FARM ARCHITECTURE. 



149 



sible to make a great many very large books of designs of 

 houses which ought not to be built: in fact, many such 



books have already been made, with 

 truly pitiful results. 



The public taste has been educated 

 ^ in the wrong way. 



Bl^ n I jl Many of these designs are accom- 



, -^ ^'"""^■'M- panied by details of construction, 



and, in the hope of saving the ex- 

 l)ense of an architect's assistance, are 

 frequently adopted, repentance fol- 

 lowing adoption sooner or later, ac- 

 cording to the greater or less intelli- 

 gence of the owner. 



The second law of domestic archi- 

 tecture requires every house to be designed for and adapted 

 to its own situation. Yet, to note the architectural products 





of the last few years, one would say that the highest ambi- 

 tion of house-builders has been to imitate something else. 



Some of these are utterly hopeless as to 

 their exteriors. Nothing can be done for 

 them unless we shove them together, — 

 shut them up as we would a telescope, — 

 which might not be altogether convenient 

 or agreeable. 



The modern French roof — a fashion, 

 that, having nothing to recommend it, has 

 already passed out of fashion — is interest- 

 ing in comparison with its humble prototj^pe 

 the old gambrel roof. Even with its scroll- 

 sawed brackets and cast-iron cemetery-fence on the roof, it 

 is less attractive than the old house, and not half as suscepti- 



