of the older part. In driving through any country, one may amuse himself in observing how many buildings show glaring evidence of having been "added to." Sometimes one can correct minor faults by judicious repairing or inexpensive modification. Often a too slender chimney can be broadened above the roof-line. Jig-saw skirting can be sawed off or neatly boarded over. Spindly porch posts can be boxed in and made square. Weak or unsightly foundations can be covered or screened by grading or by planting. Always, the building can be left in a neat and completed condition. It is not uncommon to see scaffolding remaining for years, particularly on silos (Fig. 291), and lumber and other material lying loose and exposed. Even if one cannot afford to complete a structure at once, there is a knack of making things look ship-shape. The farmer, as well as the mechanic, should have a pride of workmanship. If our buildings express ourselves, it is essential that we give careful attention to ourselves as well as to the buildings; and if buildings are teachers, it is important what kind of appeal they make to children and to strangers.

The responsibility of reorganizing farm building must lie very largely with the colleges of agriculture, since the fees will not be adequate to attract the services of professional architects. The architect's work thus far devoted to farm buildings is nearly all applicable only to structures designed for country homes or for very special kinds of agriculture. Moreover, many of the problems involved in these buildings are distinctly agricultural, as in the construction of creameries and buildings for dairy cows, poultry, swine. The improvement of farm buildings must be largely an accompaniment of the educational movement, inextricably associated with the general betterment of agriculture. The movement must also

extend to all buildings in the country, whether on farms or devoted to schools, church work, or to public gatherings. It will be a happy day when the central four corners in every large rural community shall bear four buildings, school, church, library and museum, general assembly hall. In particular, the rural school-building is now sadly in need of attention. The new school, effective for the life of its community, cannot come in the present single-room unadapted school-building. Every school-building must contain a room in which the pupils may "do things," may work with tools, and may keep and handle the natural objects of the region. The building must be well ventilated, well heated, well lighted, sanitary, attractive. All this means that new buildings must be made. The country church buildings are perhaps as much in need of reorganization as the schoolhouses. They are now largely cold, stiff and forbidding in appearance. The new church will contain much more than a preaching room and a vestibule.

Fig. 292. The old and the new in door finish. A shows the heavy and useless dust-collecting casings and panels now in use. B and C show the two sides of tight, tidy and simple doors, none of the work projecting beyond the walls.

It is not too much to hope that a century hence will see a new kind of structure and construction in the open country.

Books and periodicals on farm buildings, recommended by correspondents and others, are as follows: Farm Buildings, Sanders Publishing Co., Chicago (from which pictures on pages 174-177 are adapted); Suburban Homes with Constructive Details, David Williams Co., N. Y.; The Farmstead, I. P. Roberts; Chapters in Physics of Agriculture, F. H. King; Plank Frame Barn Construction, John L. Shawver; Modern Carpentry and Joinery, Fred T. Hodgson; Modern Carpentry and Building, W. A. Sylvester; Barn Plans and Outbuildings, Orange Judd Co., N. Y.; files of American Homes and Gardens, published by Munn & Co., N. Y.; files of House and Garden, J. C. Winston Co., Philadelphia; files of the House Beautiful, Herbert S. Stone, Chicago; files of Carpentry and Building, David Williams Co., N. Y.; files of Breeder's Gazette, Chicago; Stable Sanitation and Construction, T. E. Coleman, London, 1897; Farm Buildings, W. J. Malden, London, 1896. Recent farm books are likely to contain useful suggestions on buildings; so also are bulletins of experiment stations.

By Joseph E. Wing

The purposes of a farm dwelling are several: To provide a place for administration of the farm; to afford protection; to house the various treasures and goods of the family; to be a home, that is, a meeting place for the members of the household, where they may come together for the family life. The building should also adorn the landscape. All this requires no elegance or costliness, but only a regard for fitness in form and design, and, above all, a suggestion of homelikeness, comfort and cheer within.

We are all more or less bound by inherited ideas as to the fitness of things-notions conceived by our forefathers to meet the conditions in which they

were placed. So it is that we still have many forms and customs which, while perhaps the best for the conditions in which they were conceived, have now lost their adaptability. On the other hand, many of the inherited forms are still fit, and they meet well our modern needs. They appeal to us because of the memories they call up. For this reason certain kinds of architecture appeal to us, and other kinds do not.

When, centuries ago, men ceased living in caves, they built tents and shelters of bark. The tent introduced the ridge-pole. The first house had a long, slanting roof, with little wall. This roof idea became fixed in the mind. Beneath the low, long, sheltering roof were warmth, dryness and protection. To-day this low roof suggests homelikeness in the house. It is an ancestral memory and we not