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 the apology already
given--that of an absence of cultivation, and thought upon the subject.
It may be asked, of what consequence is it that the farmer or small
property-holder should conform to given rules, or mode, in the style and
arrangement of his dwelling, or out-buildings, so that they be
reasonably convenient, and answer his purposes? For the same reason that
he requires symmetry, excellence of form or style, in his horses, his
cattle, or other farm stock, household furniture, or personal dress.
It is an arrangement of artificial objects, in harmony with natural
objects; a cultivation of the sympathies which every rational being
should have, more or less, with true taste; that costs little or nothing
in the attainment, and, when attained, is a source of gratification
through life. Every human being is bound, under ordinary circumstances,
to leave the world somewhat better, so far as his own acts or exertions
are concerned, than he found it, in the exercise of such faculties as
have been given him. Such duty, among thinking men, is conceded, so far
as the moral world is concerned; and why not in the artificial? So far
as the influence for good goes, in all practical use, from the building
of a temple, to the knocking together of a pig-stye--a labor of years,
or the work of a day--the exercise of a correct taste is important, in a
degree.
In the available physical features of a country, no land upon earth
exceeds North America. From scenery the most sublime, through the
several gradations of magnificence and grandeur, down to the simply
picturesque and beautiful, in all variety and shade; in compass vast, or
in area limited, we have an endless variety, and, with a pouring out of
God's harmonies in the creation, without a parallel, inviting every
intelligent mind to study their features and character, in adapting them
to his own uses, and, in so doing, to even embellish--if such a thing be
possible--such exquisite objects with his own most ingenious handiwork.
Indeed, it is a profanation to do otherwise; and when so to improve them
requires no extraordinary application of skill, or any extravagant
outlay in expense, not to plan and to build in conformity with good
taste, is an absolute barbarism, inexcusable in a land like ours, and
among a population claiming the intelligence we do, or making but a
share of the general progress which we exhibit.
It is the idea of some, that a house or building which the farmer or
planter occupies, should, in shape, style, and character, be like some
of the stored-up commodities of his farm or plantation. We cannot
subscribe to this suggestion. We know of no good reason why the walls of
a farm house should appear like a hay rick, or its roof like the
thatched covering to his wheat stacks, because such are the shapes best
adapted to preserve his crops, any more than the grocer's habitation
should be made to imitate a tea chest, or the shipping merchant's a rum
puncheon, or cotton bale. We have an idea that the farmer, or the
planter, according to his means and requirements, should be as well
housed and accommodated, and in as agreeable style, too, as any other
class of community; not in like character, in all things, to be sure,
but in his own proper way and manner. Nor do we know why a farm house
should assume a peculiarly primitive or uncultivated style of
architecture, from other sensible houses. That it be a _farm_ house, is
sufficiently apparent from its locality upon the farm itself; that its
interior arrangement be for the convenience of the in-door farm work,
and the proper accommodation of the farmer's family, should be quite as
apparent; but, that it should assume an uncouth or clownish aspect, is
as unnecessary as that the farmer himself should be a boor in his
manners, or a dolt in his intellect.
The farm, in its proper cultivation, is the foundation of all human
prosperity, and from it is derived the main wealth of the community.
From the farm chiefly springs that energetic class of men, who replace
the enervated and physically decaying multitude continually thrown off
in the waste-weir of our great commercial and manufacturing cities and
towns, whose population, without the infusion--and that continually--of
the strong, substantial, and vigorous life blood of the country, would
soon dwindle into insignificance and decrepitude. Why then should not
this first, primitive, health-enjoying and life-sustaining class of our
people be equally accommodated in all that gives to social and
substantial life, its due development? It is absurd to deny them by
others, or that they deny themselves, the least of such advantages, or
that any mark of _caste_ be attempted to separate them from any other
class or profession of equal wealth, means, or necessity. It is quite as
well to say that the farmer should worship on the Sabbath in a
_meeting-house_, built after the fashion of his barn, or that his
district school house should look like a stable, as that his dwelling
should not exhibit all that cheerfulness and respectability in form and
feature which belongs to the houses of any class of our population
whatever. Not that the farm house should be like the town or the village
house, in character, style, or architecture, but that it should, in its
own proper character, express all the comfort, repose, and quietude
which belong to the retired and thoughtful occupation of him who
inhabits it. Sheltered in its own secluded, yet independent domain, with
a cheerful, _intelligent_ exterior, it should exhibit all the
pains-taking in home embellishment and rural decoration that becomes its
position, and which would make it an object of attraction and regard.
* * * * *