FARM ARCHITECTURE. 145 



completeness, and perfect adaptation to its condition and 

 surroundings. For these reasons, I should say that a cheap 

 wooden frame is not the best kind of farmhouse to build. 

 A well-constructed wooden house is good ; a well-built house 

 of stones or bricks is better, and costs but little more. 



To build the cellar-walls of rough stones, the underpinning 

 of weather-worn, moss-covered cobbles, or small bowlders, 

 giving architectual importance to the base of the building, — 

 a most essential point, if the first floor is high above ground, 

 — and the walls above of bricks, is, in stony regions where 

 bricks are also to be found within reasonable distance, a wise 

 use of material. 



Small stones in their natural shape and color, for the 

 main walls, are often recommended ; but the arguments for 

 their use are supposed to be rather sesthetic and picturesque 

 than practical. 



That is a mistake. 



A wall of this kind, allowing nothing for the raw material, 

 the cost of which will depend entirely on local circumstances, 

 can be laid for from a dollar and a half to two dollars per 

 perch of sixteen feet, which is less than half the usual cost 

 of bricks. Neither is the use of stones that have grown 

 gray, and spotted with lichens, a joke, or a fanciful expedient. 

 Such wall is truly wholesome, altogether lovely : in fact, 

 it is beautiful. 



And if it is not solid common sense to use the cheapest, 

 the most enduring, and the most beautiful material at hand, 

 I do not understand the ingredients of common sense. 



I believe also in bricks, even that terror of many sensitive 

 critics, — "a brick house in the country." Not necessarily 

 a square house, built of square bricks with a square roof, 

 square windows, square doors, square doorsteps, and a square- 

 toed family to live in it ; not a house of pale-red bricks laid 

 in white mortar, with a white cornice, white window-frames, 

 Avhite window-sash, and faded blue-paper curtains. But 

 modest, simple walls with crooks and corners, if the con- 

 venience of the interior and the command of desirable out- 

 looks require crooks and corners ; a roof that looks like 

 what it is, — a secure covering; porches and bay-windows 

 where they belong ; well-chosen paint for the visible wood- 

 work ; and plenty of glass. 



