1-12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ancestors 4:o build not only the cellar, but the entire walls, of 

 their modest houses. Probably because it was a great deal 

 harder work to chop and hew white-oak logs, and saw rock- 

 maple boards by hand in a saw-pit, than it was to pick up 

 flat stones, and pile them one upon another. And, having 

 set out to be heroes and martjrs, they preferred to do things 

 in the hardest way. 



Where stones do not abound, the foundations from the 

 very bottom may well be of hard bricks. Such a wall is 

 smooth, clean, and dry. Rats and mice will gnash their 

 teeth and squeal behind it ; and it will endure till the crack 

 of doom. 



My thread divides again. 



If the superstructure is of wood, a little commonplace 

 technical description of its construction should be given, in 

 order to bring out a certain point which ought to be made 

 plain. 



As every one knows who cares to, a wooden liouse, like a 

 velvet bonnet, must have a " frame." This, in the case of the 

 house, consists of the "sills," which are large beams lying 

 horizontally on the brick or stone wall. Upon these stand 

 vertically — most of them thin, flat, and set edgewise — 

 smaller pieces of timber called "studs" and "posts," around 

 the top of which is another row of timbers lying horizontally, 

 called the "plates," and over these the rafters, variously 

 inclined towards the zenith. 



Between the sills, and level with them, are other hori- 

 zontal beams, — the joists of the first floor. Eight, ten, or 

 twelve feet above these are the joists of the second floor, if 

 there is one; and still higher, perhaps, — for house-builders 

 are an aspiring race, — the floors of the upper stories ; the 

 joists being usually thin, flat, and set edgewise. 



The outside of the studs and posts is covered with 

 boards in some shape, to keep out the weather ; the inside, 

 with wooden lath and a coat of mortar. On the top of the 

 joists, boards are laid to walk upon ; and underneath they, 

 too, are covered by lath and plaster. 



Between the different rooms, partitions are made of small, 

 upright pieces of timber standing one or two feet apart, like- 

 wise covered on both sides with the same lath and plaster. 



As bees build hexagonal cells of wax, so it seems to be 



