no 



RURAL ARTS IN T[IK VALLKY OF TIIC MlSSISSlPPr. 



are only partial examples of our views and | the subject, from time to time, with various 

 taste in this matter. We shall continue other examples. 



Notes on the State of the Rural Arts in the Valley of the Mississippi. 



BY THOMAS ALLEN, OF ST. LOUIS, MO. 



I AM glad to perceive that we are to have a 

 new magazine devoted to Horticulture, Ru- 

 ral Art and Rural Taste. 



The occasion is a fitting one for me to 

 sav, that it is not difficult to account for the 

 apparent want of taste in Rural Architec- 

 ture in this country. I say apparent, for it 

 is not time yet to decide that there is a real 

 want of it. The great majority of our peo- 

 ple have been obliged to content themselves 

 with the merely necessary ; and those only 

 have been able to adorn, who have prospered 

 to the requisite height of leisure and means. 

 If a magazine, exclusively devoted to the 

 ornamental departments of Rural Life, can 

 be sustained, it will prove an increased love 

 for that life and activity in it. Rural Ar- 

 chitecture will develop itself with the ad- 

 vance of the country in civilization and 

 wealth, and its results will be at once the 

 rvi lence and the consequence of prosperity 

 souK'where. In proportion to the number 

 of individuals embraced in that prosperity, 

 shall we observe the frequency and genera- 

 lity of those results. We must look to the 

 future for originality in design. At present 

 the higher grades of our art in this country 

 are imitative. I know of but one existing 

 evidence of an attempt to originate an Ame- 

 rican Order of Architecture, and that con- 

 sists in the marble columns, representing 

 bundles of Indian corn, standing in the vesti- 

 bule of the United States Supreme Court 

 at Washington. 



There are very few people who are not 

 pleased with real rural decorations, although 



there may be man}', loving them, who 

 have not the genius, the energy, the leisure 

 or the means, to originate them, or to ap- 

 propriate to their own use those already 

 planned. But all are not architects, nor 

 lovers of architecture. Some architects are 

 born, others made ; and in all, the art may 

 be cultivated and improved by reflection, by 

 custom, by examples, and by rational teach- 

 ing. The love and effect of it will increase 

 by study and observation. It inspires a 

 taste for neatness and regularity, and in its 

 more imposing forms, has an impressive ef- 

 fect in exciting emotions of beauty, gran- 

 deur and durability. But in forming a na- 

 tional taste in architecture, a right direction 

 will not be given, unless there are included 

 in the practical philosophy of the subject, 

 other considerations than those appertaining 

 to merely mechanical construction. There 

 must be the fitness of the building to the 

 object, the suitableness of the order to the 

 place, the adaptation of the materials to the 

 purpose, of style of construction to the cli- 

 mate, and a proper proportion, having re- 

 ference as well to the several members of 

 the structure itself, as to all the parts and 

 circumstances that are to be inevitably com- 

 bined in the whole result. It is an art of 

 peace, combining beauty with utility ; and 

 the full development of it, in its true philo- 

 sophy, supposes an advancement in civili- 

 zation and refinement, to which but few 

 nations have attained. Love of country, and 

 a feeling of contentment and security, must 

 almost necessarily precede and accompany it 



