No building can be discussed intelligently apart from its surroundings. The best placing of the farmhouse depends on the location of the barns and other outbuildings. The relation of these buildings to one another and to such considerations as sunlight, view, roadways, and garden should be carefully studied. Obviously, a general farm scheme that unites into one workable system lands, barns, and dwelling is the wisest beginning for the development of any property. Each improvement will then take its place in the final scheme, and permanent economy will result. Owners of either old or new farmsteads will profit by adhering to a simple and direct working plan for the farm grounds. The farmhouse is merely one unit of the whole farmstead.

* The remainder of this chapter is taken from Cornell Reading-Course for the Farm Home, Bull. 39.

The practical value of a working plan can hardly be overestimated. The haphazard farm groups commonly seen bear eloquent testimony to the futility of developing property without plan. Failure to plan involves waste of money and labor; it means a continuous process of tearing down, reconstructing, and makeshift. Under all circumstances, hit-and-miss methods of work have proved unfailingly wasteful. Organized farming and organized housekeeping are the present tendency, and to this end an organized arrangement is necessary. A well-planned farmstead is more economical, more orderly, more beautiful, and more salable than one which, like Topsy, "just growed."