364 WISCONSIN AGEICULTUEB. 



disregard to health and beauty is shown in selecting the position, 

 the buildings are erected in high, heavy, and disproportioned 

 style, with uncomely wings and lean-tos, broad, short windows, 

 and every part without adaptation to any other part, the whole 

 presenting an uncouth appearance as though the sep irate parts 

 had been brought from different nations, and constructed for 

 very different sorts of buildings. Now, in the country, where 

 the dearness of land is not an important consideration, and does 

 not necessarily limit the size of buildings, it is unwise to put up 

 high ones — above one and a half stories — as it requires far more 

 effort to do the ordinary housework in high houses, they are 

 more exposed to the beating of the storms, cost more to keep 

 them warm, and are more dangerous and difficult to protect 

 against fires, where there is no access to engines. Thus, all 

 things considered, low cottages are better calculated to promote 

 enjoyment and safety in country building than higher ones ; 

 a liberal story-and-a-half house properly lighted and ventilated, 

 is probably best suited for the purposes of a country dwelling. 



Then, buildings which are much longer one way than the 

 other, or with various wings and additions, are more costly, and 

 require more wall in proportion to the amount of room fur- 

 nished than square ones, or those nearly so, and which enclose 

 the whole area in continuous walls. 



This proposition is well understood, and generally practised 

 by farmers in fencing their fields, as more fence-stuff is re- 

 quired to fence a long field than a square one containing an 

 of equal number acres, and of course the same is true in regard to 

 the walls of buildings. And it is also well known that a circle 

 will enclose more area than any other line or mathematical fig- 

 ure of the same length ; so that the nearer we approach that 

 form in the walls of our buildings i\xQ more economical will they 

 be, the more room will we get for the length of our walls; 

 hence, the octagonal form is the most desirable, for this and sev- 

 eral other reasons ; all of the rooms are brought nearer together, 

 and all parts of the house may be more readily approached from 

 a common hall or centre, which, of course will require less 

 travel to do the work ; besides, it affords more sides or fronts 



