The Rural Voice, 2000-11, Page 22TELLING OUR STORY
Our remaining old barns are monuments
to Ontario's rural life and our agricultural history.
Story and photos by Larry Drew
The builder of this Wellington
County barn made use of local
stone to build a stone -walled
18 THE RURAL /a' -i=
Id barns are monuments to the
engineering genius of our
ancestors who understood
perfectly their intended form and
function. Then, as now, the deign of
barns evolved as the needs of
Ontario's farmers changed. A close
look at these old relics reveals much
about earlier farm life — from the
hard work endured, to their
practicality, frugality, and even art.
The earliest barns in Ontario were
single level structures mainly for
storing grain, to be threshed as it was
needed. The threshing was done on
the central barn floor with doors on
both sides open to allow the wind to
blow through and take away the
chaff. Little room was needed to
store the plough and the various hand
implements of the day. While the
barn may have included a bay for
stalls for the oxen or horses in winter,
what livestock the farmer had were
rarely housed.
The earliest barns, even as barn
size increased with the farmer's
needs, were often built of Togs — the
most plentiful and economical
building material available. When
my father described the Targe log
barn that long ago existed on our
farm, I had great difficulty imagining
it. But just such a barn stands at the
Farm Museum in Milton. Even more