Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 1 of 3 · from the scan, no model involved
No architects perpetuated this design, only anonymous men responding to tradition, the exigencies of nature, and the character of their work.
“Feeding, storage, shelter — the simplicity of function was matched by strict economy of means to produce the most beautiful vernacular architecture in what was once the New World. . .”
ONLY IS IT REALLY INEVITABLE that barns are “close to extinction already”? Perhaps near the editorial offices of Harper’s Magazine, but surely not in Rappahannock — where agriculture is still a viable activity and where the citizens have the same instinctive sense of rightness in their feeling toward barns in a rolling, rural landscape, as did the “anonymous men, responding to tradition,” who built them.
As a matter of fact, some of Rappahannock’s barns are so new — further evidence of the viability of our agricultural economy — that the builder’s are by no means “anonymous.”
So, while we share Harper’s appreciation of barns, we do not agree that they’re ready for an epitaph. □
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