Notes oil Cottdi^cs zvith Cottage Plans 



553 



experienced they commend Uiemselves at 

 once to the common-sense notions of house- 

 wives, who know the economical advantages 

 obtained from a good provision store. It is 

 surely unnecessary to note that a privy is an 

 essential feature in the accommodation re- 

 quired for an agricultural labourer. In im- 

 mediate juxtaposition with this should be the 

 ash-pit. All smell can be completely pre- 

 vented from arising, both from the privy and 

 from decaying matter thrown into the ash- 

 l)it, by putting now and then a layer of com- 

 mon earth ; this should be dried before it is 

 api^lied. Indeed, so speedy and complete a 

 deodoriser is dried earth, that in manufactur- 

 ing what we call " home-made guano " out 

 of human excreta and dried earth, no smell 

 is at all perceptible ten or twelve minutes 

 after the mixture is made. The cottager's 

 pig is, or ought to be, an important feature in 

 the cottage domestic economy ; so in like 

 manner should be the poultry. If he can to 

 these add the dignity of a cow, little fear of 

 his ever descending in the social scale ; on 

 the contrary, mighty helps they will be found 

 to be in raising him surely, if slowly, up it. 

 The pig, the poultry-house, and the cow- 

 house .should all be arranged together, 

 and, along with the privy and the ash-pits, 

 should be placed at some distance from the 

 cottage. 



There is one point which is of great im- 

 portance in connexion with the setting out of 

 cottages, but which, nevertheless, is frecjuently 

 overlooked — namely, the necessity to pro- 

 portion the cottage accommodation to the 

 wants or necessities of the family which is to 

 occupy it. Too frequently is it the rule to 

 build cottages after a uniform plan, utterly 

 regardless of all considerations respecting the 

 size of the family. On this point Mr 

 Stephens, in the " Book of the Farm," has 

 some excellent remarks : — " The usual prac- 

 tice in building cottages for farm-servants is 

 to adopt a uniform plan upon which all are 

 built. The practice is not founded on sound 

 principle, nor even on expediency, because 

 it implies that families consisting of very dif- 

 ferent numbers should, nevertheless, be accom- 



modated within a similar space. Instead, 

 therefore, of a family accommodating itself 

 to the size of the cottage, the cottage ought 

 to be adapted to the wants of the family, and 

 there is no way of establishing this mutual 

 understanding between cottages and their 

 inmates but by building them of different 

 capacities for accommodation, and appro- 

 priating them to families in accordance with 

 their numbers. This is the only rational 

 course to pursue, and in pursuance of it, it is 

 as easy to build a given number of cottages 

 on different plans as on the same plan." 



AV'c ha^•e long maintained that the future 

 extension of cottage building for the labouring 

 classes, in a degree fully commensurate 

 with the demands of the rural districts, de- 

 pends chiefly upon the cheapness of their 

 erection. It is all very well to talk of the 

 claims of philanthropy or those of an en- 

 lightened economy, but this may be done, 

 and will be done in vain, if it is found in the 

 future, as it has been found too frequently in 

 the past, that the system of building adopted 

 is that which greatly enhances the cost of the 

 buildings. All the more decided will this 

 be if it should be proved that this expensive 

 mode of building is unnecessary — at least so 

 in many departments of construction ; and 

 that much of the expense is unnecessary, can, 

 we think, be easily proved. If only in one 

 department money can be saved, every en- 

 deavour should be made to find out what 

 that department is. One is to our minds 

 very obvious — namely, the giving of unneces- 

 sary accommodation. It has been the lot of 

 the writer to have had through his hands 

 a very great number of plans for cottages, 

 and in nearly all has he found that they 

 had been designed more in accordance 

 with pre-conceived notions of the design- 

 ers as to what they conceived necessary in 

 the cottages, than with what those who 

 were to occupy them required. It is in 

 every way worthy of remembrance, that 

 cottages are built, or should be built, with 

 accommodation suited to the actual every-day 

 requirements of those who are to inhabit 

 them, not brought up to, or measured by, the 



