DESIGN FOR A SOUTHERN COUNTRY HOUSE. 



373 



juices, upon which the frost or sun acts 

 readily, that Might and other diseases of 

 the pear are most frequent? 



Is it not true that foreign varieties of 

 pear, especially those originated within 

 the last few years, are far more delicate 

 and liable to. disease than native sorts 

 of equal merit, raised from seed in this 

 country? 



I throw out these queries to set some of 

 your ingenious and practical correspondents, 

 in various parts of the country, at work to 

 furnish materials for answers that will set- 

 tle some knotty points. For my own part, I 

 have made up my mind that to grow fine 

 pears for profit, we must, in order to save 

 the trees and keep them sound, keep the 

 trunks and leading branches covered with 

 a light sheathing of straw all the year 

 round. This guards the bark of the prin- 

 cipal parts of the tree from all excesses of 

 heat and. cold. I have experimented for 

 four years past with this plan of sheathing, 

 and can say that I am quite satisfied with 



it. Among three dozen pear trees now 

 just come into bearing, one-third of them 

 have been kept in straw, and not a single 

 one of that dozen has suffered by blight or 

 other disease ; while of the remaining two 

 dozen, nearly one-half have dropped off, 

 and been dug up and consigned to the 

 brush heap. Some careless farmer or gar- 

 dener — fond of shirking everything that he 

 can — will say, " but who can take the 

 trouble to straw all his pear trees? " 



You can, is my reply. Try it on half a 

 dozen trees, and keep an account of the 

 time and labor spent in it. It will amount 

 to a few cents per tree, — not the price of 

 half a peck of Virgalieus in the York mar- 

 ket. And if you can gather pears by the 

 cartload — for no fruit ripens better, or has 

 a higher flavor than the pear in this cli- 

 mate — if, I say, you can gather pears every 

 year by the cartload, for only the trouble of 

 strawing the trees, then the blight take 

 you if you are too lazy to do it ! 



An Old Digger. 



DESIGN FOR A SOUTHERN COUNTRY HOUSE. 



We give the sketch of the elevation and 

 plan of a country house, of moderate size, 

 suitable for the southern states, at the sug- 

 gestion of a number of southern readers, 

 who do not find our northern dwellings 

 adapted to their wants. 



In the south, airy apartments, spacious, 

 rather than numerous, shadowy roofs, and 

 long verandas are indispensable. A de- 

 tached kitchen, situated 20, 30 or more 

 yards from the house is another universal 

 feature. This kitchen contains servants' 

 bed-rooms above, — only such servants sleep- 

 ing in the dwelling as are personal attend- 

 ants. For this reason, there is not so 



much room required for servants in a south- 

 ern country house as in one at the north, 

 though more servants are employed and 

 more accommodation is needed in the build- 

 ings especially devoted to their use ; for 

 the very good reason, that it requires twice 

 as many negroes to perform the domestic 

 drudgery of an establishment at the south 

 as there would be needed in a residence of 

 the same size, and for the same style of 

 living at the north. 



In the accompanying design (see fron- 

 tispiece,) we have chosen a modification 

 of the bracketted Venetian style, as best 

 adapted, by its broad projecting eaves (with 



