Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — The Barn-Yard. [ARTICLE]

The Barn-Yard.

The barn-yard may be taken as the index cf the character of the farmer. As is the barn-yard, so is the farm and the farmer. It is well that all of us should remember that in this case it is no figure of speech to say that “ straws show which way the wind blows.” The arrangement of the barn-yard is not for shqw altogether. The profits of the farm depend to a great extent upon it. It is in the yard and the barns that the produce of the farm that is not sold outright is converted into beef, pork, mutton, wool, or milk and butter, articles that mpy be more profitably sold. It is in the yard also that the manure is made and kept. The barn and barn-yard are the manufactory of the farm, and if they are not arranged with a view to economy a large waste results that reduces the farmer’s profit. The majority of farmers in this country from necessity begin business with small means, and do the best they can with the materials they possess. The excellence of farm buildings does not consist so much in the materials of which they are built as in the use, made of those materials. Useful buildings may be made of logs or prairie sods or poles and coarse hay, and these, by skillful arrangement, may be made to serve as useful a purpose as dressed lumber and paint or pressed brick. The main points are warmth, dryness and ventilation ; for food is wasted when in animal shivers in its stable or when its health is" injured by damp, filth or bad air. A farmer who is thoughtful about such small things as this (although’*this is more important than it appears) may be taken to be a careful, thrifty man who, by and by, will be able to build a barn with all the modern improvements and to build it properly, too. The old proverb, “Take care of the small things and the large ones will take cane of themselves,” is applicable to matters about farms and barn-yards especially. When the small things are well watched large ones are not forgotten.— American Agriculturist.