RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



along its borders, and each enjoying its own peculiar point of sight and beauty? And yet, 

 most of the foreign tourists, who come here to make books about us and our country, 

 cannot discover anything remarkable in the scenery of the Hudson ! 



Messina is a grand house, — dignified, rich, and spacious; worth a score of the modern 

 Gothic and castellated gimcracks now getting to be so common, and built at a cost of 

 double the money. I wish j'ou had inserted the ground plan and in-door accommodation 

 as well, and then we could get a full idea of its character. 



j^ppk tree Borers. — It is next to impossible to find the whereabouts of this destructive 

 insect by inserting a wire into the tree, by reason of its tortuous track inside the bark. 

 The worm does not go straight into the trunk from its entrance. Sometimes it will turn 

 up, or down, and progressing half an inch or more, will turn and wind half way round it 

 through the sap wood, and then work up or down again, as the case may be. There is 

 no so effectual way as to take a sharp pointed jack-knife, and cut at once into the tree at 

 its entrance, and follow the miscreant till you find him. It is sometimes a severe opera- 

 tion to the tree, I confess, but not fatal, and far better than to permit him to continue his 

 ravages. This is an effectual cure. The soap and tobacco may reach him, or it may not. 

 As a wash, however, it is good for the tree; and if it hit the grub it will destroy him. I 

 have sometimes followed him with my knife, for an inch or two, through a compact mass 

 of borings, which he had left in his rear, in which no wire could penetrate. In fact you 

 can be sure of nothing, short of a thorough search with the knife. Jeffreys. 



lU HI Bin 3. 



Rural Architecture; being a complete description of Parm-houses, Cottages, and out- 

 buildings. By Lewis F. Allen. New-York: Saxton, 1 vol. 384 p.p. 12 mo. 

 When a plain practical farmer undertakes to write a book on architecture, no one will ex- 

 pect his book to smack of Vitruvius or Palladio, any more than one would expect a 

 good house painter to turn out Vandykes and Raphaels. Accordingly, any one who 

 looks for very correct and studied architecture in Mr. Allen's excellent book will be dis- 

 appointed — since not one of the buildings represented in the volume would bear criticism 

 by the laws of beauty and proportion, which govern, or are supposed to govern, architec- 

 ture as a fine art. 



Having said this, we are bound to add that the author entirely disclaims being an ar- 

 chitect, and begins his preface b}'' an apology for "attempting a work on a subject of 

 which he is not a professional master, either in design or execution." 



On the other hand, we take great pleasure in saying that Mr. Allen has not written a 

 book like many books that are now inflicted upon the public, for either money or 

 fame, but because he had something to say. If he is not an architect, he is a sagacious 

 clear headed, American farmer, who knows, perhaps, better than most architects, 

 what sort of comforts and conveniences farmers want — and how to get at such a house, 

 and such barns and out-buildings as are really practicable, and adapted to the cir- 

 cumstances of an American farmer's life. Accordingly, every page is full of instruction 

 for those of the farming class who are about building, and instruction not drawn from 

 — but from actual experience — the experience of a man who lives, eats, drinks, and 

 like a farmer, and who makes all about him fall into its right place, and obey that 



