Barn
in agriculture, a building for the shelter of forage and farm animals. In England the term is restricted to a place of storage for hay, grain, flax, and other farm produce. The word itself is of Old English origin. It comes from bere + ern and means barley storage. The barn may be regarded as the index of farm prosperity. Sheds of straw and sod stables are well enough for a year or two, but a substantial barn is the ambition of every progressive farmer. Sightly, well kept barns go far to proclaim the prosperity of a community. There is an old saying to the effect that a small house and a large barn indicate thrift; a small barn and a large house are signs of a mortgage and that the farm will soon change hands.
Very likely the first American barns were log affairs. The Canadian and New England barns of the nineteenth century were formed of massive hewn timbers, and were inclosed with boards and roofed with hemlock shakes and shingles. A barn raising required the united strength of many men and was made the occasion of neighborhood jollifications. The growing scarcity of timber and the desire for greater ease in building led to the employment of skeleton frames of dimension stuff. These are known as balloon frames. The farther south the observer may go, the less severe the winters become, and the less substantial the barns are. In the southwest where hay cures on the stalk and cattle live unsheltered all winter, the early settlers felt still less need for substantial barns.
The typical American barn may be said to consist of a ground floor, used for the stabling of horses and cattle, and a loft for the storage of hay and other forage. A central aisle runs the length of the ground floor. Stalls are built along each side of this passage, so that the animals stand with their heads to the wall. A long manger is built in front of the animals, and each stall has a feed box. A huge loft door, often in the gable end, serves to admit hay, which is either pitched in by hand or is unloaded by a traveling hay fork. It would require volumes to describe the departure from this general type. Sheds, lean-tos, L's, half underground basements, etc., may be found in infinite variety.
The greatest advances have been made in barn sanitation. The dairy barn in particular has been provided with a concrete floor that may be flushed; iron partitions, or better, no partitions at all, catch no dust and harbor no insects; mangers are dispensed with in the interest of cleanliness; a flood of light is admitted in remembrance that the cow is by nature an out-door animal, and that germs are killed by sunlight; and ventilation is provided for the same reasons that compel the admission of fresh air to human habitations.
Horses fare better than their masters did in the ages of feudalism. Roomy box stalls with light and ventilation and straw bedding come as near the acme of horse comfort as is possible away from the turf which is the natural home of the horse. As a rule, the floor plan of the American barn is rectangular. In recent years a circular type has been developed.
The largest barn in Ohio (1909) is of this circular type. It is near Lake View. It has a diameter of 102 feet, is 90 feet high, and has a silo 40 feet high and 18 feet in diameter in the center. The basement is fitted up with stalls for horses. A great corncrib takes up part of the first floor, and 200 tons of hay can be stored in the mow. Grain is stored in apartments.
The largest barn in Kansas is also circular. It is part of the equipment of the Blue Valley breeding establishment of Fred R. Cottrell at Irving, Kansas. This barn is 100 feet in diameter, with a 10 foot stone basement. There are 30 windows and a 10 foot ventilator in the center, affording perfect light and ventilation. There is a 16 foot space around the outside divided into pens with swinging gates. There is a 9 foot feed alley with mangers on each side. On the inside is a row of stalls for cattle; the inner circle is used for work room and an engine. There is room in this basement for 300 head of cattle. The loft is 20 foot to plate, holds 500 tons of hay and all the farm machinery, and has plenty of bin room for grain. The whole structure is covered with the best galvanized iron. Material used in its construction was 75 cords of rock, 50 barrels of lime, 5 tons of cement, 90,000 feet of lumber, 2,500 pounds of nails, and 20,000 feet of iron. This barn cost about $5,000.