CONSTRUCTION OF STONE BUILDINGS. Ill 



supply can only be understood by those who engage in their 

 removal. No one having land, moderately rocky, need fear 

 a want of supply in any uses for which he may need them, if 

 the undertaking is of reasonable magnitude. I am fully satis- 

 tied with my experiment, both as regards the elegance and the 

 cost of the structures. As building-material, I know of none 

 more beautiful or desirable, and when we take into account 

 durability and exemption from repairs, we are forced to 

 regard these rocks with favor. It is, indeed, a pity our fore- 

 fathers, in erecting farm-buildings, treated them with neglect. 

 If stone had been used instead of perishable wood, how many 

 antique and interesting cottages and barns would line the 

 roadways throughout New England. The country, instead of 

 presenting a desolate and uninviting appearance, would be 

 full of ancestral homes, most of which would be warm and 

 habitable. Old England is dotted all over with these stone 

 buildings, many of which are, of course, most humble and 

 unpretentious, but still, they are interesting from their 

 antiquity and family histories. Every structure here in the 

 country is perishable ; our buildings of wood are built for 

 to-day, and scarcely last through one generation. What 

 sight is more melancholy and dispiriting than the old tumble- 

 down, wooden farm-houses which are seen by every road- 

 side in the country ? No wonder the sons of our husbandmen 

 flee from them to the cities ; they convey to the mind of youth 

 no emotions of home, no symbols of thrift or permanency. 

 It is natural to flee from dilapidation, decay and ruin. It 

 seems to me that in the erection of more permanent homes 

 lies the hope of New England husbandry. What we need to 

 retain our boys upon the farm is, more attractive surround- 

 ings ; indubitable evidences that there is something solid and 

 enduring and comfortable in farm life ; and also, it is impor- 

 tant that there should be evidence afibrded to the minds of 

 youth, that expenses for repairs of homestead buildings will 

 not eat up the prospective profits of the farms. Why, if a 

 sou succeeds his father upon a farm, and the buildings are of 

 wood, and kept tidy and attractive with paint, the cost of 

 painting, once in four or five years, will exceed the amount 

 of taxes, state, town and county. This is an item not lost 

 sight of when a young man decides to abandon the paternal 



