A few typographical errors have been corrected. They have been marked in the text with mouse-hover popups. Some inconsistencies of spelling are noted at the [end of the text].

RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

BEING A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION

OF

FARM HOUSES, COTTAGES,

AND

OUT BUILDINGS,

COMPRISING

WOOD HOUSES, WORKSHOPS, TOOL HOUSES, CARRIAGE AND WAGON HOUSES, STABLES, SMOKE AND ASH HOUSES, ICE HOUSES, APIARY OR BEE HOUSE, POULTRY HOUSES, RABBITRY, DOVECOTE, PIGGERY, BARNS AND SHEDS FOR CATTLE, &c., &c., &c.

TOGETHER WITH

LAWNS, PLEASURE GROUNDS AND PARKS; THE FLOWER, FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GARDEN. ALSO, USEFUL AND ORNAMENTAL DOMESTIC ANIMALS FOR THE COUNTRY RESIDENT, &c., &c., &c.

ALSO,

THE BEST METHOD OF

CONDUCTING WATER INTO CATTLE YARDS AND HOUSES.

BY LEWIS F. ALLEN.

BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED.

NEW YORK:

C. M. SAXTON,

AGRICULTURAL BOOK PUBLISHER.

1852.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852.
By Lewis F. Allen,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

Stereotyped by
JEWETT, THOMAS AND CO.
Buffalo, N.Y.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The writer of these pages ought, perhaps, to apologize for attempting a work on a subject, of which he is not a professional master, either in design or execution. In the science of Farm buildings he claims no better knowledge than a long practical observation has given him. The thoughts herein submitted for the consideration of those interested in the subject of Farm buildings are the result of that observation, added to his experience in the use of such buildings, and a conviction of the inconveniences attending many of those already planned and erected.

Nor is it intended, in the production of this work, to interfere with the labors of the professional builder. To such builder all who may be disposed to adopt any model or suggestion here presented, are referred, for the various details, in their specifications, and estimates, that may be required; presuming that the designs and descriptions of this work will be sufficient for the guidance of any master builder, in their erection and completion.

But for the solicitation of those who believe that the undersigned could offer some improvements in the construction of Farm buildings for the benefit of our landholders and practical farmers, these pages would probably never have appeared. They are offered in the hope that they may be useful in assisting to form the taste, and add to the comfort of those who are the main instruments in embellishing the face of our country in its most pleasing and agreeable features—the American Farmer.

LEWIS F. ALLEN.

Black Rock, N.Y. 1851.

Note.—For throwing the Designs embraced in these pages into their present artistic form, the writer is indebted to Messrs. Otis & Brown, architects, of Buffalo, to whose skill and experience he takes a pleasure in recommending such as may wish instruction in the plans, drawings, specifications, or estimates relating to either of the designs here submitted, or for others of any kind that may be adapted to their purposes.

L. F. A.

[CONTENTS.]

Headings in the Table of Contents are often different from the body text. All secondary indentations were added by the transcriber, representing text sections that have no distinct header. Line breaks were added when a single entry has two different links.

There is no separate list of illustrations.

Full-page plates have been placed before the discussion of each Design. The page number in the printed book is retained in the Table of Contents and some picture captions, and in marginal page numbers shown in parentheses. Floor plans of cottages and farm buildings have generally been moved to the Interior Arrangement sections; they were originally printed on the same page as the "Elevation".

[PREFATORY.]

This work owes its appearance to the absence of any cheap and popular book on the subject of Rural Architecture, exclusively intended for the farming or agricultural interest of the United States. Why it is, that nothing of the kind has been heretofore attempted for the chief benefit of so large and important a class of our community as our farmers comprise, is not easy to say, unless it be that they themselves have indicated but little wish for instruction in a branch of domestic economy which is, in reality, one of great importance, not only to their domestic enjoyment, but their pecuniary welfare. It is, too, perhaps, among the category of neglects, and in the lack of fidelity to their own interests which pervades the agricultural community of this country, beyond those of any other profession—for we insist that agriculture, in its true and extended sense, is as much a profession as any other pursuit whatever. To the reality of such neglects they have but of late awaked, and indeed are now far too slowly wheeling into line for more active progress in the knowledge pertaining to their own advancement. As an accessory to their labors in such advancement, the present work is intended.

It is an opinion far too prevalent among those engaged in the more active occupations of our people,—fortified indeed in such opinion, by the too frequent example of the farmer himself—that everything connected with agriculture and agricultural life is of a rustic and uncouth character; that it is a profession in which ignorance, as they understand the term, is entirely consistent, and one with which no aspirations of a high or an elevated character should, or at least need be connected. It is a reflection upon the integrity of the great agricultural interest of the country, that any such opinion should prevail; and discreditable to that interest, that its condition or example should for a moment justify, or even tolerate it.

Without going into any extended course of remark, we shall find ample reason for the indifference which has prevailed among our rural population, on the subject of their own domestic architecture, in the absence of familiar and practical works on the subject, by such as have given any considerable degree of thought to it; and, what little thought has been devoted to this branch of building, has been incidentally rather than directly thrown off by those professionally engaged in the finer architectural studies appertaining to luxury and taste, instead of the every-day wants of a strictly agricultural population, and, of consequence, understanding but imperfectly the wants and conveniences of the farm house in its connection with the every-day labors and necessities of farm life.

It is not intended, in these remarks, to depreciate the efforts of those who have attempted to instruct our farmers in this interesting branch of agricultural economy. We owe them a debt of gratitude for what they have accomplished in the introduction of their designs to our notice; and when it is remarked that they are insufficient for the purposes intended, it may be also taken as an admission of our own neglect, that we have so far disregarded the subject ourselves, as to force upon others the duty of essaying to instruct us in a work of which we ourselves should long ago have been the masters.

Why should a farmer, because he is a farmer, only occupy an uncouth, outlandish house, any more than a professional man, a merchant, or a mechanic? Is it because he himself is so uncouth and outlandish in his thoughts and manners, that he deserves no better? Is it because his occupation is degrading, his intellect ignorant, his position in life low, and his associations debasing? Surely not. Yet, in many of the plans and designs got up for his accommodation, in the books and publications of the day, all due convenience, to say nothing of the respectability or the elegance of domestic life, is as entirely disregarded as if such qualities had no connection with the farmer or his occupation. We hold, that although many of the practical operations of the farm may be rough, laborious, and untidy, yet they are not, and need not be inconsistent with the knowledge and practice of neatness, order, and even elegance and refinement within doors; and, that the due accommodation of the various things appertaining to farm stock, farm labor, and farm life, should have a tendency to elevate the social position, the associations, thoughts, and entire condition of the farmer. As the man himself—no matter what his occupation—be lodged and fed, so influenced, in a degree, will be his practice in the daily duties of his life. A squalid, miserable tenement, with which they who inhabit it are content, can lead to no elevation of character, no improvement in condition, either social or moral, of its occupants. But, the family comfortably and tidily, although humbly provided in their habitation and domestic arrangements, have usually a corresponding character in their personal relations. A log cabin, even,—and I speak of this primitive American structure with profound affection and regard, as the shelter from which we have achieved the most of our prodigious and rapid agricultural conquests,—may be so constructed as to speak an air of neatness, intelligence, and even refinement in those who inhabit it.

Admitting, then, without further argument, that well conditioned household accommodations are as important to the farmer, even to the indulgence of luxury itself, when it can be afforded, as for those who occupy other and more active pursuits, it is quite important that he be equally well instructed in the art of planning and arranging these accommodations, and in designing, also, the various other structures which are necessary to his wants in their fullest extent. As a question of economy, both in saving and accumulating, good and sufficient buildings are of the first consequence, in a pecuniary light, and when to this are added other considerations touching our social enjoyment, our advancement in temporal condition, our associations, our position and influence in life, and, not least, the decided item of national good taste which the introduction of good buildings throughout our extended agricultural country will give, we find abundant cause for effort in improvement.

It is not intended in our remarks to convey the impression that we Americans, as a people, are destitute of comfortable, and, in many cases, quite convenient household and farm arrangements. Numerous farmeries in every section of the United States, particularly in the older ones, demonstrate most fully, that where our farmers have taken the trouble to think on the subject, their ingenuity has been equal, in the items of convenient and economical arrangement of their dwellings and out-buildings, to their demands. But, we are forced to say, that such buildings have been executed, in most cases, with great neglect of architectural system, taste, or effect; and, in many instances, to the utter violation of all propriety in appearance, or character, as appertaining to the uses for which they are applied.

The character of the farm should be carried out so as to express itself in everything which it contains. All should bear a consistent relation with each other. The former himself is a plain man. His family are plain people, although none the less worthy, useful, or exalted, on that account. His structures, of every kind, should be plain, also, yet substantial, where substance is required. All these detract nothing from his respectability or his influence in the neighborhood, the town, the county, or the state. A farmer has quite as much business in the field, or about his ordinary occupations, with ragged garments, out at elbows, and a crownless hat, as he has to occupy a leaky, wind-broken, and dilapidated house. Neither is he any nearer the mark, with a ruffled shirt, a fancy dress, or gloved hands, when following his plough behind a pair of fancy horses, than in living in a finical, pretending house, such as we see stuck up in conspicuous places in many parts of the country. All these are out of place in each extreme, and the one is as absurd, so far as true propriety is concerned, as the other. A fitness of things, or a correspondence of one thing with another, should always be preserved upon the farm, as elsewhere; and there is not a single reason why propriety and good keeping should not as well distinguish it. Nor is there any good cause why the farmer himself should not be a man of taste, in the arrangement and architecture of every building on his place, as well as other men. It is only necessary that he devote a little time to study, in order to give his mind a right direction in all that appertains to this department. Or, if he prefer to employ the ingenuity of others to do his planning,—which, by the way, is, in most cases, the more natural and better course,—he certainly should possess sufficient judgment to see that such plans be correct and will answer his purposes.

The plans and directions submitted in this work are intended to be of the most practical kind; plain, substantial, and applicable, throughout, to the purposes intended, and such as are within the reach—each in their kind—of every farmer in our country. These plans are chiefly original; that is, they are not copied from any in the books, or from any structures with which the writer is familiar. Yet they will doubtless, on examination, be found in several cases to resemble buildings, both in outward appearance and interior arrangement, with which numerous readers may be acquainted. The object, in addition to our own designs, has been to apply practical hints, gathered from other structures in use, which have seemed appropriate for a work of the limited extent here offered, and that may serve to improve the taste of all such as, in building useful structures, desire to embellish their farms and estates in an agreeable style of home architecture, at once pleasant to the eye, and convenient in their arrangement.

[ INTRODUCTORY.]

The lover of country life who looks upon rural objects in the true spirit, and, for the first time surveys the cultivated portions of the United States, will be struck with the incongruous appearance and style of our farm houses and their contiguous buildings; and, although, on examination, he will find many, that in their interior accommodation, and perhaps relative arrangement to each other, are tolerably suited to the business and convenience of the husbandman, still, the feeling will prevail that there is an absence of method, congruity, and correct taste in the architectural structure of his buildings generally, by the American farmer.

We may, in truth, be said to have no architecture at all, as exhibited in our agricultural districts, so far as any correct system, or plan is concerned, as the better taste in building, which a few years past has introduced among us, has been chiefly confined to our cities and towns of rapid growth. Even in the comparatively few buildings in the modern style to be seen in our farming districts, from the various requirements of those buildings being partially unknown to the architect and builder, who had their planning—and upon whom, owing to their own inexperience in such matters, their employers have relied—a majority of such dwellings have turned out, if not absolute failures, certainly not what the necessities of the farmer has demanded. Consequently, save in the mere item of outward appearance—and that, not always—the farmer and cottager have gained nothing, owing to the absurdity in style or arrangement, and want of fitness to circumstances adopted for the occasion.

We have stated that our prevailing rural architecture is discordant in appearance; it may be added, that it is also uncouth, out of keeping with correct rules, and, ofttimes offensive to the eye of any lover of rural harmony. Why it is so, no matter, beyond the apology already given—that of an absence of cultivation, and thought upon the subject. It may be asked, of what consequence is it that the farmer or small property-holder should conform to given rules, or mode, in the style and arrangement of his dwelling, or out-buildings, so that they be reasonably convenient, and answer his purposes? For the same reason that he requires symmetry, excellence of form or style, in his horses, his cattle, or other farm stock, household furniture, or personal dress. It is an arrangement of artificial objects, in harmony with natural objects; a cultivation of the sympathies which every rational being should have, more or less, with true taste; that costs little or nothing in the attainment, and, when attained, is a source of gratification through life. Every human being is bound, under ordinary circumstances, to leave the world somewhat better, so far as his own acts or exertions are concerned, than he found it, in the exercise of such faculties as have been given him. Such duty, among thinking men, is conceded, so far as the moral world is concerned; and why not in the artificial? So far as the influence for good goes, in all practical use, from the building of a temple, to the knocking together of a pig-stye—a labor of years, or the work of a day—the exercise of a correct taste is important, in a degree.

In the available physical features of a country, no land upon earth exceeds North America. From scenery the most sublime, through the several gradations of magnificence and grandeur, down to the simply picturesque and beautiful, in all variety and shade; in compass vast, or in area limited, we have an endless variety, and, with a pouring out of God's harmonies in the creation, without a parallel, inviting every intelligent mind to study their features and character, in adapting them to his own uses, and, in so doing, to even embellish—if such a thing be possible—such exquisite objects with his own most ingenious handiwork. Indeed, it is a profanation to do otherwise; and when so to improve them requires no extraordinary application of skill, or any extravagant outlay in expense, not to plan and to build in conformity with good taste, is an absolute barbarism, inexcusable in a land like ours, and among a population claiming the intelligence we do, or making but a share of the general progress which we exhibit.

It is the idea of some, that a house or building which the farmer or planter occupies, should, in shape, style, and character, be like some of the stored-up commodities of his farm or plantation. We cannot subscribe to this suggestion. We know of no good reason why the walls of a farm house should appear like a hay rick, or its roof like the thatched covering to his wheat stacks, because such are the shapes best adapted to preserve his crops, any more than the grocer's habitation should be made to imitate a tea chest, or the shipping merchant's a rum puncheon, or cotton bale. We have an idea that the farmer, or the planter, according to his means and requirements, should be as well housed and accommodated, and in as agreeable style, too, as any other class of community; not in like character, in all things, to be sure, but in his own proper way and manner. Nor do we know why a farm house should assume a peculiarly primitive or uncultivated style of architecture, from other sensible houses. That it be a farm house, is sufficiently apparent from its locality upon the farm itself; that its interior arrangement be for the convenience of the in-door farm work, and the proper accommodation of the farmer's family, should be quite as apparent; but, that it should assume an uncouth or clownish aspect, is as unnecessary as that the farmer himself should be a boor in his manners, or a dolt in his intellect.

The farm, in its proper cultivation, is the foundation of all human prosperity, and from it is derived the main wealth of the community. From the farm chiefly springs that energetic class of men, who replace the enervated and physically decaying multitude continually thrown off in the waste-weir of our great commercial and manufacturing cities and towns, whose population, without the infusion—and that continually—of the strong, substantial, and vigorous life blood of the country, would soon dwindle into insignificance and decrepitude. Why then should not this first, primitive, health-enjoying and life-sustaining class of our people be equally accommodated in all that gives to social and substantial life, its due development? It is absurd to deny them by others, or that they deny themselves, the least of such advantages, or that any mark of caste be attempted to separate them from any other class or profession of equal wealth, means, or necessity. It is quite as well to say that the farmer should worship on the Sabbath in a meeting-house, built after the fashion of his barn, or that his district school house should look like a stable, as that his dwelling should not exhibit all that cheerfulness and respectability in form and feature which belongs to the houses of any class of our population whatever. Not that the farm house should be like the town or the village house, in character, style, or architecture, but that it should, in its own proper character, express all the comfort, repose, and quietude which belong to the retired and thoughtful occupation of him who inhabits it. Sheltered in its own secluded, yet independent domain, with a cheerful, intelligent exterior, it should exhibit all the pains-taking in home embellishment and rural decoration that becomes its position, and which would make it an object of attraction and regard.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

[ GENERAL SUGGESTIONS.]

In ascertaining what is desirable to the conveniences, or the necessities in our household arrangement, it may be not unprofitable to look about us, and consider somewhat, the existing condition of the structures too many of us now inhabit, and which, in the light of true fitness for the objects designed, are inconvenient, absurd, and out of all harmony of purpose; yet, under the guidance of a better skill, and a moderate outlay, might be well adapted, in most cases, to our convenience and comfort, and quite well, to a reasonable standard of taste in architectural appearance.

At the threshold—not of the house, but of this treatise—it may be well to remark that it is not here assumed that there has been neither skill, ingenuity, nor occasional good taste exhibited, for many generations back, in the United States, in the construction of farm and country houses. On the contrary, there are found in the older states many farm and country houses that are almost models, in their way, for convenience in the main purposes required of structures of their kind, and such as can hardly be altered for the better. Such, however, form the exception, not the rule; yet instead of standing as objects for imitation, they have been ruled out as antiquated, and unfit for modern builders to consult, who have in the introduction of some real improvements, also left out, or discarded much that is valuable, and, where true comfort is concerned, indispensable to perfect housekeeping. Alteration is not always improvement, and in the rage for innovation of all kinds, among much that is valuable, a great deal in house-building has been introduced that is absolutely pernicious. Take, for instance, some of our ancient-looking country houses of the last century, which, in America, we call old. See their ample dimensions; their heavy, massive walls; their low, comfortable ceilings; their high gables; sharp roofs; deep porches, and spreading eaves, and contrast them with the ambitious, tall, proportionless, and card-sided things of a modern date, and draw the comparison in true comfort, which the ancient mansion really affords, by the side of the other. Bating its huge chimneys, its wide fire-places, its heavy beams dropping below the ceiling overhead, and the lack of some modern conveniences, which, to be added, would give all that is desired, and every man possessed of a proper judgment will concede the superiority to the house of the last century.

That American house-building of the last fifty years is out of joint, requires no better proof than that the main improvements which have been applied to our rural architecture, are in the English style of farm and country houses of two or three centuries ago; so, in that particular, we acknowledge the better taste and judgment of our ancestors. True, modern luxury, and in some particulars, modern improvement has made obsolete, if not absurd, many things considered indispensable in a ruder age. The wide, rambling halls and rooms; the huge, deep fire-places in the chimneys; the proximity of out-buildings, and the contiguity of stables, ricks, and cattle-yards—all these are wisely contracted, dispensed with, or thrown off to a proper distance; but instead of such style being abandoned altogether, as has too often been done, the house itself might better have been partially reformed, and the interior arrangement adapted to modern convenience. Such changes have in some instances been made; and when so, how often does the old mansion, with outward features in good preservation, outspeak, in all the expression of home-bred comforts, the flashy, gimcrack neighbor, which in its plenitude of modern pretension looks so flauntingly down upon it!

We cannot, in the United States, consistently adopt the domestic architecture of any other country, throughout, to our use. We are different in our institutions, our habits, our agriculture, our climates. Utility is our chief object, and coupled with that, the indulgence of an agreeable taste may be permitted to every one who creates a home for himself, or founds one for his family. The frequent changes of estates incident to our laws, and the many inducements held out to our people to change their locality or residence, in the hope of bettering their condition, is a strong hindrance to the adoption of a universally correct system in the construction of our buildings; deadening, as the effect of such changes, that home feeling which should be a prominent trait of agricultural character. An attachment to locality is not a conspicuous trait of American character; and if there be a people on earth boasting a high civilization and intelligence, who are at the same time a roving race, the Americans are that people; and we acknowledge it a blemish in our domestic and social constitution.

Such remark is not dropped invidiously, but as a reason why we have thus far made so little progress in the arts of home embellishment, and in clustering about our habitations those innumerable attractions which win us to them sufficiently to repel the temptation so often presented to our enterprise, our ambition, or love of gain—and these not always successful—in seeking other and distant places of abode. If, then, this tendency to change—a want of attachment to any one spot—is a reason why we have been so indifferent to domestic architecture; and if the study and practice of a better system of building tends to cultivate a home feeling, why should it not be encouraged? Home attachment is a virtue. Therefore let that virtue be cherished. And if any one study tend to exalt our taste, and promote our enjoyment, let us cultivate that study to the highest extent within our reach.

[ STYLE OF BUILDING.—MISCELLANEOUS.]

Diversified as are the features of our country in climate, soil, surface, and position, no one style of rural architecture is properly adapted to the whole; and it is a gratifying incident to the indulgence in a variety of taste, that we possess the opportunity which we desire in its display to almost any extent in mode and effect. The Swiss châlet may hang in the mountain pass; the pointed Gothic may shoot up among the evergreens of the rugged hill-side; the Italian roof, with its overlooking campanile, may command the wooded slope or the open plain; or the quaint and shadowy style of the old English mansion, embosomed in its vines and shrubbery, may nestle in the quiet, shaded valley, all suited to their respective positions, and each in harmony with the natural features by which it is surrounded. Nor does the effect which such structures give to the landscape in an ornamental point of view, require that they be more imposing in character than the necessities of the occasion may demand. True economy demands a structure sufficiently spacious to accommodate its occupants in the best manner, so far as convenience and comfort are concerned in a dwelling; and its conformity to just rules in architecture need not be additionally expensive or troublesome. He who builds at all, if it be anything beyond a rude or temporary shelter, may as easily and cheaply build in accordance with correct rules of architecture, as against such rules; and it no more requires an extravagance in cost or a wasteful occupation of room to produce a given effect in a house suited to humble means, than in one of profuse accommodation. Magnificence, or the attempt at magnificence in building, is the great fault with Americans who aim to build out of the common line; and the consequence of such attempt is too often a failure, apparent, always, at a glance, and of course a perfect condemnation in itself of the judgment as well as taste of him who undertakes it.

Holding our tenures as we do, with no privilege of entail to our posterity, an eye to his own interest, or to that of his family who is to succeed to his estate, should admonish the builder of a house to the adoption of a plan which will, in case of the sale of the estate, involve no serious loss. He should build such a house as will be no detriment, in its expense, to the selling value of the land on which it stands, and always fitted for the spot it occupies. Hence, an imitation of the high, extended, castellated mansions of England, or the Continent, although in miniature, are altogether unsuited to the American farmer or planter, whose lands, instead of increasing in his family, are continually subject to division, or to sale in mass, on his own demise; and when the estate is encumbered with unnecessarily large and expensive buildings, they become an absolute drawback to its value in either event. An expensive house requires a corresponding expense to maintain it, otherwise its effect is lost, and many a worthy owner of a costly mansion has been driven to sell and abandon his estate altogether, from his unwillingness or inability to support "the establishment" which it entailed; when, if the dwelling were only such as the estate required and could reasonably maintain, a contented and happy home would have remained to himself and family. It behooves, therefore, the American builder to examine well his premises, to ascertain the actual requirements of his farm or plantation, in convenience and accommodation, and build only to such extent, and at such cost as shall not impoverish his means, nor cause him future disquietude.

Another difficulty with us is, that we oftener build to gratify the eyes of the public than our own, and fit up our dwellings to accommodate "company" or visitors, rather than our own families; and in the indulgence of this false notion, subject ourselves to perpetual inconvenience for the gratification of occasional hospitality or ostentation. This is all wrong. A house should be planned and constructed for the use of the household, with incidental accommodation for our immediate friends or guests—which can always be done without sacrifice to the comfort or convenience of the regular inmates. In this remark, a stinted and parsimonious spirit is not suggested. A liberal appropriation of rooms in every department; a spare chamber or two, or an additional room on the ground floor, looking to a possible increase of family, and the indulgence of an easy hospitality, should always govern the resident of the country in erecting his dwelling. The enjoyments of society and the intercourse of friends, sharing for the time, our own table and fireside, is a crowning pleasure of country life; and all this may be done without extraordinary expense, in a wise construction of the dwelling.

The farm house too, should comport in character and area with the extent and capacity of the farm itself, and the main design for which it is erected. To the farmer proper—he who lives from the income which the farm produces—it is important to know the extent of accommodation required for the economical management of his estate, and then to build in accordance with it, as well as to suit his own position in life, and the station which he and his family hold in society. The owner of a hundred acre farm, living upon the income he receives from it, will require less house room than he who tills equally well his farm of three, six, or ten hundred acres. Yet the numbers in their respective families, the relative position of each in society, or their taste for social intercourse may demand a larger or smaller household arrangement, regardless of the size of their estates; still, the dwellings on each should bear, in extent and expense, a consistent relation to the land itself, and the means of its owner. For instance: a farm of one hundred acres may safely and economically erect and maintain a house costing eight hundred to two thousand dollars, while one of five hundred to a thousand acres may range in an expenditure of twenty-five hundred to five thousand dollars in its dwelling, and all be consistent with a proper economy in farm management.

Let it be understood, that the above sums are named as simply comporting with a financial view of the subject, and such as the economical management of the estate may warrant. To one who has no regard to such consideration, this rule of expenditure will not apply. He may invest any amount he so chooses in building beyond, if he only be content to pocket the loss which he can never expect to be returned in an increased value to the property, over and above the price of cheaper buildings. On the other hand, he would do well to consider that a farm is frequently worth less to an ordinary purchaser, with an extravagant house upon it, than with an economical one, and in many cases will bring even less in market, in proportion as the dwelling is expensive. Fancy purchasers are few, and fastidious, while he who buys only for a home and an occupation, is governed solely by the profitable returns the estate will afford upon the capital invested.

There is again a grand error which many fall into in building, looking as they do only at the extent of wood and timber; or stone and mortar in the structure, and paying no attention to the surroundings, which in most cases contribute more to the effect of the establishment than the structure itself, and which, if uncultivated or neglected, any amount of expenditure in building will fail to give that completeness and perfection of character which every homestead should command. Thus the tawdry erections in imitation of a cast-off feudalism in Europe, or a copying of the massive piles of more recent date abroad, although in miniature, both in extent and cost, is the sheerest affectation, in which no sensible man should ever indulge. It is out of all keeping, or propriety with other things, as we in this country have them, and the indulgence of all such fancies is sooner or later regretted. Substance, convenience, purpose, harmony—all, perhaps, better summed up in the term EXPRESSION—these are the objects which should govern the construction of our dwellings and out-buildings, and in their observance we can hardly err in the acquisition of what will promote the highest enjoyment which a dwelling can bestow.

[ POSITION.]

The site of a dwelling should be an important study with every country builder; for on this depends much of its utility, and in addition to that, a large share of the enjoyment which its occupation will afford. Custom, in many parts of the United States, in the location of the farm buildings, gives advantages which are denied in others. In the south, and in the slave states generally, the planter builds, regardless of roads, on the most convenient site his plantation presents; the farmer of German descent, in Pennsylvania and some other states, does the same: while the Yankee, be he settled where he will, either in the east, north, or west, inexorably huddles himself immediately upon the highway, whether his possessions embrace both sides of it or not, disregarding the facilities of access to his fields, the convenience of tilling his crops, or the character of the ground which his buildings may occupy, seeming to have no other object than proximity to the road—as if his chief business was upon that, instead of its being simply a convenience to his occupation. To the last, but little choice is left; and so long as a close connection with the thoroughfare is to control, he is obliged to conform to accident in what should be a matter of deliberate choice and judgment. Still, there are right and wrong positions for a house, which it is necessary to discuss, regardless of conventional rules, and they should be considered in the light of propriety alone.

A fitness to the purposes for which the dwelling is constructed should, unquestionably, be the governing point in determining its position. The site should be dry, and slightly declining, if possible, on every side; but if the surface be level, or where water occasionally flows from contiguous grounds, or on a soil naturally damp, it should be thoroughly drained of all superfluous moisture. That is indispensable to the preservation of the house itself, and the health of its inmates. The house should so stand as to present an agreeable aspect from the main points at which it is seen, or the thoroughfares by which it is approached. It should be so arranged as to afford protection from wind and storm, to that part most usually occupied, as well as be easy of access to the out-buildings appended to it. It should have an unmistakable front, sides, and rear; and the uses to which its various parts are applied, should distinctly appear in its outward character. It should combine all the advantages of soil, cultivation, water, shade, and shelter, which the most liberal gratification, consistent with the circumstances of the owner, may demand. If a site on the estate command a prospect of singular beauty, other things equal, the dwelling should embrace it; if the luxury of a stream, or a sheet of water in repose, present itself, it should, if possible, be enjoyed; if the shade and protection of a grove be near, its benefits should be included; in fine, any object in itself desirable, and not embarrassing to the main purposes of the dwelling and its appendages, should be turned to the best account, and appropriated in such manner as to combine all that is desirable both in beauty and effect, as well as in utility, to make up a perfect whole in the family residence.

Attached to the building site should be considered the quality of the soil, as affording cultivation and growth to shrubbery and trees,—at once the ornament most effective to all domestic buildings, grateful to the eye always, as objects of admiration and beauty—delightful in the repose they offer in hours of lassitude or weariness; and to them, that indispensable feature in a perfect arrangement, the garden, both fruit and vegetable, should be added. Happily for the American, our soils are so universally adapted to the growth of vegetation in all its varieties, that hardly a farm of considerable size can be found which does not afford tolerable facilities for the exercise of all the taste which one may indulge in the cultivation of the garden as well as in the planting and growth of trees and shrubbery; and a due appropriation of these to an agreeable residence is equal in importance to the style and arrangement of the house itself.

The site selected for the dwelling, and the character of the scenery and objects immediately surrounding it, should have a controlling influence upon the style in which the house is to be constructed. A fitness and harmony in all these is indispensable to both expression and effect. And in their determination, a single object should not control, but the entire picture, as completed, should be embraced in the view; and that style of building constituting the most agreeable whole, as filling the eye with the most grateful sensations, should be the one selected with which to fill up and complete the design.

[ HOME EMBELLISHMENTS.]

A discussion of the objects by way of embellishment, which may be required to give character and effect to a country residence, would embrace a range too wide, in all its parts, for a simply practical treatise like this; and general hints on the subject are all indeed, that will be required, as no specific rules or directions can be given which would be applicable, indiscriminately, to guide the builder in the execution of his work. A dwelling house, no matter what the style, standing alone, either on hill or plain, apart from other objects, would hardly be an attractive sight. As a mere representation of a particular style of architecture, or as a model of imitation, it might excite our admiration, but it would not be an object on which the eye and the imagination could repose with satisfaction. It would be incomplete unless accompanied by such associates as the eye is accustomed to embrace in the full gratification of the sensations to which that organ is the conductor. But assemble around that dwelling subordinate structures, trees, and shrubbery properly disposed, and it becomes an object of exceeding interest and pleasure in the contemplation. It is therefore, that the particular style or outward arrangement of the house is but a part of what should constitute the general effect, and such style is to be consulted only so far as it may in itself please the taste, and give benefit or utility in the purposes for which it is intended. Still, the architectural design should be in harmony with the features of the surrounding scenery, and is thus important in completing the effect sought, and which cannot be accomplished without it.

A farm with its buildings, or a simple country residence with the grounds which enclose it, or a cottage with its door-yard and garden, should be finished sections of the landscape of which it forms a part, or attractive points within it; and of consequence, complete each within itself, and not dependent upon distant accessories to support it—an imperium in imperio, in classic phrase. A tower, a monument, a steeple, or the indistinct outline of a distant town may form a striking feature in a pictorial design and the associations connected with them, or, the character in which they are contemplated may allow them to stand naked and unadorned by other objects, and still permit them to fill up in perfect harmony the picture. This idea will illustrate the importance of embellishment, not only in the substitution of trees as necessary appendages to a complete rural establishment, but in the erection of all the buildings necessary for occupation in any manner, in form and position, to give effect from any point of view in which the homestead may be seen. General appearance should not be confined to one quarter alone, but the house and its surroundings on every side should show completeness in design and harmony in execution; and although humble, and devoted to the meanest purposes, a portion of these erections may be, yet the character of utility or necessity which they maintain, gives them an air of dignity, if not of grace. Thus, a house and out-buildings flanked with orchards, or a wood, on which they apparently fall back for support, fills the eye at once with not only a beautiful group, in themselves combined, but associate the idea of repose, of comfort, and abundance—indispensable requisites to a perfect farm residence. They also seem to connect the house and out-buildings with the fields beyond, which are of necessity naked of trees, and gradually spread the view abroad over the farm until it mingles with, or is lost in the general landscape.

These remarks may seem too refined, and as out of place here, and trenching upon the subject of Landscape Gardening, which is not designed to be a part, or but an incidental one of the present work, yet they are important in connection with the subject under discussion. The proper disposition of trees and shrubbery around, or in the vicinity of buildings is far too little understood, although tree planting about our dwellings is a practice pretty general throughout our country. Nothing is more common than to see a man build a house, perhaps in most elaborate and expensive style, and then plant a row of trees close upon the front, which when grown will shut it almost entirely out of view; while he leaves the rear as bald and unprotected as if it were a barn or a horse-shed—as if in utter ignorance, as he probably is, that his house is more effectively set off by a flanking and background of tree and shrubbery, than in front. And this is called good taste! Let us examine it. Trees near a dwelling are desirable for shade; shelter they do not afford except in masses, which last is always better given to the house itself by a veranda. Immediately adjoining, or within touching distance of a house, trees create dampness, more or less litter, and frequently vermin. They injure the walls and roofs by their continual shade and dampness. They exclude the rays of the sun, and prevent a free circulation of air. Therefore, close to the house, trees are absolutely pernicious, to say nothing of excluding all its architectural effect from observation; when, if planted at proper distances, they compose its finest ornaments.

If it be necessary to build in good taste at all, it is quite as necessary that such good taste be kept in view throughout. A country dwelling should always be a conspicuous object in its full character and outline, from one or more prominent points of observation; consequently all plantations of tree or shrubbery in its immediate vicinity should be considered as aids to show off the house and its appendages, instead of becoming the principal objects of attraction in themselves. Their disposition should be such as to create a perfect and agreeable whole, when seen in connection with the house itself. They should also be so placed as to open the surrounding landscape to view in its most attractive features, from the various parts of the dwelling. Much in the effective disposition of trees around the dwelling will thus depend upon the character of the country seen from it, and which should control to a great extent their position. A single tree, of grand and stately dimensions, will frequently give greater effect than the most studied plantations. A ledge of rock, in the clefts of which wild vines may nestle, or around which a mass of shrubbery may cluster, will add a charm to the dwelling which an elaborate cultivation would fail to bestow; and the most negligent apparel of nature in a thousand ways may give a character which we might strive in vain to accomplish by our own invention. In the efforts to embellish our dwellings or grounds, the strong natural objects with which they are associated should be consulted, always keeping in view an expression of the chief character to which the whole is applied.

[ MATERIAL FOR FARM BUILDINGS.]

In a country like ours, containing within its soils and upon its surface such an abundance and variety of building material, the composition of our farm erections must depend in most cases upon the ability or the choice of the builder himself.

Stone is the most durable, in the long run the cheapest, and as a consequence, the best material which can be furnished for the walls of a dwelling. With other farm buildings circumstances may govern differently; still, in many sections of the United States, even stone cannot be obtained, except at an expense and inconvenience altogether forbidding its use. Yet it is a happy relief that where stone is difficult, or not at all to be obtained, the best of clay for bricks, is abundant; and in almost all parts of our country, even where building timber is scarce, its transportation is so comparatively light, and the facilities of removing it are so cheap, that wood is accessible to every one. Hence we may indulge in almost every fitting style of architecture and arrangement, to which either kind of these materials are best adapted. We shall slightly discuss them as applicable to our purposes.

Stone is found either on the surface, or in quarries under ground. On the surface they lie chiefly as bowlders of less or greater size, usually of hard and durable kinds. Large bowlders may be either blasted, or split with wedges into sufficiently available shapes to lay in walls with mortar; or if small, they may with a little extra labor, be fitted by the aid of good mortar into equally substantial wall as the larger masses. In quarries they are thrown out, either by blasting or splitting in layers, so as to form regular courses when laid up; and all their varieties may, unhammered, except to strike off projecting points or angles, be laid up with a sufficiently smooth face to give fine effect to a building. Thus, when easily obtained, aside from the greater advantages of their durability, stone is as cheap in the first instance as lumber, excepting in new districts of country where good building lumber is the chief article of production, and cheaper than brick in any event. Stone requires no paint. Its color is a natural, therefore an agreeable one, be it usually what it may, although some shades are more grateful to the eye than others; yet it is always in harmony with natural objects, and particularly so on the farm where everything ought to wear the most substantial appearance. The outer walls of a stone house should always be firred off inside for lathing and plastering, to keep them thoroughly dry. Without that, the rooms are liable to dampness, which would penetrate through the stone into the inside plastering unless cut off by an open space of air between.

Bricks, where stone is not found, supply its place tolerably well. When made of good clay, rightly tempered with sand, and well burned, they will in a wall remain for centuries, and as far as material is concerned, answer all purposes. Brick walls may be thinner than stone walls, but they equally require "firring off" for inside plastering, and in addition, they need the aid of paint quite as often as wood, to give them an agreeable color—bricks themselves not usually being in the category of desirable colors or shades.

Wood, when abundant and easily obtained, is worked with the greatest facility, and on many accounts, is the cheapest material, for the time, of which a building can be constructed. But it is perishable. It requires every few years a coat of paint, and is always associated with the idea of decay. Yet wood may be moulded into an infinite variety of form to please the eye, in the indulgence of any peculiar taste or fancy.

We cannot, in the consideration of material for house-building therefore, urge upon the farmer the adoption of either of the above named materials to the preference of another, in any particular structure he may require; but leave him to consult his own circumstances in regard to them, as best he may. But this we will say: If it be possible, never lay a cellar or underground wall of perishable material, such as wood or soft bricks; nor build with soft or unburnt bricks in a wall exposed to the weather anywhere; nor with stone which is liable to crumble or disintegrate by the action of frost or water upon it. We are aware that unburnt bricks have been strongly recommended for house-building in America; but from observation, we are fully persuaded that they are worthless for any permanent structure, and if used, will in the end prove a dead loss in their application. Cottages, out-buildings, and other cheap erections on the farm, for the accommodation of laborers, stock, or crops, may be made of wood, where wood is the cheapest and most easily obtained; and, even taking its perishable nature into account, it may be the most economical. In their construction, it may be simply a matter of calculation with him who needs them, to calculate the first cost of any material he has at hand, or may obtain, and to that add the interest upon it, the annual wear and tear, the insurance, and the period it may last, to determine this matter to his entire satisfaction—always provided he have the means at hand to do either. But other considerations generally control the American farmer. His pocket is apt more often to be pinched, than his choice is to be at fault; and this weighty argument compels him into the "make shift" system, which perhaps in its results, provided the main chance be attained, is quite as advantageous to his interests as the other.

As a general remark, all buildings should show for themselves, what they are built of. Let stone be stone; bricks show on their own account; and of all things, put no counterfeit by way of plaster, stucco, or other false pretence other than paint, or a durable wash upon wood: it is a miserable affectation always, and of no possible use whatever. All counterfeit of any kind as little becomes the buildings of the farmer, as the gilded pinchbeck watch would fit the finished attire of a gentleman.

Before submitting the several designs proposed for this work, it may be remarked, that in addressing them to a climate strictly American, we have in every instance adopted the wide, steeply-pitched roof, with broad eaves, gables and cornices, as giving protection, shade, and shelter to the walls; thus keeping them dry and in good preservation, and giving that well housed, and comfortable expression, so different from the stiff, pinched, and tucked-up look in which so many of the haberdasher-built houses of the present day exult.

We give some examples of the hipped roof, because they are convenient and cheap in their construction; and we also throw into the designs a lateral direction to the roofs of the wings, or connecting parts of the building. This is sometimes done for effect in architectural appearance, and sometimes for the economy and advantage of the building itself. Where roofs thus intersect or connect with a side wall, the connecting gutters should be made of copper, zinc, lead, galvanized iron, or tin, into which the shingles, if they be covered with that material, should be laid so as to effectually prevent leakage. The eave gutters should be of copper, zinc, lead, galvanized iron or tin, also, and placed at least one foot back from the edge of the roof, and lead the water into conductors down the wall into the cistern or elsewhere, as may be required. If the water be not needed, and the roof be wide over the walls, there is no objection to let it pass off naturally, if it be no inconvenience to the ground below, and can run off, or be absorbed into the ground without detriment to the cellar walls. All this must be subject to the judgment of the proprietor himself.

[ OUTSIDE COLOR.]

We are not among those who cast off, and on a sudden condemn, as out of all good taste, the time-honored white house with its green blinds, often so tastefully gleaming out from beneath the shade of summer trees; nor do we doggedly adhere to it, except when in keeping, by contrast or otherwise, with everything around it. For a century past white has been the chief color of our wooden houses, and often so of brick ones, in the United States. This color has been supposed to be strong and durable, being composed chiefly of white lead; and as it reflected the rays of the sun instead of absorbing them, as some of the darker colors do, it was thus considered a better preserver of the weather-boarding from the cracks which the fervid heat of the sun is apt to make upon it, than the darker colors. White, consequently, has always been considered, until within a few years past, as a fitting and tasteful color for dwellings, both in town and country. A new school of taste in colors has risen, however, within a few years past, among us; about the same time, too, that the recent gingerbread and beadwork style of country building was introduced. And these were both, as all new things are apt to be, carried to extremes. Instead of toning down the glare of the white into some quiet, neutral shade, as a straw color; a drab of different hues—always an agreeable and appropriate color for a dwelling, particularly when the door and window casings are dressed with a deeper or lighter shade, as those shades predominate in the main body of the house; or a natural and soft wood color, which also may be of various shades; or even the warm russet hue of some of our rich stones—quite appropriate, too, as applied to wood, or bricks—the fashion must be followed without either rhyme or reason, and hundreds of our otherwise pretty and imposing country houses have been daubed over with the dirtiest, gloomiest pigment imaginable, making every habitation which it touched look more like a funeral appendage than a cheerful, life-enjoying home. We candidly say that we have no sort of affection for such sooty daubs. The fashion which dictates them is a barbarous, false, and arbitrary fashion; void of all natural taste in its inception; and to one who has a cheerful, life-loving spirit about him, such colors have no more fitness on his dwelling or out-buildings, than a tomb would have in his lawn or dooryard.

Locality, amplitude of the buildings, the purpose to which they are applied—every consideration connected with them, in fact, should be consulted, as to color. Stone will give its own color; which, by the way, some prodigiously smart folks paint—quite as decorous or essential, as to "paint the lily." Brick sometimes must be painted, but it should be of a color in keeping with its character,—of substance and dignity; not a counterfeit of stone, or to cheat him who looks upon it into a belief that it may be marble, or other unfounded pretension. A warm russet is most appropriate for brick-work of any kind of color—the color of a russet apple, or undressed leather—shades that comport with Milton's beautiful idea of

"Russet lawns and fallows gray."

Red and yellow are both too glaring, and slate, or lead colors too somber and cold. It is, in fact, a strong argument in favor of bricks in building, where they can be had as cheap as stone or wood, that any color can be given to them which the good taste of the builder may require, in addition to their durability, which, when made of good material, and properly burned, is quite equal to stone. In a wooden structure one may play with his fancy in the way of color, minding in the operation, that he does not play the mountebank, and like the clown in the circus, make his tattooed tenement the derision of men of correct taste, as the other does his burlesque visage the ridicule of his auditors.

A wooden country house, together with its out-buildings, should always be of a cheerful and softly-toned color—a color giving a feeling of warmth and comfort; nothing glaring or flashy about it. And yet, such buildings should not, in their color, any more than in their architecture, appear as if imitating either stone or brick. Wood, of itself, is light. One cannot build a heavy house of wood, as compared with brick or stone. Therefore all imitation or device which may lead to a belief that it may be other than what it really is, is nothing less than a fraud—not criminal, we admit, but none the less a fraud upon good taste and architectural truth.

It is true that in this country we cannot afford to place in stone and brick buildings those ornate trimmings and appendages which, perhaps, if economy were not to be consulted, might be more durably constructed of stone, but at an expense too great to be borne by those of moderate means. Yet it is not essential that such appendages should be of so expensive material. The very purposes to which they are applied, as a parapet, a railing, a balustrade, a portico, piazza, or porch; all these may be of wood, even when the material of the house proper is of the most durable kind; and by being painted in keeping with the building itself, produce a fine effect, and do no violence to good taste or the most fastidious propriety. They may be even sanded to a color, and grained, stained, or otherwise brought to an identity, almost, with the material of the house, and be quite proper, because they simply are appendages of convenience, necessity, or luxury, to the building itself, and may be taken away without injuring or without defacing the main structure. They are not a material part of the building itself, but reared for purposes which may be dispensed with. It is a matter of taste or preference, that they were either built there, or that they remain permanently afterward, and of consequence, proper that they be of wood. Yet they should not imitate stone or brick. They should still show that they are of wood, but in color and outside preservation denote that they are appendages to a stone or brick house, by complying with the proper shades in color which predominate in the building itself, and become their own subordinate character.

Not being a professional painter, or compounder of colors, we shall offer no receipts or specifics for painting or washing buildings. Climate affects the composition of both paints and washes, and those who are competent in this line, are the proper persons to dictate their various compositions; and we do but common justice to the skill and intelligence of our numerous mechanics, when we recommend to those who contemplate building, to apply forthwith to such as are masters of their trade for all the information they require on the various subjects connected with it. One who sets out to be his own architect, builder, and painter, is akin to the lawyer in the proverb, who has a fool for his client, when pleading his own case, and quite as apt to have quack in them all. Hints, general outlines, and oftentimes matters of detail in interior convenience, and many other minor affairs may be given by the proprietor, when he is neither a professional architect, mechanic, or even an amateur; but in all things affecting the substantial and important parts of his buildings, he should consult those who are proficient and experienced in the department on which he consults them. And it may perhaps be added that none professing to be such, are competent, unless well instructed, and whose labors have met the approbation of those competent to judge.

There is one kind of color, prevailing to a great extent in many parts of our country, particularly the northern and eastern, which, in its effect upon any one having an eye to a fitness of things in country buildings, is a monstrous perversion of good taste. That is the glaring red, made up of Venetian red, ochre, or Spanish brown, with doors and windows touched off with white. The only apology we have ever heard given for such a barbarism was, that it is a good, strong, and lasting color. We shall not go into an examination as to that fact, but simply answer, that if it be so, there are other colors, not more expensive, which are equally strong and durable, and infinitely more tasteful and fitting. There can be nothing less comporting with the simplicity of rural scenery, than a glaring red color on a building. It connects with nothing natural about it; it neither fades into any surrounding shade of soil or vegetation, and must of necessity, stand out in its own bold and unshrouded impudence, a perfect Ishmaelite in color, and a perversion of every thing harmonious in the design. We eschew red, therefore, from every thing in rural architecture.

[ A SHORT CHAPTER ON TASTE.]

The compound words, or terms good-taste and bad-taste have been used in the preceding pages without, perhaps, sufficiently explaining what is meant by the word taste, other than as giving vague and unsatisfactory terms to the reader in measuring the subject in hand. Taste is a term universally applied in criticism of the fine-arts, such as painting, sculpture, architecture, &c., &c., of which there are many schools—of taste, we mean—some of them, perhaps natural, but chiefly conventional, and all more or less arbitrary. The proverb, "there is no accounting for taste," is as old as the aforesaid schools themselves, and defines perfectly our own estimate of the common usage of the term.

As we have intended to use it, Webster defines the word taste to be "the faculty of discerning beauty, order, congruity, proportion, symmetry, or whatever constitutes excellence; style; manner with respect to what is pleasing." With this understanding, therefore; a fitness to the purpose for which a thing is intended—got up in a manner agreeable to the eye and the mind—preserving also a harmony between its various parts and uses; pleasing to the eye, as addressed to the sense, and satisfactory to the mind, as appropriate to the object for which it is required;—these constitute good-taste, as the term is here understood.

The term style, also, is "the manner or form of a thing." When we say, "that is a stylish house," it should mean that it is in, or approaches some particular style of building recognized by the schools. It may or may not be in accordance with good taste, and is, consequently, subject to the same capricious test in its government. Yet styles are subject to arrangement, and are classified in the several schools of architecture, either as distinct specimens of acknowledged orders, as the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, in Grecian architecture, or, the Tuscan and Composite, which are, more distinctly, styles of Roman architecture. To these may be added the Egyptian, the most massive of all; and either of them, in their proper character, grand and imposing when applied to public buildings or extensive structures, but altogether inapplicable, from their want of lightness and convenience, to country or even city dwellings. Other styles—not exactly orders—of architecture, such as the Italian, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Swiss, with their modifications—all of which admit of a variety of departures from fixed rules, not allowed in the more rigid orders—may be adapted in a variety of ways, to the most agreeable and harmonious arrangement in architectural effect, for dwellings and structures appurtenant to them.

The Italian style of architecture, modified somewhat in pretension and extent, is admirably adapted to most parts of the United States. Its general lightness, openness, and freedom gives a wide range of choice; and its wings, verandas, and terraces, stretching off in any and almost every direction desired, from the main building, make it exceedingly appropriate for general use. The modern, or rural Gothic, branching off sometimes into what is termed the English cottage style, and in many instances blending so intimately with the Italian, as hardly to mark the line of division, is also a beautiful arrangement of building for country dwellings. These, in ruder structures, may also be carried into the Rustic—not a style proper, in itself—but so termed as approximating in execution or pretension to either of the above; while the Swiss, with its hanging roofs, and sheltering eaves may be frequently brought in aid to show out the rustic form in more completeness, and in greater harmony with surrounding objects, than either of the others.

For farm houses, either of these arrangements or departures from a set and positive style, are better fitted than any which we have noticed; and in some one or other of the modifications named, we have applied them in the examples submitted in this work. They may not therefore be viewed as distinct delineations of an order of architecture, or style proper, even; but as a mode appropriate to the object required. And so long as they do not absolutely conflict with true taste, or in their construction commit a barbarism upon any acknowledged system of architecture, in any of its modifications, we hazard no impropriety in introducing them for the imitation of country builders. Congruity with the objects to which it is applied should be the chief merit of any structure whatever; and so long as that object be attained, good taste is not violated, and utility is fully subserved.

Intimately connected with this subject, in rural buildings, is the shape of the structure. Many of the designs recently introduced for the imitation of builders, are full of angles and all sorts of zig-zag lines, which, although they may add to the variety of style, or relieve the monotony of straight and continuous lines, are carried to a needless excess, expensive in their construction, and entail infinite trouble upon the owner or occupant, in the repairs they subject him to, in the leakages continually occurring, against which last, either of wind or rain, it is almost impossible to guard. And what, let us ask, are the benefits of a parcel of needless gables and peaked windows, running up like owl's ears, above the eaves of a house, except to create expense, and invite leakage and decay? If in appearance, they provoke an association of that kind, they certainly are not in good taste; and a foot or two of increased height in a wall, or a low window sufficient for the purpose intended, would give a tone of dignity, of comfort, and real utility, which a whole covey of such pretentious things could not. All such trumpery should be scouted from the dwelling house of the farmer, and left to the special indulgence of the town builder.

A square form of house will afford more area within a given line of wall than any other sensible form which may be adopted. Yet a square house is not so agreeable to the eye as an oblong. Thus, a house should stand somewhat broader on one front than on another. It should also be relieved from an appearance of monotony and tameness, by one or more wings; and such wings should, at their junction with the main building, retreat or advance a sufficient distance from a continuous line, as to relieve it effectually from an appearance of stiffness, and show a different character of occupation from that of the main structure. The front of a house should be the most imposing and finished in its architecture of any one of its parts; and unless some motive of greater convenience control otherwise, its entrance the most highly wrought, as indicating the luxury of the establishment—for even the humblest habitations have their luxuries. The side rooms, or more usually occupied apartments, require less pretension in both architectural effect and finish, and should wear a more subdued appearance; while the kitchen section, and from that, the several grades of apartments stretching beyond it, should distinctly show that they are subservient in their character, and wear a style and finish accordingly. Thus, each part of the house speaks for itself. It is its own finger-board, pointing the stranger to its various accommodation, as plainly as if written on its walls, and saying as significantly as dumb walls can do, that here dwells a well regulated family, who have a parlor for their friends; a library, or sitting-room for their own leisure and comfort; an ample bedroom and nursery, for the parents and the little ones; a kitchen for the cooking; and a scullery and closets, and all the other etceteras which belong to a perfect family homestead.

And so with the grounds. The lawn or "dooryard," should be the best kept ground on the place. The most conspicuous part of the garden should show its shrubbery and its flowers. The side or rear approach should be separated from the lawn, and show its constant business occupation, and openly lead off to where men and farm stock meet on common ground, devoted to every purpose which the farm requires. Such arrangement would be complete in all its parts, satisfactory, and lasting. Tinsel ornament, or gewgaw decoration should never be permitted on any building where the sober enjoyment of agricultural life is designed. It can never add consideration or dignity to the retired gentleman even, and least of all should it be indulged in by the farmer, dwelling on his own cultivated acres.

[ THE CONSTRUCTION OF CELLARS.]

Every farm house and farm cottage, where a family of any size occupy the latter, should have a good, substantial stone-walled cellar beneath it. No room attached to the farm house is more profitable, in its occupation, than the cellar. It is useful for storing numberless articles which are necessary to be kept warm and dry in winter, as well as cool in summer, of which the farmer is well aware. The walls of a cellar should rise at least one, to two, or even three feet above the level of the ground surrounding it, according to circumstances, and the rooms in it well ventilated by two or more sliding sash windows in each, according to size, position, and the particular kind of storage for which it is required, so that a draft of pure air can pass through, and give it thorough ventilation at all times. It should also be at least seven and a half feet high in the clear; and if it be even nine feet, that is not too much. If the soil be compact, or such as will hold water, it should be thoroughly drained from the lowest point or corner, and the drain always kept open; (a stone drain is the best and most durable,) and if floored with a coat of flat, or rubble stones, well set in good hydraulic cement—or cement alone, when the stone cannot be obtained—all the better. This last will make it rat proof. For the purpose of avoiding these destructive creatures, the foundation stones in the wall should be brought to a joint, and project at least six inches on each side, from the wall itself, when laid upon this bottom course; as the usual manner of rats is to burrow in a nearly perpendicular direction from the surface, by the side of the wall, when intending to undermine it. On arriving at the bottom, if circumvented by the projecting stones, they will usually abandon their work. Plank of hard wood, or hard burnt bricks, may answer this purpose when stone cannot be had.

All cellar walls should be laid in good lime mortar, or if that be not practicable, they should be well pointed with it. This keeps them in place, and renders them less liable to the ingress of water and vermin. The thickness of wall should not be less than fifteen to eighteen inches, in any event, when of stone; and if the house walls above be built of stone or brick, two feet is better; and in all cases the cellar wall should be full three inches thicker than the wall resting upon it.

In the cellar of every farm house there should be an outside door, with a flight of steps by which to pass roots and other bulky or heavy articles, to which a wagon or cart may approach, either to receive or discharge them. This is indispensable.

Every out-building upon the farm, let it be devoted to what purpose it may, having a wooden floor on the ground story, should be set up sufficiently high from the surface to admit a cat or small terrier dog beneath such floor, with openings for them to pass in and out, or these hiding places will become so many rat warrens upon the premises, and prove most destructive to the grain and poultry. Nothing can be more annoying to the farmer than these vermin, and a trifling outlay in the beginning, will exclude them from the foundations and walls of all buildings. Care, therefore, should be taken to leave no haunt for their convenience.

With these suggestions the ingenuity of every builder will provide sufficient guards against the protection of vermin beneath his buildings.

[ VENTILATION OF HOUSES.]

Pure air, and enough of it, is the cheapest blessing one can enjoy; and to deny one's self so indispensable an element of good health, is little short of criminal neglect, or the sheerest folly. Yet thousands who build at much needless expense, for the protection of their health and that of their families, as they allege, and no doubt suppose, by neglecting the simplest of all contrivances, in the work of ventilation, invite disease and infirmity, from the very pains they so unwittingly take to ward off such afflictions.

A man, be he farmer or of other profession, finding himself prosperous in life, sets about the very sensible business of building a house for his own accommodation. Looking back, perhaps, to the days of his boyhood, in a severe climate, he remembers the not very highly-finished tenement of his father, and the wide, open fireplace which, with its well piled logs, was scarcely able to warm the large living-room, where the family were wont to huddle in winter. He possibly remembers, with shivering sympathy, the sprinkling of snow which he was accustomed to find upon his bed as he awaked in the morning, that had found its way through the frail casing of his chamber window—but in the midst of all which he grew up with a vigorous constitution, a strong arm, and a determined spirit. He is resolved that his children shall encounter no such hardships, and that himself and his excellent helpmate shall suffer no such inconvenience as his own parents had done, who now perhaps, are enjoying a strong and serene old age, in their old-fashioned, yet to them not uncomfortable tenement. He therefore determines to have a snug, close house, where the cold cannot penetrate. He employs all his ingenuity to make every joint an air-tight fit; the doors must swing to an air-tight joint; the windows set into air-tight frames; and to perfect the catalogue of his comforts, an air-tight stove is introduced into every occupied room which, perchance, if he can afford it, are further warmed and poisoned by the heated flues of an air-tight furnace in his air-tight cellar. In short, it is an air-tight concern throughout. His family breathe an air-tight atmosphere; they eat their food cooked in an "air-tight kitchen witch," of the latest "premium pattern;" and thus they start, father, mother, children, all on the high road—if persisted in—to a galloping consumption, which sooner or later conducts them to an air-tight dwelling, not soon to be changed. If such melancholy catastrophe be avoided, colds, catarrhs, headaches, and all sorts of bodily afflictions shortly make their appearance, and they wonder what is the matter! They live so snug! their house is so warm! they sleep so comfortable! how can it be? True, in the morning the air of their sleeping-rooms feels close, but then if a window is opened it will chill the rooms, and that will give them colds. What can be the matter? The poor creatures never dream that they have been breathing, for hour after hour, decomposed air, charged with poisonous gases, which cannot escape through the tight walls, or over the tight windows, or through the tight stoves; and thus they keep on in the sure course to infirmity, disease, and premature death—all for the want of a little ventilation! Better indeed, that instead of all this painstaking, a pane were knocked out of every window, or a panel out of every door in the house.

We are not disposed to talk about cellar furnaces for heating a farmer's house. They have little to do in the farmer's inventory of goods at all, unless it be to give warmth to the hall—and even then a snug box stove, with its pipe passing into the nearest chimney is, in most cases, the better appendage. Fuel is usually abundant with the farmer; and where so, its benefits are much better dispensed in open stoves or fireplaces, than in heating furnaces or "air-tights."

We have slightly discussed this subject of firing in the farm house, in a previous page, but while in the vein, must crave another word. A farmer's house should look hospitable as well as be hospitable, both outside and in; and the broadest, most cheerful look of hospitality within doors, in cold weather, is an open fire in the chimney fireplace, with the blazing wood upon it. There is no mistake about it. It thaws you out, if cold; it stirs you up, if drooping; and is the welcome, winning introduction to the good cheer that is to follow.

A short time ago we went to pay a former town friend a visit. He had removed out to a snug little farm, where he could indulge his agricultural and horticultural tastes, yet still attend to his town engagements, and enjoy the quietude of the country. We rang the door bell. A servant admitted us; and leaving overcoat and hat in the hall, we entered a lone room, with an "air-tight" stove, looking as black and solemn as a Turkish eunuch upon us, and giving out about the same degree of genial warmth as the said eunuch would have expressed had he been there—an emasculated warming machine truly! On the floor was a Wilton carpet, too fine to stand on; around the room were mahogany sofas and mahogany chairs, all too fine to sit on—at all events to rest one upon if he were fatigued. The blessed light of day was shut out by crimson and white curtains, held up by gilded arrows; and upon the mantle piece, and on the center and side tables were all sorts of gimcracks, costly and worthless. In short, there was no comfort about the whole concern. Hearing our friend coming up from his dining-room below, where too, was his cellar kitchen—that most abominable of all appendages to a farm house, or to any other country house, for that matter—we buttoned our coat up close and high, thrust our hands into our pockets, and walked the room, as he entered. "Glad to see you—glad to see you, my friend!" said he, in great joy; "but dear me, why so buttoned up, as if you were going? What's the matter?" "My good sir," we replied, "you asked us to come over and see you, 'a plain farmer,' and 'take a quiet family dinner with you.' We have done so; and here find you with all your town nonsense about you. No fire to warm by; no seat to rest in; no nothing like a farm or farmer about you; and it only needs your charming better half, whom we always admired, when she lived in town, to take down her enameled harp, and play

'In fairy bowers by moonlight hours,'

to convince one that instead of ruralizing in the country, you had gone a peg higher in town residence! No, no, we'll go down to farmer Jocelyn's, our old schoolfellow, and take a dinner of bacon and cabbage with him. If he does occupy a one-story house, he lives up in sunshine, has an open fireplace, with a blazing wood fire on a chilly day, and his 'latch string is always out.'"

Our friend was petrified—astonished! We meant to go it rather strong upon him, but still kept a frank, good-humored face, that showed him no malice. He began to think he was not exactly in character, and essayed to explain. We listened to his story. His good wife came in, and all together, we had a long talk of their family and farming arrangements; how they had furnished their house; and how they proposed to live; but wound up with a sad story, that their good farming neighbors didn't call on them the second time—kind, civil people they appeared, too—and while they were in, acted as though afraid to sit down, and afraid to stand up;—in short, they were dreadfully embarrassed; for why, our friends couldn't tell, but now began to understand it. "Well, my good friends," said we, "you have altogether mistaken country life in the outset. To live on a farm, it is neither necessary to be vulgar, nor clownish, nor to affect ignorance. Simplicity is all you require, in manners, and equal simplicity in your furniture and appointments. Now just turn all this nonsense in furniture and room dressing out of doors, and let some of your town friends have it. Get some simple, comfortable, cottage furniture, much better for all purposes, than this, and you will settle down into quiet, natural country life before you are aware of it, and all will go 'merry as a marriage bell' with you, in a little time"—for they both loved the country, and were truly excellent people. We continued, "I came to spend the day and the night, and I will stay; and this evening we'll go down to your neighbor Jocelyn's; and you, Mrs. N——, shall go with us; and we will see how quietly and comfortably he and his family take the world in a farmer's way."

We did go; not in carriage and livery, but walked the pleasant half mile that lay between them; the exercise of which gave us all activity and good spirits. Jocelyn was right glad to see us, and Patty, his staid and sober wife, with whom we had romped many an innocent hour in our childhood days, was quite as glad as he. But they looked a little surprised that such "great folks" as their new neighbors, should drop in so unceremoniously, and into their common "keeping room," too, to chat away an evening. However, the embarrassment soon wore off. We talked of farming; we talked of the late elections; we talked of the fruit trees and the strawberry beds; and Mrs. Jocelyn, who was a pattern of good housekeeping, told Mrs. N—— how she made her apple jellies, and her currant tarts, and cream cheeses; and before we left they had exchanged ever so many engagements,—Mrs. Patty to learn her new friend to do half a dozen nice little matters of household pickling and preserving; while she, in turn, was to teach Nancy and Fanny, Patty's two rosy-cheeked daughters, almost as pretty as their mother was at their own age, to knit a bead bag and work a fancy chair seat! And then we had apples and nuts, all of the very best—for Jocelyn was a rare hand at grafting and managing his fruit trees, and knew the best apples all over the country. We had, indeed, a capital time! To cut the story short, the next spring our friend sent his fancy furniture to auction, and provided his house with simple cottage furnishings, at less than half the cost of the other; which both he and his wife afterward declared was infinitely better, for all house-keeping purposes. He also threw a neat wing on to the cottage, for an upper kitchen and its offices, and they now live like sensible country folks; and with their healthy, frolicksome children, are worth the envy of all the dyspeptic, town-fed people in existence.

A long digression, truly; but so true a story, and one so apt to our subject can not well be omitted. But what has all this to do with ventilation? We'll tell you. Jocelyn's house was ventilated as it should be;—for he was a methodical, thoughtful man, who planned and built his house himself—not the mechanical work, but directed it throughout, and saw that it was faithfully done; and that put us in mind of the story.

To be perfect in its ventilation, every room in the house, even to the closets, should be so arranged that a current of air may pass through, to keep it pure and dry. In living rooms, fresh air in sufficient quantity may usually be admitted through the doors. In sleeping rooms and closets, when doors may not be left open, one or more of the lower panels of the door may be filled by a rolling blind, opening more or less, at pleasure; or a square or oblong opening for that purpose, may be left in the base board, at the floor, and covered by a wire netting. And in all rooms, living apartments, as well as these, an opening of at least sixty-four square inches should be made in the wall, near the ceiling, and leading into an air flue, to pass into the garret. Such opening may be filled by a rolling blind, or wire screen, as below, and closed or kept open, at pleasure. Some builders prefer an air register to be placed in the chimney, over the fireplace or stove, near the ceiling; but the liability to annoyance, by smoke escaping through it into the room, if not thoroughly done, is an objection to this latter method, and the other may be made, in its construction, rather ornamental than otherwise, in appearance. All such details as these should be planned when the building is commenced, so that the several flues may be provided as the building proceeds. In a stone or brick house, a small space may be left in the walls, against which these air registers may be required; and for inner rooms, or closets, they may pass off into the openings of the partitions, and so up into the garret; from which apertures of escape may be left, or made at the gables, under the roof, or by a blind in a window.

For the admission of air to the first floor of the house, a special opening through the walls, for that purpose, can hardly be necessary; as the doors leading outside are usually opened often enough for such object. One of the best ventilated houses we have ever seen, is that owned and occupied by Samuel Cloon, Esq., of Cincinnati. It is situated on his farm, three miles out of the city, and in its fine architectural appearance and finished appointments, as a rural residence and first-class farm house, is not often excelled. Every closet is ventilated through rolling blinds in the door panels; and foul air, either admitted or created within them, is passed off at once by flues near the ceiling overhead, passing into conductors leading off through the garret.

Where chambers are carried into the roof of a house, to any extent, they are sometimes incommoded by the summer heat which penetrates them, conducted by the chamber ceiling overhead. This heat can best be obviated by inserting a small window at each opposite peak of the garret, by which the outside air can circulate through, above the chambers, and so pass off the heated air, which will continually ascend. All this is a simple matter, for which any builder can provide, without particular expense or trouble.

[ INTERIOR ACCOMMODATION OF HOUSES.]

Ground, in the country, being the cheapest item which the farmer can devote to building purposes, his object should be to spread over, rather than to go deeply into it, or climb high in the air above it. We repudiate cellar kitchens, or under-ground rooms for house work, altogether, as being little better than a nuisance—dark, damp, unhealthy, inconvenient, and expensive. The several rooms of a farm dwelling house should be compact in arrangement, and contiguous as may be to the principally-occupied apartments. Such arrangement is cheaper, more convenient, and labor-saving; and in addition, more in accordance with a good and correct taste in the outward appearance of the house itself.

The general introduction of cooking stoves, and other stoves and apparatus for warming houses, within the last twenty years, which we acknowledge to be a great acquisition in comfort as well as in convenience and economy, has been carried to an extreme, not only in shutting up and shutting out the time-honored open fireplace and its broad hearthstone, with their hallowed associations, but also in prejudice to the health of those who so indiscriminately use them, regardless of other arrangements which ought to go with them. A farm house should never be built without an ample, open fireplace in its kitchen, and other principally occupied rooms; and in all rooms where stoves are placed, and fires are daily required, the open Franklin should take place of the close or air-tight stove, unless extraordinary ventilation to such rooms be adopted also. The great charm of the farmer's winter evening is the open fireside, with its cheerful blaze and glowing embers; not wastefully expended, but giving out that genial warmth and comfort which, to those who are accustomed to its enjoyment, is a pleasure not made up by any invention whatever; and although the cooking stove or range be required—which, in addition to the fireplace, we would always recommend, to lighten female labor—it can be so arranged as not to interfere with the enjoyment or convenience of the open fire.

In the construction of the chimneys which appear in the plans submitted, the great majority of them—particularly those for northern latitudes—are placed in the interior of the house. They are less liable to communicate fire to the building, and assist greatly in warming the rooms through which they pass. In southern houses they are not so necessary, fires being required for a much less period of the year. Yet even there they may be oftentimes properly so placed. Where holes, for the passage of stovepipes through floors, partitions, or into chimneys, are made, stone, earthen, or iron thimbles should be inserted; and, except in the chimneys, such holes should be at least one to two inches larger than the pipe itself. The main flues of the chimney conducting off the smoke of the different fires, should be built separate, and kept apart by a partition of one brick in thickness, and carried out independently, as in no other way will they rid the house of smoky rooms.

An illustration in point: Fifteen years ago we purchased and removed into a most substantial and well-built stone house, the chimneys of which were constructed with open fireplaces, and the flues carried up separately to the top, where they all met upon the same level surface, as chimneys in past times usually were built, thus. Every fireplace in the house (and some of them had stoves in,) smoked intolerably; so much so, that when the wind was in some quarters the fires had to be put out in every room but the kitchen, which, as good luck would have it, smoked less—although it did smoke there—than the others. After balancing the matter in our own mind some time, whether we should pull down and rebuild the chimneys

altogether, or attempt an alteration; as we had given but little thought to the subject of chimney draft, and to try an experiment was the cheapest, we set to work a bricklayer, who, under our direction, simply built over each discharge of the several flues a separate top of fifteen inches high, in this wise: The remedy was perfect. We have had no smoke in the house since, blow the wind as it may, on any and all occasions. The chimneys can't smoke; and the whole expense for four chimneys, with their twelve flues, was not twenty dollars! The remedy was in giving each outlet a distinct current of air all around, and on every side of it.

[ CHIMNEY TOPS.]

Nothing adds more to the outward expression of a dwelling, than the style of its chimneys. We have just shown that independent chimney tops pass off their smoke more perfectly, than when only partitioned inside to the common point of outlet. Aside from the architectural beauty which a group of chimney flues adds to the building, we have seen that they are really useful, beyond the formal, square-sided piles so common throughout the country. They denote good cheer, social firesides, and a generous hospitality within—features which should always mark the country dwelling; and more particularly that of the farmer.

The style and arrangement of these chimney groups may be various, as comporting with the design of the house itself; and any good architect can arrange them as fitted to such design. Our illustrations will show them of different kinds, which are generally cheap in construction, and simple, yet expressive in their arrangement.

[ PRELIMINARY TO OUR DESIGNS.]

We have discussed with tolerable fullness, the chief subjects connected with farm buildings—sufficiently so, we trust, to make ourselves understood as desiring to combine utility with commendable ornament in all that pertains to them. The object has been, thus far, to give hints, rather than models, in description. But as the point to which we have endeavored to arrive will be but imperfectly understood without illustration, we shall submit a few plans of houses and outbuildings, as carrying out more fully our ideas.

We are quite aware that different forms or fashions of detail and finish, to both outside and inside work, prevail among builders in different sections of the United States. Some of these fashions are the result of climate, some of conventional taste, and some of education. With them we are not disposed to quarrel. In many cases they are immaterial to the main objects of the work, and so long as they please the taste or partialities of those adopting them, are of little consequence. There are, however, certain matters of principle, both in general construction and in the detail of finish, which should not be disregarded; and these, in the designs submitted, and in the explanations which follow, will be fully discussed, each in its place. The particular form or style of work we have not directed, because, as before remarked, we are no professional builder, and of course free from the dogmas which are too apt to be inculcated in the professional schools and workshops. We give a wide berth, and a free toleration in all such matters, and are not disposed to raise a hornet's nest about our ears by interfering in matters where every tyro of the drafting board and work-bench assumes to be, and probably may be, our superior. All minor subjects we are free to leave to the skill and ingenuity of the builder—who, fortunately for the country, is found in almost every village and hamlet of the land.

Modes and styles of finish, both inside and outside of buildings, change; and that so frequently, that what is laid down as the reigning fashion to-day, may be superseded by another fashion of to-morrow—immaterial in themselves, only, and not affecting the shape, arrangement, and accommodation of the building itself, which in these, must ever maintain their relation with the use for which it is intended. The northern dwelling, with its dependencies and appointments, requires a more compact, snug, and connected arrangement than that of the south; while one in the middle states may assume a style of arrangement between them both, each fitted for their own climate and country, and in equally good taste. The designs we are about to submit are intended to be such as may be modified to any section of the country, although some of them are made for extremes of north and south, and are so distinguished. Another object we have had in view is, to give to every farmer and country dweller of moderate means the opportunity of possessing a cheap work which would guide him in the general objects which he wishes to accomplish in building, that he may have his own notions on the subject, and not be subject to the caprice and government of such as profess to exclusive knowledge in all that appertains to such subjects, and in which, it need not be offensive to say, that although clever in their way, they are sometimes apt to be mistaken.

Therefore, without assuming to instruct the professional builder, our plans will be submitted, not without the hope that he even, may find in them something worthy of consideration; and we offer them to the owner and future occupant of the buildings themselves, as models which he may adopt, with the confidence that they will answer all his reasonable purposes.

FARM HOUSE. Pages 73-74.

[larger view]

Design I.

We here present a farm house of the simplest and most unpretending kind, suitable for a farm of twenty, fifty, or an hundred acres. Buildings somewhat in this style are not unfrequently seen in the New England States, and in New York; and the plan is in fact suggested, although not copied, from some farm houses which we have known there, with improvements and additions of our own.

This house may be built either of stone, brick, or wood. The style is rather rustic than otherwise, and intended to be altogether plain, yet agreeable in outward appearance, and of quite convenient arrangement. The body of this house is 40×30 feet on the ground, and 12 feet high, to the plates for the roof; the lower rooms nine feet high; the roof intended for a pitch of 35°—but, by an error in the drawing, made less—thus affording very tolerable chamber room in the roof story. The L, or rear projection, containing the wash-room and wood-house, juts out two feet from the side of the house to which it is attached, with posts 7½ feet high above the floor of the main house; the pitch of the roof being the same. Beyond this is a building 32×24 feet, with 10 feet posts, partitioned off into a swill-room, piggery, workshop, and wagon-house, and a like roof with the others. A light, rustic porch, 12×8 feet, with lattice work, is placed on the front of the house, and another at the side door, over which vines, by way of drapery, may run; thus combining that sheltered, comfortable, and home-like expression so desirable in a rural dwelling. The chimney is carried out in three separate flues, sufficiently marked by the partitions above the roof. The windows are hooded, or sheltered, to protect them from the weather, and fitted with simple sliding sashes with 7×9 or 8×10 glass. Outer blinds may be added, if required; but it is usually better to have these inside, as they are no ornament to the outside of the building, are liable to be driven back and forth by the wind, even if fastenings are used, and in any event are little better than a continual annoyance.

[ INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.]

GROUND PLAN.

The front door, over which is a single sash-light across, opens into a hall or entry 9×7 feet, from which a door opens on either side into a sitting-room and parlor, each 16×15 feet, lighted by a double, plain window, at the ends, and a single two-sash window in front. Between the entrance door and stove, are in each room a small pantry or closet for dishes, or otherwise, as may be required. The chimney stands in the center of the house, with a separate flue for each front room, into which a thimble is inserted to receive the stovepipes by which they are warmed; and from the inner side of these rooms each has a door passing to the kitchen, or chief living room. This last apartment is 22×15 feet, with a broad fireplace containing a crane, hooks, and trammel, if required, and a spacious family oven—affording those homely and primitive comforts still so dear to many of us who are not ready to concede that all the virtues of the present day are combined in a "perfection" cooking stove, and a "patent" heater; although there is a chance for these last, if they should be adopted into the peaceful atmosphere of this kitchen.

On one side of the kitchen, in rear of the stairs, is a bedroom, 9×8 feet, with a window in one corner. Adjoining that, is a buttery, dairy-room, or closet, 9×6 feet, also having a window. At the inner end of the stairway is the cellar passage; at the outer end is the chamber passage, landing above, in the highest part of the roof story. Opposite the chamber stairs is a door leading to the wash-room. Between the two windows, on the rear side of the kitchen, is a sink, with a waste pipe passing out through the wall. At the further corner a door opens into a snug bedroom 9×8 feet, lighted by a window in rear; and adjoining this is a side entry leading from the end door, 9×6 feet in area; thus making every room in the house accessible at once from the kitchen, and giving the greatest possible convenience in both living and house-work.

CHAMBER PLAN.

The roof story is partitioned into convenient-sized bedrooms; the ceiling running down the pitch of the roof to within two feet of the floor, unless they are cut short by inner partitions, as they are in the largest chamber, to give closets. The open area in the center, at the head of the stairs, is lighted by a small gable window inserted in the roof, at the rear, and serves as a lumber room; or, if necessary, a bed may occupy a part of it.

In rear of the main dwelling is a building 44×16 feet, occupied as a wash-room and wood-house. The wash-room floor is let down eight inches below the kitchen, and is 16×14 feet, in area, lighted by a window on each side, with a chimney, in which is set a boiler, and fireplace, if desired, and a sink in the corner adjoining. This room is 7½ feet in height. A door passes from this wash-room into the wood-house, which is 30×16 feet, open in front, with a water-closet in the further corner.

The cellar is 7½ feet in height—and is the whole size of the house, laid with good stone wall, in lime mortar, with a flight of steps leading outside, in rear of the kitchen, and two or more sash-light windows at the ends. If not in a loose, gravelly, or sandy soil, the cellar should be kept dry by a drain leading out on to lower ground.

The building beyond, and adjoining the wood-house, contains a swill-house 16×12 feet, with a window in one end; a chimney and boiler in one corner, with storage for swill barrels, grain, meal, potatoes, &c., for feeding the pigs, which are in the adjoining pen of same size, with feeding trough, place for sleeping, &c., and having a window in one end and a door in the rear, leading to a yard.

Adjoining these, in front, is a workshop and tool-house, 16×10 feet, with a window at the end, and an entrance door near the wood house. In this is a joiner's work-bench, a chest of working tools, such as saw, hammer, augers, &c., &c., necessary for repairing implements, doing little rough jobs, or other wood work, &c., which every farmer ought to do for himself; and also storing his hoes, axes, shovels, hammers, and other small farm implements. In this room he will find abundant rainy-day employment in repairing his utensils of various kinds, making his beehives, hencoops, &c., &c. Next to this is the wagon-house, 16×14 feet, with broad doors at the end, and harness pegs around the walls.

The posts of this building are 10 feet high; the rooms eight feet high, and a low chamber overhead for storing lumber, grain, and other articles, as may be required. Altogether, these several apartments make a very complete and desirable accommodation to a man with the property and occupation for which it is intended.

On one side and adjoining the house, should be the garden, the clothes-yard, and the bee-house, which last should always stand in full sight, and facing the most frequented room—say the kitchen—that they can be seen daily during the swarming season, as those performing household duties may keep them in view.

[ MISCELLANEOUS.]

In regard to the surroundings, and approach to this dwelling, they should be treated under the suggestions already given on these subjects. This is an exceedingly snug tenement, and everything around and about it should be of the same character. No pretension or frippery whatever. A neat garden, usefully, rather than ornamentally and profusely supplied; a moderate court-yard in front; free access to the end door, from the main every-day approach by vehicles—not on the highway, but on the farm road or lane—the business entrance, in fact; which should also lead to the barns and sheds beyond, not far distant. Every feature should wear a most domestic look, and breathe an air of repose and content. Trees should be near, but not so near as to cover the house. A few shrubs of simple kind—some standing roses—a few climbing ones; a syringa, a lilac, a snow ball, and a little patch or two of flowers near the front porch, and the whole expression is given; just as one would wish to look upon as a simple, unpretending habitation.

It is not here proposed to give working plans, or estimates, to a nicety; or particular directions for building any design even, that we present. The material for construction best suited to the circumstances and locality of the proprietor must govern all those matters; and as good builders are in most cases at hand, who are competent to give estimates for the cost of any given plan, when the material for construction is once settled, the question of expense is readily fixed. The same sized house, with the same accommodation, may be made to cost fifty to one hundred per cent. over an economical estimate, by the increased style, or manner of its finish; or it may be kept within bounds by a rigid adherence to the plan first adopted.

In western New York this house and attachments complete, the body of stone, the wood-house, wagon-house, &c., of wood, may be built and well finished in a plain way for $1,500. If built altogether of wood, with grooved and matched vertical boarding, and battens, the whole may be finished and painted for $800, to $1,200. For the lowest sum, the lumber and work would be of a rough kind, with a cheap wash to color it; but the latter amount would give good work, and a lasting coat of mineral paint both outside and within.

[As a tenant house] on a farm of three, four, or even five hundred acres, where all who live in it are laborers in the field or household, this design may be most conveniently adopted. The family inhabiting it in winter may be well accommodated for sleeping under the main roof, while they can at all seasons take their meals, and be made comfortable in the several rooms. In the summer season, when a larger number of laborers are employed, the lofts of the carriage or wagon-house and work-shop may be occupied with beds, and thus a large share of the expense of house building for a very considerable farm be saved. Luxury is a quality more or less consulted by every one who builds for his own occupation on a farm, or elsewhere; and the tendency in building is constantly to expand, to give a higher finish, and in fact, to over-build. Indeed, if we were to draw the balance, on our old farms, between scantily-accommodated houses, and houses with needless room in them, the latter would preponderate. Not that these latter houses either are too good, or too convenient for the purpose for which they were built, but they have too much room, and that room badly appropriated and arranged.

On a farm proper, the whole establishment is a workshop. The shop out of doors, we acknowledge, is not always dry, nor always warm; but it is exceedingly well aired and lighted, and a place where industrious people dearly love to labor. Within doors it is a work-shop too. There is always labor and occupation for the family, in the general business of the farm; therefore but little room is wanted for either luxury or leisure, and the farm house should be fully occupied, with the exception, perhaps, of a single room on the main floor, (and that not a large one,) for some regular business purpose. All these accommodated, and the requirements of the house are ended. Owners of rented farms should reflect, too, that expensive houses on their estates entail expensive repairs, and that continually. Many tenants are careless of highly-finished houses. Not early accustomed to them, they misappropriate, perhaps, the best rooms in the house, and pay little attention to the purposes for which the owner designed them, or to the manner of using them. It is therefore a total waste of money to build a house on a tenant estate anything beyond the mere comfortable wants of the family occupying it, and to furnish the room necessary for the accommodation of the crops, stock, and farm furniture, in the barns and other out-buildings—all in a cheap, tidy, yet substantial way.

So, too, with the grounds for domestic purposes around the house. A kitchen garden, sufficient to grow the family vegetables—a few plain fruits—a posey bed or two for the girls—and the story is told. Give a larger space for these things—anything indeed, for elegance—and ten to one, the plow is introduced, a corn or potato patch is set out, field culture is adopted, and your choice grounds are torn up, defaced, and sacrificed to the commonest uses.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, a cheerful, home-expression may be given, and should be given to the homestead, in the character and construction of the buildings, be they ever so rough and homely. We can call to mind many instances of primitive houses-log cabins even—built when none better could be had, that presented a most comfortable and life-enjoying picture—residences once, indeed, of those who swayed "the applause of listening senates," but under the hands of taste, and a trifle of labor, made to look comfortable, happy, and sufficient. We confess, therefore, to a profound veneration, if not affection, for the humble farm house, as truly American in character; and which, with a moderate display of skill, may be made equal to the main purposes of life and enjoyment for all such as do not aspire to a high display, and who are content to make the most of moderate means.

FARM HOUSE Pages 85-86

[larger view]

Design II.

This is the plan of a house and out-buildings based chiefly on one which we built of wood some years since on a farm of our own, and which, in its occupation, has proved to be one of exceeding convenience to the purposes intended. As a farm business house, we have not known it excelled; nor in the ease and facility of doing up the house-work within it, do we know a better. It has a subdued, quiet, unpretending look; yet will accommodate a family of a dozen workmen, besides the females engaged in the household work, with perfect convenience; or if occupied by a farmer with but his own family around him, ample room is afforded them for a most comfortable mode of life, and sufficient for the requirements of a farm of two, to three or four hundred acres.

This house is, in the main body, 36×22 feet, one and a half stories high, with a projection on the rear 34×16 feet, for the kitchen and its offices; and a still further addition to that, of 26×18 feet, for wash-room. The main body of the house is 14 feet high to the plates; the lower rooms are 9 feet high; the roof has a pitch of 35° from a horizontal line, giving partially-upright chambers in the main building, and roof lodging rooms in the rear. The rear, or kitchen part, is one story high, with 10 feet posts, and such pitch of roof (which last runs at right angles to the main body, and laps on to the main roof,) as will carry the peak up to the same air line. This addition should retreat 6 inches from the line of the main building, on the side given in the design, and 18 inches on the rear. The rooms on this kitchen floor are 8 feet high, leaving one foot above the upper floor, under the roof, as a chamber garret, or lumber-room, as may be required. Beyond this, in the rear, is the other extension spoken of, with posts 9 feet high, for a buttery, closet, or dairy, or all three combined, and a wash-room; the floor of which is on a level with the last, and the roof running in the same direction, and of the same pitch. In front of this wash-room, where not covered by the wood-house, is an open porch, 8 feet wide and 10 feet long, the roof of which runs out at a less angle than the others—say 30° from a horizontal line. Attached to this is the wood-house, running off by way of L, at right angles, 36×16 feet, of same height as the wash-room.

Adjoining the wood-house, on the same front line, is a building 50×20 feet, with 12 feet posts, occupied as a workshop, wagon-house, stable, and store-room, with a lean-to on the last of 15×10 feet, for a piggery. The several rooms in this building are 8 feet high, affording a good lumber room over the workshop, and hay storage over the wagon-house and stable. Over the wagon-house is a gable, with a blind window swinging on hinges, for receiving hay, thus relieving the long, uniform line of roof, and affording ample accommodation on each side to a pigeon-house or dovecote, if required.

The style of this establishment is of plain Italian, or bracketed, and may be equally applied to stone, brick, or wood. The roofs are broad, and protect the walls by their full projection over them, 2½ feet. The small gable in the front roof of the main dwelling relieves it of its otherwise straight uniformity, and affords a high door-window opening on to the deck of the veranda, which latter should be 8 or 10 feet in width. The shallow windows, also, over the wings of the veranda give it a more cheerful expression. The lower end windows of this part of the house are hooded, or sheltered by a cheap roof, which gives them a snug and most comfortable appearance. The veranda may appear more ornamental than the plain character of the house requires; but any superfluous work upon it may be omitted, and the style of finish conformed to the other. The veranda roof is flatter than that of the house, but it may be made perfectly tight by closer shingling, and paint; while the deck or platform in the centre may be roofed with zinc, or tin, and a coat of sanded paint laid upon it. The front chimney is plain, yet in keeping with the general style of the house, and may be made of ordinary bricks. The two parts of the chimney, as they appear in the front rooms, are drawn together as they pass through the chamber above, and become one at the roof. The kitchen chimneys pass up through the peaks of their respective roofs, and should be in like character with the other.

[Plans in original orientation]

[ INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.]

The front door of this house opens into a small entry or hall, 9×6 feet, which is lighted by a low sash of glass over the front door. A door leads into a room on each side; and at the inner end of the hall is a recess between the two chimneys of the opposite rooms, in which may be placed a table or broad shelf to receive hats and coats. On the left is a parlor 22×15 feet, lighted on one side by a double window, and in front by a single plain one. The fireplace is centrally placed on one side of the room, in the middle of the house. On one side of the fireplace is a closet, three feet deep, with shelves, and another closet at the inner end of the room, near the kitchen door; or this closet may be dispensed with for the use of this parlor, and given up to enlarge the closet which is attached to the bedroom. Another door opens directly into the kitchen. This parlor is 9 feet high between joints. The sitting-room is opposite to the parlor, 19×15 feet, and lighted and closeted in nearly the same manner, as will be seen by referring to the floor plan.

The kitchen is the grand room of this house. It is 24×16 feet in area, having an ample fireplace, with its hooks and trammels, and a spacious oven by its side. It is lighted by a double window at one end, and a single window near the fireplace. At one end of this kitchen is a most comfortable and commodious family bedroom, 13×10 feet, with a large closet in one corner, and lighted by a window in the side. Two windows may be inserted if wanted. A passage leads by the side of the oven to a sink-room, or recess, behind the chimney, with shelves to dry dishes on, and lighted by the half of a double window, which accommodates with its other half the dairy, or closet adjoining. A door also opens from this recess into the closet and dairy, furnished with broad shelves, that part of which, next the kitchen, is used for dishes, cold meat and bread cupboards, &c.; while the part of it adjoining the window beyond, is used for milk. This room is 14×6 feet, besides the L running up next to the kitchen, of 6×4 feet. From the kitchen also opens a closet into the front part of the house for any purpose needed. This adjoins the parlor, and sitting-room, closets. In the passage to the sitting-room also opens the stairway leading to the chambers, and beneath, at the other end of it, next the outside wall, is a flight leading down cellar. The cellar is excavated under the whole house, being 36×22, and 34×16 feet, with glass windows, one light deep by four wide, of 8×10 glass; and an outer door, and flight of steps outside, under either the sitting-room or kitchen windows, as may be most convenient. A door opens, also, from the kitchen, into a passage 4 feet wide and 12 feet long leading to the wash-room, 18×16 feet, and by an outside door, through this passage to the porch. In this passage may be a small window to give it light.

In the wash-room are two windows. A chimney at the far end accommodates a boiler or two, and a fireplace, if required. A sink stands adjoining the chimney. A flight of stairs, leading to a garret over head on one side, and to the kitchen chamber on the other, stands next the dairy, into which last a door also leads. In this wash-room may be located the cooking stove in warm weather, leaving the main kitchen for a family and eating room. A door also leads from the wash-room into the wood-house.

The wood-house stands lower than the floor of the wash-room, from which it falls, by steps. This is large, because a plentiful store of wood is needed for a dwelling of this character. If the room be not all wanted for such purpose, a part of it may devoted to other necessary uses, there seldom being too much shelter of this kind on a farm; through the rear wall of this wood-house leads a door into the garden, or clothes-yard, as the case may be; and at its extreme angle is a water closet, 6×4 feet, by way of lean-to, with a hipped roof, 8 feet high, running off from both the wood-house and workshop. This water-closet is lighted by a sliding sash window.

On to the wood-house, in a continuous front line, joins the workshop, an indispensable appendage to farm convenience. This has a flight of stairs leading to the lumber-room above. For the furnishing of this apartment, see description of Design I. Next to the work-house is the wagon and tool-house, above which is the hay loft, also spread over the stable adjoining; in which last are stalls for a pair of horses, which may be required for uses other than the main labors of the farm—to run to market, carry the family to church, or elsewhere. A pair of horses for such purposes should always be kept near the house. The horse-stalls occupy a space of 10×12 feet, with racks and feeding boxes. The plans of these will be described hereafter. The door leading out from these stalls is 5 feet wide, and faces the partition, so that each horse may be led out or in at an easy angle from them. Beyond the stalls is a passage 4 feet wide, leading to a store-room or area, from which a flight of rough stairs leads to the hay loft above. Beyond this room, in which is the oat bin for the horses, is a small piggery, for the convenience of a pig or two, which are always required to consume the daily wash and offal of the house; and not for the general pork stock of the farm; which, on one of this size, may be expected to require more commodious quarters.

The chamber plan of this house is commodious, furnishing one large room and three smaller ones. The small chamber leading to the deck over the porch, may, or may not be occupied as a sleeping room. The small one near the stairs may contain a single bed, or be occupied as a large clothes-closet. Through this, a door leads into the kitchen chamber, which may serve as one, or more laborers' bed-chambers. They may be lighted by one or more windows in the rear gable.

If more convenient to the family, the parlor and sitting-room, already described, may change their occupation, and one substituted for the other.

The main business approach to this house should be by a lane, or farm road opening on the side next the stable and wagon-house. The yard, in front of these last named buildings, should be separated from the lawn, or front door-yard of the dwelling. The establishment should stand some distance back from the traveled highway, and be decorated with such trees, shrubbery, and cultivation, as the taste of the owner may direct. No general rules or directions can be applicable to this design beyond what have already been given; and the subject must be treated as circumstances may suggest. The unfrequented side of the house should, however, be flanked with a garden, either ornamental, or fruit and vegetable; as buildings of this character ought to command a corresponding share of attention with the grounds by which they are surrounded.

This house will appear equally well built of wood, brick, or stone. Its cost, according to materials, or finish, may be $1,000 or $1,500. The out-buildings attached, will add $400 to $600, with the same conditions as to finish; but the whole may be substantially and well built of either stone, brick, or wood, where each may be had at equal convenience, for $2,000 in the interior of New York. Of course, it is intended to do all the work plain, and in character for the occupation to which it is intended.

[ MISCELLANEOUS DETAILS.]

At this point of our remarks a word or two may be offered on the general subject of inside finish to farm houses, which may be applicable more or less to any one, or all of the designs that may come under our observation; therefore what is here said, may be applied at large. Different sections of the United States have their own several local notions, or preferences as to the mode of finish to their houses and out-buildings, according to climate, education, or other circumstances. In all these matters neither taste, fashion, nor climate should be arbitrary. The manner of finish may be various, without any departure from truth or propriety—always keeping in mind the object for which it is intended. The material for a country house should be strong, and durable, and the work simple in its details, beyond that for either town or suburban houses. It should be strong, for the reason that the interior of the farm house is used for purposes of industry, in finishing up and perfecting the labors of the farm; labors indispensable too, and in amount beyond the ordinary housekeeping requirements of a family who have little to do but merely to live, and make themselves comfortable. The material should be durable, because the distance at which the farm house is usually located from the residences of building mechanics, renders it particularly troublesome and expensive to make repairs, and alterations. The work should be simple, because cheaper in the first place, in construction, and finish; quite as appropriate and satisfactory in appearance; and demanding infinitely less labor and pains to care for, and protect it afterward. Therefore all mouldings, architraves, chisel-work, and gewgawgery in interior finish should be let alone in the living and daily occupied rooms of the house. If, to a single parlor, or spare bedchamber a little ornamental work be permitted, let even that be in moderation, and just enough to teach the active mistress and her daughters what a world of scrubbing and elbow work they have saved themselves in the enjoyment of a plainly-finished house, instead of one full of gingerbread work and finery. None but the initiated can tell the affliction that chiseled finishing entails on housekeepers in the spider, fly, and other insect lodgment which it invites—frequently the cause of more annoyance and daily disquietude in housekeeping, because unnecessary, than real griefs from which we may not expect to escape. Bases, casings, sashes, doors—all should be plain, and painted or stained a quiet russet color—a color natural to the woods used for the finish, if it can be, showing, in their wear, as little of dust, soiling, and fly dirt as possible. There is no poetry about common housekeeping. Cooking, house-cleaning, washing, scrubbing, sweeping, are altogether matter-of-fact duties, and usually considered work, not recreation; and these should all be made easy of performance, and as seldom to be done as possible; although the first item always was, and always will be, and the last item should be, an every-day vocation for somebody; and the manner of inside finish to a house has a great deal to do with all these labors.

In a stone, or brick house, the inside walls should be firred off for plastering. This may be done either by "plugging," that is, driving a plug of wood strongly into the mortar courses, into which the firring should be nailed, or by laying a strip of thin board in the mortar course, the entire length of each wall. This is better than blocks laid in for such purpose, because it is effectually bound by the stone, or brick work; whereas, a block may get loose by shrinking, but the nails which hold the firring to the plug, or to the thin strip of board will split and wedge it closer to the mason work of the outside wall. This is an important item. It makes close work too, and leaves no room for rats, mice, or other vermin; and as it admits a space—no matter how thin—so that no outside damp from the walls can communicate into, or through the inner plastering, it answers all purposes. The inside, and partition walls should be of coarse, strong mortar, floated off as smoothly as may be, not a hard finish, which is fine, and costly; and then papered throughout for the better rooms, and the commonly-used rooms whitewashed. Paper gives a most comfortable look to the rooms, more so than paint, and much less expensive, while nothing is so sweet, tidy, and cheerful to the working rooms of the house as a lime wash, either white, or softened down with some agreeable tint, such as light blue, green, drab, fawn, or russet, to give the shade desired, and for which every professional painter and whitewasher in the vicinity, can furnish a proper recipe applicable to the place and climate. On such subjects we choose to prescribe, rather than to play the apothecary by giving any of the thousand and one recipes extant, for the composition.

Our remarks upon the strength and durability of material in house-building do not apply exclusively to brick and stone. Wood is included also; and of this, there is much difference in the kind. Sound white oak, is, perhaps the best material for the heavy frame-work of any house or out-building, and when to be had at a moderate expense, we would recommend it in preference to any other. If white oak cannot be had, the other varieties of oak, or chesnut are the next best. In light frame-timbers, such as studs, girts, joists, or rafters, oak is inclined to spring and warp, and we would prefer hemlock, or chesnut, which holds a nail equally as well, or, in its absence, pine, (which holds a nail badly,) whitewood, or black walnut. The outside finish to a wooden house, may be lighter than in one of stone or brick. The wood work on the outside of the latter should always be heavy, and in character with the walls, giving an air of firmness and stability to the whole structure. No elaborate carving, or beadwork should be permitted on the outside work of a country house at all; and only a sufficient quantity of ornamental tracery of any kind, to break the monotony of a plainness that would otherwise give it a formal, or uncouth expression, and relieve it of what some would consider a pasteboard look. A farm house, in fact, of any degree, either cheap or expensive, should wear the same appearance as a well-dressed person of either sex; so that a stranger, not looking at them for the purpose of inspecting their garb, should, after an interview, be unable to tell what particular sort of dress they wore, so perfectly in keeping was it with propriety.

In the design now under discussion, a cellar is made under the whole body of the house; and this cellar is a shallow one, so far as being sunk into the ground is concerned, say 5½ feet, leaving 2½ feet of cellar wall above ground—8 feet in all. A part of the wall above ground should be covered by the excavated earth, and sloped off to a level with the surrounding surface. A commodious, well-lighted, and well-ventilated cellar is one of the most important apartments of the farm house. It should, if the soil be compact, be well drained from some point or corner within the walls into a lower level outside, to which point within, the whole floor surface should incline, and the bottom be floored with water-lime cement. This will make it hard, durable, and dry. It may then be washed and scrubbed off as easily as an upper floor. If the building site be high, and in a gravelly, or sandy soil, neither drain nor flooring will be required. The cellar may be used for the storage of root crops, apples, meats, and household vegetables. A partitioned room will accommodate either a summer or a winter dairy, if not otherwise provided, and a multitude of conveniences may be made of it in all well arranged farmeries. But in all cases the cellar should be well lighted, ventilated, and dry. Even the ash-house and smoke-house may be made in it with perfect convenience, by brick or stone partitions, and the smoke-house flue be carried up into one of the chimney flues above, and thus make a more snug and compact arrangement than to have separate buildings for those objects. A wash-room, in which, also, the soap may be made, the tallow and lard tried up, and other extraordinary labor when fire heat is to be used, may properly be made in a cellar, particularly when on a sloping ground, and easy of access to the ground level on one side. But, as a general rule, such room is better on a level with the main floor of the dwelling, and there are usually sufficient occupations for the cellar without them.

All cellar walls should be at least 18 inches thick, for even a wooden house, and from that to 2 feet for a stone or brick one, and well laid in strong lime-mortar. Unmortared cellar walls are frequently laid under wooden buildings, and pointed with lime-mortar inside; but this is sometimes dug out by rats, and is apt to crumble and fall out otherwise. A complete cellar wall should be thoroughly laid in mortar.

FARM HOUSE Pages 101-102.

[larger view]

Design III.

We here present the reader with a substantial, plain, yet highly-respectable stone or brick farm house, of the second class, suitable for an estate of three, to five hundred acres, and accommodation for a family of a dozen or more persons. The style is mixed rural Gothic, Italian, and bracketed; yet in keeping with the character of the farm, and the farmer's standing and occupation.

The main body of this house is 42×24 feet on the ground, and one and three quarter stories high—the chambers running two or three feet into the roof, as choice or convenience may direct. The roof has a pitch of 30 to 40° from a horizontal line, and broadly spread over the walls, say two and a half feet, showing the ends of the rafters, bracket fashion. The chimneys pass out through the peak of the roof, where the hips of what would otherwise be the gables, connect with the long sides of the roof covering the front and rear. On the long front is partly seen, in the perspective, a portico, 16×10 feet—not the chief entrance front, but rather a side front, practically, which leads into a lawn or garden, as may be most desirable, and from which the best view from the house is commanded. Over this porch is a small gable running into the roof, to break its monotony, in which is a door-window leading from the upper hall on to the deck of the porch. This gable has the same finish as the main roof, by brackets. The chamber windows are two-thirds or three-quarters the size of the lower ones; thus showing the upper story not full height below the plates, but running two to four feet into the garret. The rear wing, containing the entrance or business front, is 24×32 feet, one and a half stories high, with a pitch of roof not less than 35°, and spread over the walls both at the eaves and gable, in the same proportion as the roof to the main body. In front of this is a porch or veranda eight feet wide, with a low, hipped roof. In the front and rear roofs of this wing is a dormer window, to light the chambers. The gable to this wing is bold, and gives it character by the breadth of its roof over the walls, and the strong brackets by which it is supported. The chimney is thrown up strong and boldly at the point of the roof, indicating the every-day uses of the fireplaces below, which, although distinct and wide apart in their location on the ground floors, are drawn together in the chambers, thus showing only one escape through the roof.

The wood-house in the rear of the wing has a roof of the same character, and connects with the long building in the rear, which has the same description of roof, but hipped at one end. That end over the workshop, and next the wood-house, shows a bold gable like the wing of the house, and affords room and light to the lumber room over the shop, and also gives variety and relief to the otherwise too great sameness of roof-appearance on the further side of the establishment.

[Plans in original position]
(note orientation of chamber floor plan)

[ INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.]

As has been remarked, the main entrance front to this house is from the wing veranda, from which a well finished and sizeable door leads into the principal hall, 24×8 feet in area, and lighted by a full-sized window at the front end. Opposite the entrance door is the door leading into the parlor; and farther along is the staircase, under the upper landing of which a door leads into a dining or sitting-room, as may be determined. This hall is 10 feet high, as are all the rooms of this lower main story. In the chimney, which adjoins the parlor side of this hall, may be inserted a thimble for a hall stovepipe, if this method of warming should be adopted. The parlor, into which a door leads from the hall, is 18×16 feet, with two windows on the side, shown in perspective, and one on the front facing the lawn, or garden. It has also a fireplace near the hall door. At the further angle is a door leading to an entry or passage on to the portico. E is the entry just mentioned, six feet square, and lighted by a short sash, one light deep, over the outside door. This portico may be made a pleasant summer afternoon and evening resort for the family, by which the occupied rooms connect with the lawn or garden, thus adding to its retired and private character.

Opposite the parlor, on the other side of this entry, a door leads into a room 18×12 feet, which may be occupied as a family bedroom, library, or small sitting-room. This is lighted by two windows, and has a closet of 6×5 feet. A fireplace is on the inner side of this room; and near to that, a door connects with a dining-room of the same size, having a window in one end, and a fireplace, and closet of the same size as the last. Through the rear wall is a door leading into a pantry, which also communicates with the kitchen; and another door leads to the hall, and from the hall, under the staircases, (which, at that point, are sufficiently high for the purpose,) is a passage leading to the kitchen.

Under the wing veranda, near the point of intersection of the wing with the main body of the house, is an every-day outer door, leading into a small entry, 6×5 feet, and lighted by a low, one-sash window over the door. By another door, this leads to the kitchen, or family room, which is lighted by three windows. An ample fireplace, with oven, &c., accommodates this room at the end. A closet, 7×5 feet, also stands next to the entry; and beyond that, an open passage, to the left, leading out under the front hall stairs to the rooms of the main building. A door also leads from that passage into a best pantry, for choice crockery, sweetmeats, and tea-table comforts. Another door, near the last, leads into a dairy or milk-room, 9×8 feet, beyond the passage; in which last, also, may be placed a tier of narrow shelves. This milk, or dairy-room, is lighted by a window in the end, and connects also, by a door in the side, with the outer kitchen, or wash-room. Next to this milk-room door, in the front kitchen, is another door leading down cellar; and through this door, passing by the upper, broad stair of the flight of cellar steps, is another door into the wash-room. At the farther angle of the kitchen is still another door, opening into a passage four feet wide; and, in that passage, a door leading up a flight of stairs into the wing chambers. This passage opens into the back kitchen, or wash-room, 16×16 feet in area, and lighted by two windows, one of which looks into the wood-house. In this wash-room is a chimney with boilers and fireplace, as may be required. The cellar and chamber stairs, and the milk-room are also accessible direct, by doors leading from this wash-room.

The chamber plan will be readily understood, and requires no particular description. The space over the wing may be partitioned off according to the plan, or left more open for the accommodation of the "work folks," as occasion may demand. But, as this dwelling is intended for substantial people, "well to do in the world," and who extend a generous hospitality to their friends, a liberal provision of sleeping chambers is given to the main body of the house. The parlor chamber, which is the best, or spare one, is 18×16 feet, with roomy side-closets. Besides this, are other rooms for the daughters Sally, and Nancy, and Fanny, and possibly Mary and Elizabeth—who want their own chambers, which they keep so clean and tidy, with closets full of nice bedclothes, table linen, towels, &c., &c., for certain events not yet whispered of, but quite sure to come round. And then there are Frederick, and Robert, and George, fine stalwart boys coming into manhood, intending to be "somebody in the world," one day or another; they must have their rooms—and good ones too; for, if any people are to be well lodged, why not those who toil for it? All such accommodation every farm house of this character should afford. And we need not go far, or look sharp, to see the best men and the best women in our state and nation graduating from the wholesome farm house thus tidily and amply provided. How delightfully look the far-off mountains, or the nearer plains, or prairies, from the lawn porch of this snug farm house! The distant lake; the shining river, singing away through the valley; or the wimpling brook, stealing through the meadow! Aye, enjoy them all, for they are God's best, richest gifts, and we are made to love them.

The wood-house strikes off from the back kitchen, retreating two feet from its gable wall, and is 36×14 feet in size. A bathing room may be partitioned off 8×6 feet, on the rear corner next the wash-room, if required, although not laid down in the plan. At the further end is the water-closet, 6×4 feet. Or, if the size and convenience of the family require it, a part of the wood-house may be partitioned off for a wash-room, from which a chimney may pass up through the peak of the roof. If so, carry it up so high that it will be above the eddy that the wind may make in passing over the adjoining wing, not causing it to smoke from that cause.

At the far end of the wood-house is the workshop and tool-house, 18×16 feet, lighted by two windows, and a door to enter it from beneath the wood-house. Over this, is the lumber and store-room.

Next to this is the swill-room and pigsty for the house pigs, as described in the last design; and over it a loft for farm seeds, small grains, and any other storage required.

Adjoining this is the wagon and carriage-house; and above, the hayloft, stretching, also, partly over the stable which stands next, with two stalls, 12×5 feet each, with a flight of stairs leading to the loft, in the passage next the door. In this loft are swinging windows, to let in hay for the horses.

This completes the household establishment, and we leave the surroundings to the correct judgment and good taste of the proprietor to complete, as its position, and the variety of objects with which it may be connected, requires.

Stone and brick we have mentioned as the proper materials for this house; but it may be also built of wood, if more within the means and limits of the builder. There should be no pinching in its proportions, but every part carried out in its full breadth and effect.

The cost of the whole establishment may be from $2,000, to $3,000; depending somewhat upon the material used, and the finish put upon it. The first-named sum would build the whole in an economical and plain manner, while the latter would complete it amply in its details.

[ MISCELLANEOUS.]

It may be an objection in the minds of some persons to the various plans here submitted, that we have connected the out-buildings immediately with the offices of the dwelling itself. We are well aware that such is not always usual; but many years observation have convinced us, that in their use and occupation, such connection is altogether the most convenient and economical. The only drawback is in the case of fire; which, if it occur in any one building, the whole establishment is liable to be consumed. This objection is conceded; but we take it, that it is the business of every one not able to be his own insurer, to have his buildings insured by others; and the additional cost of this insurance is not a tithe of what the extra expense of time, labor, and exposure is caused to the family by having the out-buildings disconnected, and at a fire-proof distance from each other. There has, too, in the separation of these out-buildings, (we do not now speak of barns, and houses for the stock, and the farmwork proper,) from the main dwelling, crept into the construction of such dwellings, by modern builders, some things, which in a country establishment, particularly, ought never to be there, such as privies, or water-closets, as they are more genteelly called. These last, in our estimation, have no business in a farmer's house. They are an effeminacy, only, and introduced by city life. An appendage they should be, but separated to some distance from the living rooms, and accessible by sheltered passages to them. The wood-house should adjoin the outer kitchen, because the fuel should always be handy, and the outer kitchen, or wash-room is a sort of slop-room, of necessity; and the night wood, and that for the morning fires may be deposited in it for immediate use. The workshop, and small tool-house naturally comes next to that, as being chiefly used in stormy weather. Next to this last, would, more conveniently, come the carriage or wagon-house, and of course a stable for a horse or two for family use, always accessible at night, and convenient at unseasonable hours for farm labor. In the same close neighborhood, also, should be a small pigsty, to accommodate a pig or two, to eat up the kitchen slops from the table, refuse vegetables, parings, dishwater, &c., &c., which could not well be carried to the main piggery of the farm, unless the old-fashioned filthy mode of letting the hogs run in the road, and a trough set outside the door-yard fence, as seen in some parts of the country, were adopted. A pig can always be kept, and fatted in three or four months, from the wash of the house, with a little grain, in any well-regulated farmer's family. A few fowls may also be kept in a convenient hen-house, if desired, without offence—all constituting a part of the household economy of the place.

These out-buildings too, give a comfortable, domestic look to the whole concern. Each one shelters and protects the other, and gives an air of comfort and repose to the whole—a family expression all round. What so naked and chilling to the feelings, as to see a country dwelling-house all perked up, by itself, standing, literally, out of doors, without any dependencies about it? No, no. First should stand the house, the chief structure, in the foreground; appendant to that, the kitchen wing; next in grade, the wood-house; covering in, also, the minor offices of the house. Then by way of setting up, partially on their own account, should come the workshop, carriage-house, and stable, as practically having a separate character, but still subordinate to the house and its requirements; and these too, may have their piggery and hen-house, by way of tapering off to the adjoining fence, which encloses a kitchen garden, or family orchard. Thus, each structure is appropriate in its way—and together, they form a combination grateful to the sight, as a complete rural picture. All objections, on account of filth or vermin, to this connection, may be removed by a cleanly keeping of the premises—a removal of all offal immediately as it is made, and daily or weekly taking it on to the manure heaps of the barns, or depositing it at once on the grounds where it is required. In point of health, nothing is more congenial to sound physical condition than the occasional smell of a stable, or the breath of a cow, not within the immediate contiguity to the occupied rooms of the dwelling. On the score of neatness, therefore, as we have placed them, no bar can be raised to their adoption.

FARM HOUSE. Pages 115-116.

[larger view]

Design IV.

This is perhaps a more ambitious house than either of the preceding, although it may be adapted to a domain of the same extent and value. It is plain and unpretending in appearance; yet, in its ample finish, and deeply drawn, sheltering eaves, broad veranda, and spacious out-buildings, may give accommodation to a larger family indulging a more liberal style of living than the last.

By an error in the engraving, the main roof of the house is made to appear like a double, or gambrel-roof, breaking at the intersection of the gable, or hanging roof over the ends. This is not so intended. The roofs on each side are a straight line of rafters. The Swiss, or hanging style of gable-roof is designed to give a more sheltered effect to the elevation than to run the end walls to a peak in the point of the roof.

By a defect in the drawing, the roof of the veranda is not sufficiently thrown over the columns. This roof should project at least one foot beyond them, so as to perfectly shelter the mouldings beneath from the weather, and conform to the style of the main roof of the house.

The material of which it is built may be of either stone, brick, or wood, as the taste or convenience of the proprietor may suggest. The main building is 44×36 feet, on the ground. The cellar wall may show 18 to 24 inches above the ground, and be pierced by windows in each end, as shown in the plan. The height of the main walls may be two full stories below the roof plates, or the chambers may run a foot or two into the garret, at the choice of the builder, either of which arrangements may be permitted.

The front door opens from a veranda 28 feet long by 10 feet in depth, dropping eight inches from the door-sill. This veranda has a hipped roof, which juts over the columns in due proportion with the roof of the house over its walls. These columns are plain, with brackets, or braces from near their tops, sustaining the plate and finish of the roof above, which may be covered either with tin or zinc, painted, or closely shingled.

The walls of the house may be 18 to 20 feet high below the plates; the roof a pitch of 30 to 45°, which will afford an upper garret, or store, or small sleeping rooms, if required; and the eaves should project two to three feet, as climate may demand, over the walls. A plain finish—that is, ceiled underneath—is shown in the design, but brackets on the ends of the rafters, beaded and finished, may be shown, if preferred. The gables are Swiss-roofed, or truncated, thus giving them a most sheltered and comfortable appearance, particularly in a northerly climate. The small gable in front relieves the roof of its monotony, and affords light to the central garret. The chimneys are carried out with partition flues, and may be topped with square caps, as necessity or taste may demand.

Retreating three feet from the kitchen side of the house runs, at right angles, a wing 30×18 feet, one and a half stories high, with a veranda eight feet wide in front. Next in rear of this, continues a wood-house, 30×18 feet, one story high, with ten feet posts, and open in front, the ground level of which is 18 inches below the floor of the wing to which it is attached. The roof of these two is of like character with that of the main building.

Adjoining this wood-house, and at right angles with it, is a building 68×18 feet, projecting two feet outside the line of wood-house and kitchen. This building is one and a half stories high, with 12 feet posts, and roof in the same style and of equal pitch as the others.

[ INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.]

GROUND PLAN.

The front door from the veranda of the house opens into a hall, 18×8 feet, and 11 feet high, amply lighted by sash windows on the sides, and over the door. From the rear of this hall runs a flight of easy stairs, into the upper or chamber hall. On one side of the lower hall, a door leads into a parlor, 18 feet square, and 11 feet high, lighted by three windows, and warmed by an open stove, or fireplace, the pipe passing into a chimney flue in the rear. A door passes from this parlor into a rear passage, or entry, thus giving it access to the kitchen and rear apartments. At the back end of the front hall, a door leads into the rear passage and kitchen; and on the side opposite the parlor, a door opens into the sitting or family room, 18×16 feet in area, having an open fireplace, and three windows. On the hall side of this room, a door passes into the kitchen, 22×16 feet, and which may, in case the requirements of the family demand it, be made the chief family or living room, and the last one described converted into a library. In this kitchen, which is lighted by two windows, is a liberal open fireplace, with an ample oven by its side, and a sink in the outer corner. A flight of stairs, also, leads to the rear chambers above; and a corresponding flight, under them, to the cellar below. A door at each end of these stairs, leads into the back entry of the house, and thus to the other interior rooms, or through the rear outer door to the back porch. This back entry is lighted by a single sash window over the outside door leading to the porch. Another door, opposite that leading down cellar, opens into the passage through the wing. From the rear hall, which is 16×5 feet, the innermost passage leads into a family bedroom, or nursery, 16×14 feet, lighted by a window in each outside wall, and warmed by an open fireplace, or stove, at pleasure. Attached to this bedroom is a clothes-closet, 8×4 feet, with shelves, and drawers. Next the outer door, in rear end of the hall, is a small closet opening from it, 6×4 feet in dimensions, convertible to any use which the mistress of the house may direct.

CHAMBER PLAN.

Opening into the wing from the kitchen, first, is a large closet and pantry, supplied with a table, drawers, and shelves, in which are stored the dishes, table furniture, and edibles necessary to be kept at a moment's access. This room is 14×8 feet, and well lighted by a window of convenient size. If necessary, this room may have a partition, shutting off a part from the everyday uses which the family requires. In this room, so near to the kitchen, to the sink, to hot-water, and the other little domestic accessories which good housewives know so well how to arrange and appreciate, all the nice little table-comforts can be got up, and perfected, and stored away, under lock and key, in drawer, tub, or jar, at their discretion, and still their eyes not be away from their subordinates in the other departments. Next to this, and connected by a door, is the dairy, or milk-room, also 14×8 feet; which, if necessary, may be sunk three or four feet into the ground, for additional coolness in the summer season, and the floor reached by steps. In this are ample shelves for the milkpans, conveniences of churning, &c., &c. But, if the dairy be a prominent object of the farm, a separate establishment will be required, and the excavation may not be necessary for ordinary household uses. Out of this milk-room, a door leads into a wash-room, 18×14 feet. A passage from the kitchen also leads into this. The wash-room is lighted by two windows in rear, and one in front. A sink is between the two rear windows, with conductor leading outside, and a closet beneath it, for the iron ware. In the chimney, at the end, are boilers, and a fireplace, an oven, or anything else required, and a door leading to a platform in the wood-house, and so into the yard. On the other side of the chimney, a door leads into a bathing-room, 7×6 feet, into which hot water is drawn from one of the boilers adjoining, and cold water may be introduced, by a hand-pump, through a pipe leading into the well or cistern.

As no more convenient opportunity may present itself, a word or two will be suggested as to the location of the bath-room in a country house. In city houses, or country houses designed for the summer occupancy of city dwellers, the bathing-rooms are usually placed in the second or chamber story, and the water for their supply is drawn from cisterns still above them. This arrangement, in city houses, is made chiefly from the want of room on the ground floor; and, also, thus arranged in the city-country houses, because they are so constructed in the city. In the farm house, or in the country house proper, occupied by whom it may be, such arrangement is unnecessary, expensive, and inconvenient. Unnecessary, because there is no want of room on the ground; expensive, because an upper cistern is always liable to leakages, and a consequent wastage of water, wetting, and rotting out the floors, and all the slopping and dripping which such accidents occasion; and inconvenient, from the continual up-and-down-stair labor of those who occupy the bath, to say nothing of the piercing the walls of the house, for the admission of pipes to lead in and let out the water, and the thousand-and-one vexations, by way of plumbers' bills, and expense of getting to and from the house itself, always a distance of some miles from the mechanic.

The only defence for such location of the bath-room and cisterns is, the convenience and privacy of access to them, by the females of the family. This counts but little, if anything, over the place appropriated in this, and the succeeding designs of this work. The access is almost, if not quite as private as the other, and, in case of ill-health, as easily approachable to invalids. And on the score of economy in construction, repair, or accident, the plan here adopted is altogether preferable. In this plan, the water is drawn from the boiler by the turning of a cock; that from the cistern, by a minute's labor with the hand-pump. It is let off by the drawing of a plug, and discharges, by a short pipe, into the adjoining garden, or grassplat, to moisten and invigorate the trees and plants which require it, and the whole affair is clean and sweet again. A screen for the window gives all the privacy required, and the most fastidious, shrinking female is as retired as in the shadiest nook of her dressing-room.

So with water-closets. A fashion prevails of thrusting these noisome things into the midst of sleeping chambers and living rooms—pandering to effeminacy, and, at times, surcharging the house—for they cannot, at all times, and under all circumstances, be kept perfectly close—with their offensive odor. Out of the house they belong; and if they, by any means, find their way within its walls proper, the fault will not be laid at our door.

To get back to our description. This bathing-room occupies a corner of the wood-house.

A raised platform passes from the wash-room in, past the bath-room, to a water-closet, which may be divided into two apartments, if desirable. The vaults are accessible from the rear, for cleaning out, or introducing lime, gypsum, powdered charcoal, or other deodorizing material. At the extreme corner of the wood-house, a door opens into a feed and swill-room, 20×8 feet, which is reached by steps, and stands quite eighteen inches above the ground level, on a stone under-pinning, or with a stone cellar beneath, for the storage of roots in winter. In one corner of this is a boiler and chimney, for cooking food for the pigs and chickens. A door leads from this room into the piggery, 20×12 feet, where half-a-dozen swine may be kept. A door leads from this pen into a yard, in the rear, where they will be less offensive than if confined within. If necessary, a flight of steps, leading to the loft overhead, may be built, where corn can be stored for their feeding.

Next to this is the workshop and tool-house, 18×14 feet; and, in rear, a snug, warm house for the family chickens, 18×6 feet. These chickens may also have the run of the yard in rear, with the pigs, and apartments in the loft overhead for roosting.

Adjoining the workshop is the carriage house, 18×18 feet, with a flight of stairs to the hayloft above, in which is, also, a dovecote; and, leading out of the carriage floor, is the stable, 18×12 feet, with stalls for two or four horses, and a passage of four feet wide, from the carriage-house into it; thus completing, and drawing under one continuous roof, and at less exposure than if separated, the chief every-day requirements of living, to a well-arranged and highly-respectable family.

The chamber plan of the dwelling will be readily understood by reference to its arrangement. There are a sufficiency of closets for all purposes, and the whole are accessible from either flight of stairs. The rooms over the wing, of course, should be devoted to the male domestics of the family, work-people, &c.

[ SURROUNDING PLANTATIONS, SHRUBBERY, WALKS, ETC.]

After the general remarks made in the preceding pages, no particular instructions can be given for the manner in which this residence should be embellished in its trees and shrubbery. The large forest trees, always grand, graceful, and appropriate, would become such a house, throwing a protecting air around and over its quiet, unpretending roof. Vines, or climbing roses, might throw their delicate spray around the columns of the modest veranda, and a varied selection of familiar shrubbery and ornamental plants checker the immediate front and sides of the house looking out upon the lawn; through which a spacious walk, or carriage-way should wind, from the high road, or chief approach.

There are, however, so many objects to be consulted in the various sites of houses, that no one rule can be laid down for individual guidance. The surface of the ground immediately adjoining the house must be considered; the position of the house, as it is viewed from surrounding objects; its altitude, or depression, as affected by the adjacent lands; its command upon surrounding near, or distant objects, in the way of prospect; the presence of water, either in stream, pond, or lake, far or near, or the absence of water altogether—all these enter immediately into the manner in which the lawn of a house should be laid out, and worked, and planted. But as a rule, all filagree work, such as serpentine paths, and tortuous, unmeaning circles, artificial piles of rock, and a multitude of small ornaments—so esteemed, by some—should never be introduced into the lawn of a farm house. It is unmeaning, in the first place; expensive in its care, in the second place; unsatisfactory and annoying altogether. Such things about a farm establishment are neither dignified nor useful, and should be left to town's-people, having but a stinted appreciation of what constitutes natural beauty, and wanting to make the most of the limited piece of ground of which they are possessed.

Nor would we shut out, by these remarks, the beauty and odor of the flower-borders, which are so appropriately the care of the good matron of the household and her comely daughters. To them may be devoted a well-dug plat beneath the windows, or in the garden. Enough, and to spare, they should always have, of such cheerful, life-giving pleasures. We only object to their being strewed all over the ground,—a tussoc of plant here, a patch of posey there, and a scattering of both everywhere, without either system or meaning. They lower the dignity and simplicity of the country dwelling altogether.

The business approach to this house is, of course, toward the stables and carriage-house, and from them should lead off the main farm-avenue.

The kitchen garden, if possible, should lie on the kitchen side of the house, where, also, should be placed the bee-house, in full sight from the windows, that their labors and swarming may be watched. In fact, the entire economy of the farm house, and its appendages, should be brought close under the eye of the household, to engage their care and watchfulness, and to interest them in all the little associations and endearments—and they are many, when properly studied out—which go to make agricultural life one of the most agreeable pursuits, if not altogether so, in which our lot in life may be cast.

A fruit-garden, too, should be a prominent object near this house. We are now advancing somewhat into the elegances of agricultural life; and although fruit trees, and good fruits too, should hold a strong place in the surroundings of even the humblest of all country places—sufficient, at least, for the ample use of the family—they have not yet been noticed, to any extent, in those already described. It may be remarked, that the fruit-garden—the orchard, for market purposes, is not here intended—should be placed in near proximity to the house. All the small fruits, for household use, such as strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, grapes, as well as apricots, plums, nectarines, peaches, pears, apples, quinces, or whatever fruits may be cultivated, in different localities, should be close by, for the convenience of collecting them, and to protect them from destruction by vermin, birds, or the depredations of creatures called human.

A decided plan of arrangement for all the plantations and grounds, should enter into the composition of the site for the dwelling, out-houses, gardens, &c., as they are to appear when the whole establishment is completed; and nothing left to accident, chance, or after-thought, which can be disposed of at the commencement. By the adoption of such a course, the entire composition is more easily perfected, and with infinitely greater expression of character, than if left to the chance designs, or accidental demands of the future.

Another feature should be strictly enforced, in the outward appointments of the farm house,—and that is, the entire withdrawal of any use of the highway, in its occupation by the stock of the farm, except in leading them to and from its enclosures. Nothing looks more slovenly, and nothing can be more unthrifty, in an enclosed country, than the running of farm stock in the highway. What so untidy as the approach to a house, with a herd of filthy hogs rooting about the fences, basking along the sidewalk, or feeding at a huge, uncouth, hollowed log, in the road near the dwelling. It may be out of place here to speak of it, but this disgusting spectacle has so often offended our sight, at the approach of an otherwise pleasant farm establishment, that we cannot forego the opportunity to speak of it. The road lying in front, or between the different sections of the farm, should be as well, and as cleanly kept as any portion of the enclosures, and it is equally a sin against good taste and neighborhood-morality, to have it otherwise.

[ TREE-PLANTING IN THE HIGHWAY.]

This is frequently recommended by writers on country embellishment, as indispensable to a finished decoration of the farm. Such may, or may not be the fact. Trees shade the roads, when planted on their sides, and so they partially do the fields adjoining, making the first muddy, in bad weather, by preventing the sun drying them, and shading the crops of the last by their overhanging foliage, in the season of their growth. Thus they are an evil, in moist and heavy soils. Yet, in light soils, their shade is grateful to the highway traveler, and not, perhaps, injurious to the crops of the adjoining field; and when of proper kinds, they add grace and beauty to the domain in which they stand. We do not, therefore, indiscriminately recommend them, but leave it to the discretion of the farmer, to decide for himself, having seen estates equally pleasant with, and without trees on the roadside. Nothing, however, can be more beautiful than a clump of trees in a pasture-ground, with a herd, or a flock beneath them, near the road; or the grand and overshadowing branches of stately tree, in a rich meadow, leaning, perhaps, over the highway fence, or flourishing in its solitary grandeur, in the distance—each, and all, imposing features in the rural landscape. All such should be preserved, with the greatest care and solicitude, as among the highest and most attractive ornaments which the farm can boast.

FARM HOUSE. Pages 131-132.

[larger view]

Design V.

We here present a dwelling of a more ambitious and pretending character than any one which we have, as yet, described, and calculated for a large and wealthy farmer, who indulges in the elegances of country life, dispenses a liberal hospitality, and is every way a country gentleman, such as all our farmers of ample means should be. It will answer the demands of the retired man of business as well; and is, perhaps, as full in its various accommodation as an American farm or country house may require. It claims no distinct style of architecture, but is a composition agreeable in effect, and appropriate to almost any part of the country, and its climate. Its site may be on either hill or plain—with a view extensive, or restricted. It may look out over broad savannas, cultivated fields, and shining waters; it may nestle amid its own quiet woods and lawn in its own selected shade and retirement, or lord it over an extensive park, ranged by herds and flocks, meandered by its own stream, spreading anon into the placid lake, or rushing swiftly over its own narrow bed—an independent, substantial, convenient, and well-conditioned home, standing upon its own broad acres, and comporting with the character and standing of its occupant, among his friends and neighbors.

The main building is 50×40 feet in area upon the ground, two stories high; the ground story 11 feet high, its floor elevated 2½ or 3 feet above the level of the surrounding surface, as its position may demand; the chambers 9 feet high, and running 2 feet into the roof. The rear wing is one and a half stories high, 36×16 feet; the lower rooms 11 feet high, with a one story lean-to range of closets, and small rooms on the weather side, 8 feet in width and 9 feet high. In the rear of these is a wood-house, 30×20 feet, with 10 feet posts, dropped to a level with the ground. At the extremity of this is a building, by way of an L, 60×20 feet, one and a half stories high, with a lean-to, 12×30 feet, in the rear. The ground rooms of this are elevated 1½ feet above the ground, and 9 feet high. A broad roof covers the whole, standing at an angle of 40 or 45° above a horizontal line, and projecting widely over the walls, 2½ to 3 feet on the main building, and 2 feet on the others, to shelter them perfectly from the storms and damps of the weather. A small cupola stands out of the ridge of the rear building, which may serve as a ventilator to the apartments and lofts below, and in it may be hung a bell, to summon the household, or the field laborers, as the case may be, to their duties or their meals.