It may be an objection in the minds of some persons to the various plans
here submitted, that we have connected the out-buildings _immediately_
with the offices of the dwelling itself. We are well aware that such is
not always usual; but many years observation have convinced us, that in
their use and occupation, such connection is altogether the most
convenient and economical. The only drawback is in the case of fire;
which, if it occur in any one building, the whole establishment is
liable to be consumed. This objection is conceded; but we take it, that
it is the business of every one not able to be his own insurer, to have
his buildings insured by others; and the additional cost of this
insurance is not a tithe of what the extra expense of time, labor, and
exposure is caused to the family by having the out-buildings
disconnected, and at a _fire-proof_ distance from each other. There has,
too, in the separation of these out-buildings, (we do not now speak of
barns, and houses for the stock, and the farmwork proper,) from the main
dwelling, crept into the construction of such dwellings, by modern
builders, _some_ things, which in a country establishment, particularly,
ought never to be there, such as privies, or _water-closets_, as they
are more _genteelly_ called. These last, in our estimation, have no
business _in_ a _farmer's_ house. They are an _effeminacy_, only, and
introduced by _city_ life. An _appendage_ they should be, but separated
to some distance from the living rooms, and accessible by sheltered
passages to them. The wood-house should adjoin the outer kitchen,
because the fuel should always be handy, and the outer kitchen, or
wash-room is a sort of _slop_-room, of necessity; and the night wood,
and that for the morning fires may be deposited in it for immediate use.
The workshop, and small tool-house naturally comes next to that, as
being chiefly used in stormy weather. Next to this last, would, more
conveniently, come the carriage or wagon-house, and of course a stable
for a horse or two for family use, always accessible at night, and
convenient at unseasonable hours for farm labor. In the same close
neighborhood, also, should be a small pigsty, to accommodate a pig or
two, to eat up the kitchen slops from the table, refuse vegetables,
parings, dishwater, &c., &c., which could not well be carried to the
main piggery of the farm, unless the old-fashioned filthy mode of
letting the hogs run in the road, and a trough set outside the door-yard
fence, as seen in some parts of the country, were adopted. A pig can
always be kept, and fatted in three or four months, from the wash of the
house, with a little grain, in any well-regulated farmer's family. A few
fowls may also be kept in a convenient hen-house, if desired, without
offence--all constituting a part of the _household_ economy of the
place.
These out-buildings too, give a comfortable, domestic look to the whole
concern. Each one shelters and protects the other, and gives an air of
comfort and repose to the whole--a family expression all round. What so
naked and chilling to the feelings, as to see a country dwelling-house
all perked up, by itself, standing, literally, out of doors, without any
dependencies about it? No, no. First should stand the house, the chief
structure, in the foreground; appendant to that, the kitchen wing; next
in grade, the wood-house; covering in, also, the minor offices of the
house. Then by way of setting up, partially on their own account, should
come the workshop, carriage-house, and stable, as practically having a
separate character, but still subordinate to the house and its
requirements; and these too, may have their piggery and hen-house, by
way of tapering off to the adjoining fence, which encloses a kitchen
garden, or family orchard. Thus, each structure is appropriate in its
way--and together, they form a combination grateful to the sight, as a
complete rural picture. All objections, on account of filth or vermin,
to this connection, may be removed by a cleanly keeping of the
premises--a removal of all offal immediately as it is made, and daily or
weekly taking it on to the manure heaps of the barns, or depositing it
at once on the grounds where it is required. In point of health, nothing
is more congenial to sound physical condition than the occasional smell
of a stable, or the breath of a cow, not within the immediate contiguity
to the occupied rooms of the dwelling. On the score of neatness,
therefore, as we have placed them, no bar can be raised to their
adoption.