Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings (Library of New England)

Rating:
Summary: Old Barn Owner
Review: Having just purchased an old barn, I found precious few resources to assist in gleaning a history. Visser's book was concise, informative, and a pleasure to read. It provides valuable insight to the development of agricultural styles, and valuable clues to dating the agrarian landscape. Excellent source.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent as a reference work or as a handy field guide.
Review: The following is an excerpt from a review in Vernacular Architecture Newsletter, Feb. 1999.

The outbuildings of rural dwellings have customarily received less attention than the dwellings themselves. The fields of architectural history and historic preservation have long focused on dwellings, for such reasons as their sheer abundance and the fact that they may have been repositories of the fanciest and trendiest architectural detail. But visitors to rural areas will often find that a farmstead's ensemble of outbuildings may overshadow the dwelling in size, number, or visual prominence. The outbuildings reflect past activities of people and animals, and connect the dwelling to the system of fields, fences, driveways, and other farmscape elements.

Thomas D. Visser, Associate Professor and Interim Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Vermont, recognizes that barns and other outbuildings are far more important than as mere picturesque elements of the rural landscape. From the massive barn to the lowly privy, "each has a story to tell." In his Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, Visser provides "clues for deciphering the many layers of history spread over the rural landscape... to help observers... realize the wonderful insights that can spring from an understanding of the evolution of our rural heritage."

Visser's book may be used two ways, as a reference book and as a handy, portable field guide. It stands alone as a good concise history of New England farm buildings with an understandable concentration on barns, the most necessary structure of a farmstead other than the dwelling. The specific fieldwork for this volume took two years and was concentrated in areas preselected for their relevance. The fieldwork not only made possible this excellent guide to identifying, understanding, and appreciating farm buildings, but recorded a dwindling cultural resource. Visser has for years encouraged the preservation of barns, building interest among their owners. This book, it is hoped, by increasing awareness of these often neglected structures, will advance the cause of their preservation.

The Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings will prove informative and entertaining to a wide audience, from agricultural historians to New England residents who haven't truly appreciated the value of farm buildings as cultural resources.