Types of barns in the eastern United States.

Barns are the most imposing structures on the rural landscape. Most Americans have looked at barns from the highway, but few have ever actually set foot in one, and fewer still have any sense of their role in the rural economy. Barns are tools that reflect the needs of the farmers who built them, farmers who have needed places to store their crops and to shelter and feed their livestock. An appreciation of barns must be grounded on an understanding of their function, the purpose they were originally designed to serve. Many barns have become obsolete, because farming systems have c