It has been said that the 'heart' of the farm is the barn. It was in the barn that a large portion of the work of the farm took place. In crop farms, the barn was the place where some of the crop's processing and storage took place. In dairy farms, the barn was the place where the livestock was housed.
Barns have served many purposes over the years. Those purposes depended somewhat on the type of farming involved. The shape and size of the barn was dictated by its purpose(s). Although European farmers would not think of using a barn to house livestock; in America that was, and has been, a primary purpose of the structure. The housing of livestock within the barn, rather than in smaller outbuildings was unique to American farms. Because of their use in housing livestock, the American barns needed to be much larger than their European counterparts. At one time, threshing of grain took place in the barn. Threshing required a large open floor, which the barn provided. In most Pennsylvania barns, the second or top level floor was devoted entirely to threshing. In fact, the word 'barn' is derived from the Old English bereaern, the combination of bere, meaning 'barley' and aern, meaning 'house.' The barley house was a building in which barley (i.e. grain) was threshed and housed.
Threshing, before the advent of powered threshing machines, involved striking the straw by hand with a flail. The flail consisted of a long wooden pole (the staff), to which was attached, by means of a short piece of leather on one end, another shorter wooden pole (the supple). The flail was described by the author Edwin Tunis as "simply a club, swiveled with leather at the end of a handle about six feet long." The flail was used by taking hold of the staff, and giving it a swing over the head, to bring the supple down onto the straw with a slap. This process of threshing, by continually striking the straw with the flail, was intended to cause the grain kernels to be knocked out of the heads of the straw.
Threshing was best done on a packed-earth floor. With a wood floor, there was the chance of some of the grain being lost between the flooring boards. There were three joints that provided somewhat tight-fitting boards in floors. Shiplap was a type of lumber in which a rabbet, or a step-shaped recess was cut along each edge of a board. This type of joint was used primarily in siding on ships, hence the name. The difficulty of planing the recess along each edge prohibited shiplap from being widely employed on two to three-inch thick boards used for barn flooring. Tongue-and-groove boards were not available until the 1880s. Tongue and groove provided a tight joint, but by the time T&G lumber became popular, the threshing floor was no longer necessary. Spline joints were employed in the wood flooring of better homes beginning in the 1700s. It was very expensive because it was time consuming to prepare and install. Thin grooves (one-quarter inch for a one-inch board) needed to be cut lengthwise down the center of each edge of the boards. Splines, or thin slats, each one-quarter inch thick and measuring three to four inches long, would be inserted in the groove of the first board's trailing edge and the next board would be attached by inserting the exposed edges of the splines into the groove on its leading edge. The boards would be driven together with a wooden mallet. The threshing floor was on the second floor or top level of the barn, and required as tight of a floor as possible in order to reduce the amount of grain lost by falling through floor cracks. The type of floor most often used, therefore, was the type in which the boards were splined together. It might also be noted that by connecting the boards together by splining, they did not need to be nailed to the floor joists. The entire floor (or at least the portion used for threshing) would be tightly connected but simply resting on the joists without being permanently attached.
A variation of the threshing process was that of treading. Treading was less laborious for the farmer, but was not as efficient. The straw was spread either on the threshing floor or on the ground outside, and in a circle. The farmer would then lead one of his oxen or a horse to walk over the straw, thereby pushing the grains out of the heads by their hooves.
Threshing was repeated a number of times, between which the straw would be turned using a hayfork. Hayforks were most often entirely wooden. They were sometimes crafted from a naturally multi-pronged branch or could be constructed by cutting slits in the one end of a pole and inserting wedges in the cracks to force the pieces to spread apart. When the threshing was considered finished, the spent straw was gathered up with the hayfork and placed in a crib to be used as bedding for the animals.
Remaining on the threshing floor was a mixture of grain and the chaff (i.e. the hulls and 'beards'). The grain, of course, now had to be separated from the chaff. The process by which this was accomplished was referred to as winnowing. A winnowing scoop was a large wooden, two-handled scoop constructed with a flat bottom shaped as a semi-circle, with raised sides on all but the straight one. The grain and chaff mixture could be scooped up in this tool and then carried away. It was sometimes carried or lifted up onto a loft under which a sheet was spread. With the doors on opposite sides of the barn opened, and a breeze flowing through, the winnower, holding the winnowing scoop in front of him, would pour the mixture down onto the sheet. The wind would catch the lighter chaff and blow it off to the side, while the heavier grain would land on the sheet. There was no way that anyone in the barn could avoid getting some of the chaff in their eyes, in their hair, or anywhere else on the bodies. A board would be placed upright on the floor in front of the down-wind barn door, fitted into slots in order to hold it tight. Some of the chaff would be carried out the door above the board, which would serve to block the escape of grain. The board, by holding the threshed grain inside, gave its name, threshold to the small board wedged between the jambs of the house's entrance door.
The mid-Eighteenth Century, saw the invention of a mechanical way to winnow the grain and chaff mixture: the windmill. The windmill was a wooden device consisting of a hopper positioned above a trough and just ahead of a multi-vaned, hand-turned fan. The grain / chaff mixture would be shoveled into the hopper. Simultaneously, a handle would be turned, rotating the fan, the vanes of which would force a draft of controlled air to flow through the mixture. The flow of air would separate the grain from the chaff by blowing the lighter chaff away. The good grain would drop into the trough. The Germans called the windmill the 'cleaning mill' while their English neighbors sometimes called it the 'Dutch fan' because the Swiss and Germans were more inclined to use it. [The author's Swiss great5-grandfather, Jacob Schmitt, owned a windmill when he died in 1797.]
The final step in the process was for the farmer to take the grain he had collected to the nearest grist mill to have it ground into flour.
The barn also provided space to store the loose straw left over from the threshing. The straw leftover from threshing (variously called 'hay') was placed in the hay mow to be fed to the livestock through the winter. The mow was a sectioned off part of the barn where hay and straw was stored. The word derives from the Old English muwa, meaning a 'heap.' The hay mow was also sometimes called the hay 'crib'. In the 1700s, the hay was simply piled in the mow loosely. By the 1860s, mechanical cutting devices were being invented and work was also being done to develop machines to compact and wrap the loose hay. In 1872, a reaper was introduced by Charles Withington that bundled and bound hay into bales. It was improved and put into commercial production by Cyrus McCormick. Farmers no longer had to suffer the back-breaking aches and pains of lifting pitchfork-full clumps of hay onto a constantly rising pile on the hay wagon. Now, with the hay gathered into neatly bound bales, the farmer suffered the back-breaking aches and pains of lifting bales of hay onto the hay wagon. In 1947, the Roto-Baler was produced by Allis-Chalmers. It produced round bales weighing up to one ton each. The round bales were handled by forklifts, alleviating the farmer of strenuous lifting.
The farmers who moved into the frontier region of Cumberland County that became Bedford County in 1771 were predominantly of Swiss and German descent. Their barns were based on European barns with simple gable roofs. They were constructed of stone where possible and were much larger than their European counterparts. The German barns were also distinguishable for being built into the slope of a hillside, earning them the name of 'bank barns.' Both floors of a bank barn could be easily entered since both were at 'ground' level. Livestock would be housed on the first or bottom floor, which was at ground level in the 'front.' Hay to be stored to feed the animals or grain to be threshed would be carried into the second or top floor, which was also at ground level in the 'back.' The barns favored by the Germans and Swiss settlers also tended to employ an architectural feature that is the signature of the so-called 'Pennsylvania' barn: a cantilevered second floor. Extending three or more feet out over the first floor, the cantilever provided shelter for livestock during inclement weather and kept corn dry while allowing air to circulate through exposed log walls.
Auxiliary to the barn was the silo and various out buildings such as corn cribs and pigpens. Most people, non-farmers, recognize the ubiquitous silo standing alongside the barn as an integral part of the farm. Few non-farmers, though, know for what purpose the silo is used.
In modern houses, the word cellar is the name given to the room underneath the main floor. It is usually where the heating furnace, water pump, and other utilities service equipment are located. It also functions as a storage space for miscellaneous stuff because so few houses have attics large enough for that purpose. The name 'cellar' comes from the Latin word cellarium referring to food storage. The addition of the word 'root' refers to the fact that it was primarily potatoes, turnips, yams and other 'root vegetables' that were stored there. Apples and pears were commonly stored in the root cellar also. The root cellar was located underneath the house because of the fact that during the summer it was cool, and during the winter the temperature did not go below freezing. Unlike modern houses, with cemented floors, cellars in early houses seldom were cemented. The bare earthen floors were very easily spaded up and the vegetables or fruit would be packed in among the loosened soil, waiting to be retrieved and enjoyed in the dead of winter.
Root cellars were not always located in the space underneath the house, but apart from it and often adjoining a well or spring house. Over time, the height of the outside cellar was increased in order to accommodate the storage of more and more produce, especially of corn and other grains. At first, the increase in height took the resemblance of a simple shed atop the cellar. The height of the shed increased but the function was retained, and the name was changed to silo. Some etymologies claim that the word 'silo' came from the Latin sirum, which in turn had been derived from the Greek siros, meaning 'a pit for storing grain.' The word is also believed to have come from the Spanish Basque zilo, meaning a 'dugout or cave in which grain was stored.' (The latter gives meaning to the use of the word, silo, to describe the underground tubes in which nuclear missiles are stored.)
There are two types of fodder, or food for horses and cattle: hay and silage. (Fodder of either type is variously known as 'forage.') Hay is fodder that is dried quickly after being cut. Silage, on the other hand, is what is known as green fodder. It is moist grain that is stored in an airtight environment in order to retain a high amount of moisture content that promotes fermentation.
Silage was probably discovered by accident when some cows began to eat wet hay and seemed to like it. Farmers in Germany were feeding their cows green fodder from the early 1800s. American farmers were using silage as feed for their cattle by the 1870s. The first recorded use of silage in America was by Francis Morris of Maryland. He apparently dug a trench, placed whole corn in it and then covered it with earth.
The silo found favor with farmers who needed a place to store silage. Hay would be baled and stored on the barn floor. And although dry grains, such as corn, could be stored in a silo equipped with an aeration system to reduce moisture content, they are more easily and capably stored in shorter, vented grain bins. Silage needed the moisture retaining conditions offered by the silo. Silage is loaded into the top of the silo, and it is extracted from the top due to the ever-increasing weight of the damp silage on itself.
While the barn is integral to the farm, some people might argue that the 'Heart' of the farm would actually be the kitchen. Perhaps more so in the past than at the present time, the kitchen was one of the few rooms in the farmer's house that was heated ~ a beneficial side-effect of being the room where the cook stove was located. The warmth of the kitchen ensured that the room would be the hub of the house. In addition to its inherent function as the place where the food was cooked and eaten, the kitchen functioned as the meeting center for family discussions and planning. On wash days, the kitchen became the laundry. It served as a dressing room on cold wintry mornings and even as a bathhouse on Saturday nights. Bearing a substantial table and chairs, the kitchen doubled as a workshop for the adults' construction projects and the children's art projects. When a child needed a haircut, the kitchen served as a makeshift barber shop. When an accident occurred on the farm, the kitchen served as a makeshift hospital emergency room. With its door and at least one window, the kitchen was probably the brightest room in the house.
In days past, the primary source of water inside of a house was a pump in the kitchen. Because of that, the kitchen was converted into the laundry room on a particular day of the week. The author remembers that Monday was wash or laundry day in the rural community in which he grew up. All of the housewives did their clothes washing on Monday. On dry days, at each farm, you would see sheets, towels, dresses, shirts, pants and even 'unmentionables' hanging on lines where both the sun and wind could reach them. A wringer washer on caster wheels would be pushed out of an adjacent pantry room and filled with water from the hand-pump in the sink. If hot or warm water was needed, the water would be pumped into large pots to be placed on the nearby stove for heating. A separate metal tub to hold cold water would be set on a chair or stool beside the washer, positioned carefully under the wringer attachment. After the dirty clothes had been agitated in soapy water in the washer (either at first by hand crank or later by electricity), they would be passed through the wringer, with the dirty water being squeezed back into the washer. Operating the wringer was often the job of one of the children and most of those children, at one time or another experienced the painful sensation of getting a finger tip caught in the wringer. The clothes would drop from the wringer into the tub of 'clean' water for a rinse, and then once more through the wringer to finish. The squeezed-together piece of clothing or bath linen would be placed in a basket waiting to be carried outside where those squeezed-together wet clumps would be shook open and hung on the clothesline. On rainy wash days and in the winter the clothesline would be hung inside the house, weaving its way back and forth near the ceiling of one or two rooms and in the hallways.
Although not specific to farm families, the idea that the kitchen became a bathhouse on Saturday evenings is illustrative of the kitchen's multiplicity of uses. It wasn't until "well into the nineteenth century" that regular bathing of the entire body became commonplace. Catharine Beecher (1800-1878), an educator from New England, noted in 1841 that "to wash the face, feet, hands and neck is the extent of the ablutions practiced by perhaps the majority of our people." Such limited washing was usually done by grownups in their (usually cold) bedchambers at a washstand which held a large basin or bowl, a pitcher to introduce clean water into that basin and a bucket to remove the slop. Children would be bathed in the kitchen because of its general warmth. A large tub would be placed on the floor and it would be filled with warm, but not scalding hot, water. The youngest child would be the first to use the tub, it probably being assumed that the younger the child, the less dirty he or she would be. The child's bath time lasted only so long as necessary because the next oldest child needed to get in while the water was still warm. And so it went until the oldest son or daughter had a turn. Sometimes for modesty and privacy sake, all of the girls would take their turns first and then the boys took theirs.
For centuries, it was common for bathing to occur no more than once a week. An old saying went that you took a bath once a week whether you needed it or not. Referring to the life of the average burgher during the thirteenth century, the author of Daily Life in Medieval Times stated that "Perhaps once a week a wooden tub for bathing is set up, and servants lug up buckets that have been heated over the kitchen fire." An article published in the Journal of American History pointed out that "Most Americans never even undressed completely, much less bathed the body at once." At about the same time as Mrs. Beecher noted above, William A. Alcott published his Young Man's Guide at Boston. In that guide, Mr. Alcott hinted that some members of both sexes "pass months, and even years, without washign [sic] the whole body once. . ." when he asked the reader if it were not shameful. In the fourth volume of the series, A History of Private Life, it was noted that the motivation to engage in regular grooming, which included bathing more often than one day a week, increased as the plumbing and equipment that supplied heated water to bathtubs and showers became more economical and available. As more home owners installed them in their homes, they were used more often. With the process becoming more convenient, people found that bathing could be enjoyable.
There is a saying that is believed to date from the time of the American Revolutionary War: "A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done." There is no doubt that men did indeed perform strenuous and back-breaking jobs, but at the end of their work-day (i.e. dawn to dusk) they could rest. Women, though, had tasks that required their attention beyond the hours lit by the sun.
Farmer wives started their day before the men in many cases, especially during the winter. The women were the ones who would get up early to stoke or revive the fire that had been reduced to a few embers overnight. They would make sure that water was boiled before the rest of the family arose: hot water for washing hands and faces. They would prepare breakfast, which might entail more than simply frying meat and eggs in the warm kitchen. Preparing breakfast might also involve heading out into the cold to milk a cow for that morning's breakfast milk. Afterward, the breakfast dishes needed to be washed, and then a number of daily chores needed to be done. Taking care of and feeding the farm fowl ~ chicken, ducks, geese ~ and the milk-bearing animals ~ goats and a family cow ~ was the farmer wife's duty. Whether she did them herself, or had a child to which she could delegate the work, there were many things around the house that had to get done. The farmer wife could delegate certain of her tasks to the children, but she still needed to supervise their progress.
Many of the tasks for which the farm wife was responsible were the same tasks for which they are responsible at the present time. House cleaning, tending to the needs of young children and infants and preparing meals have always, and probably will always fall to the women, with few exceptions. It is not meant to be a chauvinistic point of view; rather it is just a statement of fact. Women are better at, or rather, more conscientious toward certain things that keep a household functioning well. In days before modern conveniences, the farm wife's duties also included peeling apples for making applesauce, peeling potatoes, cutting off the ends of string beans, shelling walnuts and husking corn. Bread needed to be baked. Milk needed to be churned into butter. Many similar things needed to be done by the hands of the farm wife in the years before there was a grocery store just down the road. The kitchen was the domain of the farm wife for many decades.
