Barn

In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.

[4] The word bere-ern, also spelled bern and bearn, is attested to at least sixty times in homilies and other Old English prose.

In the course of time, its construction method was adopted by normal farms and it gradually spread to simpler buildings and other rural areas.

The inventor and patentee of the Jennings Barn claimed his design used less lumber, less work, less time, and less cost to build and were durable and provided more room for hay storage.

[13] Mechanization on the farm, better transportation infrastructure, and new technology like a hay fork mounted on a track contributed to a need for larger, more open barns, sawmills using steam power could produce smaller pieces of lumber affordably, and machine cut nails were much less expensive than hand-made (wrought) nails.

These large wooden barns, especially when filled with hay, could make spectacular fires that were usually total losses for the farmers.

One possible reason for this is that ferric oxide, which is used to create red paint, was the cheapest and most readily available chemical for farmers in New England and nearby areas.

With the popularity of tractors following World War II many barns were taken down or replaced with modern Quonset huts made of plywood or galvanized steel.

Beef ranches and dairies began building smaller loftless barns often of Quonset huts or of steel walls on a treated wood frame (old telephone or power poles).

By the 1960s it was found that cattle receive sufficient shelter from trees or wind fences (usually wooden slabs 20% open).

In New England it is common to find barns attached to the main farmhouse (connected farm architecture), allowing for chores to be done while sheltering the worker from the weather.

In the middle of the twentieth century the large broad roof of barns were sometimes painted with slogans in the United States.

The enclosed pens used to shelter large animals are called stalls and may be located in the cellar or on the main level depending in the type of barn.

Clues determining their age and historical use can be found from old maps, sale documents, estate plans, and from a visual inspection of the building itself, noting (for example) reused timbers, former floors, partitions, doors and windows.

The arrangement of the buildings within the farmstead can also yield valuable information on the historical farm usage and landscape value.

Linear farmsteads were typical of small farms, where there was an advantage to having cattle and fodder within one building, due to the colder climate.

Old farm buildings may show the following signs of deterioration: rotting in timber-framed constructions due to damp, cracks in the masonry from movement of the walls, e.g. ground movement, roofing problems (e.g. outward thrust of it, deterioration of purlins and gable ends), foundation problems, penetration of tree roots; lime mortar being washed away due to inadequate weather-protection.