i'ARMERS^ INSTITUTES. 515 



petent to practice a profession calling for quite as high an order of ability 

 and training as medicine, dentistry or law. In fact the services of a com- 

 petent and practical architect ofttimes prevents his client from the neces- 

 sity of calling npon the doctor or lawj^er. The person who is his own 

 architect usually finds out his mistake, but not until he has suffered 

 serious inconvenience. The tuition in the school of experience comes very 

 high, but men are often determined to have it. Many excellent reasons 

 founded on common sense and practical experience can be vu-ged for 

 employing a competent architect in building operations of whatever kind. 

 By employing an architect, completeness and consistency in plan aref 

 assured. The owner, or builder, unless himself a practical architect, can 

 rarely make plans that will "work out" smoothly and perfectly. As a 

 little girl of my acquaintance once said, he- can not "inch them." They 

 may be right enough in the main, but defects and miscalculations, often 

 decidedly serious in their nature, almost invariably develop, and result in 

 much extra expense in making alterations, or in an inconvenient, incom- 

 plete and unsightly structure; frequently in a combination of all these 

 drawbacks. When you see a man with a special knowledge of architec- 

 ture engaged in making so-called plans, and later see him attempting to 

 superintend the work of construction, you are pretty safe in the conclusion 

 that it is his first building venture. Against the time he has paid for his 

 experiment in money, annoyance, loss of time and profanity, he will, 

 probably, have acquired experience enough to employ, in his second under- 

 taking, a competent and reliable architect. I say probably, for there are 

 some who can not learn, just as there are persons who can be gulled time 

 and again on patent rights. Architecture teaches the art of building, 

 and is one of the most useful, as well as ancient, of all the arts. It 

 demands much more time and attention than it usually receives. It 

 requires careful and exhaustive study. A competent architect will care- 

 fully and intelligently specify materials and construction, thus protecting 

 you in your contracts. In our day all forms of business are so subdivided 

 as to render it impossible for one man to have more than a passing 

 acquaintance with any of them. Houses are no longer constructed simply 

 of brick or wood, or a combination of the two, but scores of new materials, 

 and especially devices, are now employed in constiiiction that were un- 

 known a generation ago. Substitution now cuts a decided figure and is 

 likely to embarrass one who lacks wide experience. The owner who acts 

 the part of "every man his own architect," usually learns this, if not 

 before his building is completed, as soon as necessary repairs, incident to 

 poor material, are to be made. "While some may, as has been said, "build 

 better than they know," the rule is the other way, and lack of accurately 

 figured, carefully drawn working plans, frequently result in serious, some- 

 times grotesque and laughable mistakes and blunders, which not only 

 makes the builder ridiculous, but presents him with heavy bills incident 



