272 



SUBURBAN COTTAGES. 



upright position much better than trees set 

 by the ordinary method. If you take hold 

 of a tree immediately after it is set, in the 

 way I have described, you can pull it over 

 very easily, but after it has stood a few 

 hours, it feels as if it had grown in its netv 

 position. 



Finally, I am confident, from practice, 

 that the trees are more certain to live and 



grow vigorously when water is used in this 

 way, while they are being planted. After 

 losing a great number of trees, I adopted 

 this plan of transplanting, and have since 

 set about five hundred, out of which I have 

 lost about a dozen, and I think most of 

 these were dead when they were removed. 

 George Bartlett. 



SmithfieU, R. I., Oct. 7, 1847. 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE— SUBURBAN COTTAGES. 



While there is a very great improvement 

 visible in the better class of country houses, 

 we observe that the dwellings of many of 

 our villages — houses of moderate or small 

 size, and of a suburban character — that is 

 to say, with a little yard or area of ground 

 about them — retain very much the old ste- 

 reotyped form. 



In a tour, we made recently through 

 some of the most thriving and prosperous 

 parts of New England, we were much 

 struck by the almost exclusive employment 

 of the rectangular wooden cottage, smaller 

 or larger, represented in our frontispiece, 

 fig 37. Passing over the Western railroad, 

 to Boston, village after village is composed 

 almost wholly of this kind of cottage, so 

 that by the external physiognomy of the 

 dwellings themselves, it is difficult for a 

 stranger to detect characteristic features by 

 which to fix any one of the smaller places 

 in his memory. It would be easy to criti- 

 cise the style of this cottage externally — 

 for though the effect produced is meagre, 

 yet the employment of cornices and pilas- 

 ters sufficiently indicates that there is an at- 

 tempt to produce something agreeable to 

 the eye. Instead of pointing out defects 

 one by one, we prefer to offer a very rough 

 sketch of a mode of varying the exterior 

 of a suburban or village house of this kind, 



without altering its shape or accommoda- 

 tion — both of which may, no doubt, also be 

 greatly improved. (Especially do we ob- 

 ject to the too great number of windows in 

 a house of this moderate dimension.) 



In fig. 38, we have shown how, at pre- 

 cisely the same expense, this kind of dwell- 

 ing may be erected so as to be^in more 

 correct taste architecturally, and afTord at 

 the same time more comfort to its inmates. 



It appears to us, that in designing a build- 

 ing, a great deal of the success attained 

 will depend on a correspondence between 

 the style chosen and the material employed. 

 That is to say, for stone or brick, a heavy 

 style — and for wood, a light style, should 

 be chosen. 



Now the cornice and pediment, with'the 

 angular antceox imbedded pilaster, employ- 

 ed in what we might call the New-England 

 cottage, properly express stone, as they are 

 forms which originated in the use of that 

 material. But the projecting roof, sup- 

 ported on light brackets, naturally grows 

 out of the employment of wood, a lighter 

 and more easily wrought material. 



This projecting roof gives as much cha- 

 racter and expression to a rectangular wood- 

 en cottage, as can possibly be given in any 

 consistent and simple way. Besides, by 

 I shading, during a part of the day, the upper 



