138 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



holds the water, and girdle the foundation with a drain of 

 horseshoe-tiles, having one or more free outlets. Refill the 

 trench with sand, gravel, or cinders, and cover the top M-ith 

 several inches in depth of clay and loam pitching sharply 

 away from the house, and laying a shallow, open gutter of 

 concrete or cobble-stones to catch the water from the roof, 

 if there are no eave-spouts. 



If the cellar is not deep enough for the modern furnace or 

 steam-lieater, and the walls do not extend below the cellar- 

 bottom, build a new wall of bricks or stones two or three 

 feet inside of the old, and below the cellar-bottom, leaving 

 a sort of platform for bins, barrels, and boxes around the 

 edges, and dig the rest two feet deeper. By this means the 



old foundations are not disturbed, and the whole can be 

 done in cold or wet weather. 



When the old house rests so closely upon the earth that 

 no sunlight enters the cellar through the narrow windows, 

 and the cellar cannot be raised without great expense, nor the 

 earth be removed around it, then build semicircular areas 

 of bricks about the windows, and make the windows them- 

 selves large enough to admit plenty of fresh air and sunlight 

 under the house. Darkness is the first station on the road 

 that leads to dampness, decay, disease, and death. This is 

 true of the new house as well as of the old. 



The absence of porches, and the ease with which they can 

 be appended to the old house, has been suggested. But they 

 need not be elaborate or fanciful : they should be generous 

 in size. 



