254 THE AUTHOR'S REPLY TO 



on the ground-plan, but another wholly distinct building ; but whe- 

 ther intended for the same, or for others, those four boxes would, 

 in my neighbourhood, cost forty pounds instead of six." 



The four boxes remain precisely in the same state as when 

 sketched for publication, one side resting upon a wall pre- 

 viously built for another purpose. In any neighbourhood, or 

 under any circumstances,, the assertion that four such boxes 

 would cost forty pounds, is not only absurd, but directly at 

 variance with truth. 



" The four boxes, of which you give the elevation, instead of being 

 covered with a roof composed of trimmings of hedges and ditches, 

 are evidently covered with a substantial coat of thatch, which, in this 

 country, where wheat-straw costs 31. and 31. 5s. per ton, would alone 

 absorb nearly or quite all the fund of 30s. per box, which you are 

 said to have allotted for the construction of the whole building" 



Again Mr. Taunton is at variance with truth ; for the roofs 

 in question are composed entirely of trimmings from hedges 

 and ditches, thatched with about as much straw as is generally 

 used for wheat-stacks ; the value of which, with the trimmings, 

 I considered ought not to be placed to the account of the boxes ; 

 because such insignificant materials must have been consumed 

 upon the farm in some other way much less profitable. The 

 high price of straw around Stockbridge is probably occasioned 

 by the low state of agriculture, Had my plans been adopted 

 on the first appearance of No. 3, straw, in Hampshire, would, 

 by this time, have been far more plentiful and less expensive. 

 A more pitiable description of the mal- appropriation of land I 

 never read, than one contained in a letter from an early cor- 

 respondent in that country; and I question whether Ashley 

 itself is not in a similar state. 



" You assume that on every farm there is a wall of the barn, or 

 other wall, of which advantage may be taken, to build the box in 

 contact with it. But, in every economically built and disposed 

 farmstead, the wall of the barn is already occupied by stables, calf- 

 houses, tool-houses, root-sheds, cart-houses, piggeries, and the like." 



