Rural Architecture | Page 4

bear a consistent relation with
each other. The former himself is a plain man. His family are plain
people, although none the less worthy, useful, or exalted, on that
account. His structures, of every kind, should be plain, also, yet
substantial, where substance is required. All these detract nothing from
his respectability or his influence in the neighborhood, the town, the
county, or the state. A farmer has quite as much business in the field, or
about his ordinary occupations, with ragged garments, out at elbows,
and a crownless hat, as he has to occupy a leaky, wind-broken, and
dilapidated house. Neither is he any nearer the mark, with a ruffled
shirt, a fancy dress, or gloved hands, when following his plough behind
a pair of fancy horses, than in living in a finical, pretending house, such
as we see stuck up in conspicuous places in many parts of the country.
All these are out of place in each extreme, and the one is as absurd, so
far as true propriety is concerned, as the other. A fitness of things, or a
correspondence of one thing with another, should always be preserved
upon the farm, as elsewhere; and there is not a single reason why
propriety and good keeping should not as well distinguish it. Nor is
there any good cause why the farmer himself should not be a man of
taste, in the arrangement and architecture of every building on his place,
as well as other men. It is only necessary that he devote a little time to
study, in order to give his mind a right direction in all that appertains to
this department. Or, if he prefer to employ the ingenuity of others to do
his planning,--which, by the way, is, in most cases, the more natural
and better course,--he certainly should possess sufficient judgment to
see that such plans be correct and will answer his purposes.
The plans and directions submitted in this work are intended to be of
the most practical kind; plain, substantial, and applicable, throughout,
to the purposes intended, and such as are within the reach--each in their
kind--of every farmer in our country. These plans are chiefly original;
that is, they are not copied from any in the books, or from any
structures with which the writer is familiar. Yet they will doubtless, on
examination, be found in several cases to resemble buildings, both in

outward appearance and interior arrangement, with which numerous
readers may be acquainted. The object, in addition to our own designs,
has been to apply practical hints, gathered from other structures in use,
which have seemed appropriate for a work of the limited extent here
offered, and that may serve to improve the taste of all such as, in
building useful structures, desire to embellish their farms and estates in
an agreeable style of home architecture, at once pleasant to the eye, and
convenient in their arrangement.

INTRODUCTORY.
The lover of country life who looks upon rural objects in the true spirit,
and, for the first time surveys the cultivated portions of the United
States, will be struck with the incongruous appearance and style of our
farm houses and their contiguous buildings; and, although, on
examination, he will find many, that in their interior accommodation,
and perhaps relative arrangement to each other, are tolerably suited to
the business and convenience of the husbandman, still, the feeling will
prevail that there is an absence of method, congruity, and correct taste
in the architectural structure of his buildings generally, by the
American farmer.
We may, in truth, be said to have no architecture at all, as exhibited in
our agricultural districts, so far as any correct system, or plan is
concerned, as the better taste in building, which a few years past has
introduced among us, has been chiefly confined to our cities and towns
of rapid growth. Even in the comparatively few buildings in the modern
style to be seen in our farming districts, from the various requirements
of those buildings being partially unknown to the architect and builder,
who had their planning--and upon whom, owing to their own
inexperience in such matters, their employers have relied--a majority of
such dwellings have turned out, if not absolute failures, certainly not
what the necessities of the farmer has demanded. Consequently, save in
the mere item of outward appearance--and that, not always--the farmer
and cottager have gained nothing, owing to the absurdity in style or
arrangement, and want of fitness to circumstances adopted for the

occasion.
We have stated that our prevailing rural architecture is discordant in
appearance; it may be added, that it is also uncouth, out of keeping with
correct rules, and, ofttimes offensive to the eye of any lover of rural
harmony. Why it is so, no matter, beyond