TO HIS GARDENER 79 



destroyed by next plowing. I again recommend your making 

 good use of your time in forwarding your business. 



30*1^ Sept. 1742. 



XXVII 



You write very seldom so I know little what is doing, conse- 17 Oct. 1742. 

 quently can give no directions. I am put to think the reason 

 for this and can find none but one of two. One that little is 

 done and you dont care to tell me so. The other that as I 

 write seldom you think you need neither be in haste in going 

 on nor in writing but drone on trifling away the season 

 properest of all the year for business. 



The last from you was of 24**^ last month. I need only name 

 the date to show you how little my repeated directions are 

 obeyed, and what can I think of any other orders when what 

 I have repeated a hundred times is not minded. I can give no 

 orders, as I know not one bit what you have done or what you 

 are doing except a little very short and so not to be under- 

 stood Story in your's of 24*^ Sept. The Season is most 

 favorable, but work in Nov'' costs , . . double what it does at 

 this season and cannot be half so well performed. 



I can give my consent to no houses being built in the Main 

 Street of the Town but what are two Storys high. None who 

 think justly and wishes well to it can wish to have it disfigured 

 in that particular or any other that can be prevented. Every 

 man concerned in the place has an interest in having the Main 

 Street appear as handsome and to look as well as we can and not 

 to have little paltry houses in that street. This is for the good 

 of every one has Property in the place, and the letting it be con- 

 fusedly built hurts all — whereas good handsome houses sets off 

 the place — whereas ugly ones hurts the narrow thinking man that 

 builds them and also disfigures the Town and loses to all con- 

 cerned ten times more than the fool saves. I suppose you design 

 little poor Windows and Doors that nobody can go in or out with- 

 out breaking their head except the^ remember to duck like a goose. 



^ For * they. ' Cottages were very low because the timber (cabers, here called 

 spars) needed to support a roof on the clay or turf walls was small and scarce. 

 The low door was supposed to add warmth. The windows were small for the 

 same reason. Glass was a luxury. Stone was little used for building. 



