There could be a reason why the Red Barn Trading Post is the last stop on Saturday's Second Annual Franklin County Farm, Foods & Crafts Tour. If it were first, people might never make it to the next eight attractions.

The Red Barn, in downtown Youngsville, is just that -- a barn. But it's a barn filled to the brim. With wrought iron, stained glass, tin ceiling panels, doors, mantels, old lumber, shutters, funky garden tools, old toys, magazines. It hangs from the rafters, it spills out into the yard.

"Very rarely do we say, 'Uh, looks like we don't have it,' " says Susie Foster, who runs the barn for owner Philip Paulsen.

It's the kind of eclectic operation common on Saturday's tour, which focuses on a rapidly evolving way of rural life. For the most part, the focus is on farm life, specifically, how the traditional tobacco and corn farms of old are being supplanted by a new breed of farmer with a new kind of crop.

"A lot of people are buying small farms and getting back to the way it used to be done," says Franklin County extension agent Charles Mitchell. "There's a market for it, for hormone-free meat, for antibiotic-free, for organic."

Quirky as the tour may sound, it's part of a rapidly growing trend.

"We refer to this as agricultural tourism," says Joe Newberry with the N.C. Arts Council. "We've noticed that folks want to see where food comes from."

What's the N.C. Arts Council doing dabbling in agriculture?

"It used to be there was a tie between the arts and the farm," Newberry explains. "At the end of a day building someone's barn, there'd be a dance or music at corn shuckings."

To capitalize on this tie, the Arts Council has teamed with the state Cooperative Extension service, HandMade in America (an artsy-craftsy nonprofit) and Golden LEAF (which stands for Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation, created in 1999 to disburse the tobacco settlement), to create HomegrownHandmade, a statewide alliance promoting arts and agriculture in the hopes of giving both a needed economic boost.

Although the effort is less than two years old, Newberry says, business at galleries and shops listed in its "Craft Heritage Trails" guidebook has increased 23 percent since publication.

"Cultural tourists are hungry for experiences," says Newberry. "They want the authentic. They want to see the real deal."

The Franklin County tour promises to have plenty of that.

You'll be able to stop at Melvin's Gardens in Kittrell and check out more than 100 varieties of herbs grown by Bobby and Linda Melvin in their greenhouses, then drive down the road to the Mae Farm in Louisburg and visit a free-range, hormone-free, antibiotic-free hog operation. (You can bet the latter is a far cry from the mammoth hog operations you occasionally catch a glimpse of -- and certainly a whiff of -- traveling in the eastern part of the state.)

At Freedom Farms, you'll find a herd of Dexter Cattle, the smallest breed of cattle in the world, as well as the N.C. Meat Goat Producers Cooperative. Shiitake mushrooms, organic garlic, strawberries (both fresh and in ice cream form), cut flowers and assorted arts and crafts are along the route as well.

And, at tour's end, you'll find the Red Barn. It's the kind of carrot you can use for recalcitrant children who, by stop six or seven, may be growing weary of organic string beans and pasture-raised pork. Tell them they can pick up an ancient croquet set, a classic Radio Flyer wagon or a two-runner sled like Gramps used. Intrigue them with the mystery of an ancient carom board game or with the promise of the whimsical birdhouses Paulsen builds with reclaimed materials. (That means boards, bricks, glass -- whatever -- salvaged by Paulsen from nearby buildings.)

It's an amalgamation that even Foster finds difficult to describe adequately.

"He just has unbelievable stuff."