420 



SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part II. 



S64 



(c), a place for a calf or pigs, or for fuel (d), water-closet (e), and dung-heap (/). 

 The laborer's cows, in this case, are kept at the farmery along with those of the farmer. 



2721 . A double ploughman's cottage and coio-honse {fi",. 364. ) may be thus arranged. Both 

 may contain a kitchen (a) with 

 an oven, and there may be a 

 small parlor or store-room 

 (5), a dairy and pantry (c), 

 with two bed-rooms over. 

 Detached may be a pig- stye 

 (rf), water-closet {e), place 

 for fuel (/), and cow-house 

 [g], with gardens adjoining, 

 dung-heap, porch, step-up, 

 &c. as in the other place. 



2722. In regard to the 

 construction of cottages much 

 information may be obtained 

 from a work entitled, A 

 Series of Plans for Cottages, 

 by J. Wood, of Bath. This 

 author lays down the fol- 

 lowing seven principles, as 

 the means of obviating the inconveniencies to v-hich cottages, as usually built, are 

 liable : 



2723. The cottage should be dry and healthy ; this is effected by keeping the floor sixteen or eighteen 

 inches above the natural ground ; by building it clear of banks, on.an open spot of ground, that has a 

 declivity or fall from the building ; by having the rooms not less than eight feet high a height that 

 will keep them airy and healthy ; and by avoiding having chambers in the roof. 



2724. Thei/ should be warm, cheerful, and comfortable. In order to attain these points, the walls should 

 be of a stifficient thickness (if of stone, not less than sixteen inches ; if of brick, at least a brick and a 

 half) to keep out the cold of the winter, or the excessive heat of the summer. The entrance should be 

 screened, that the room, on opening the door, may not be exposed to the open air ; the rooms should 

 receive their light from the east or the south, or from any point betwixt the east and the south ; for, if 

 they receive their light from the north, they will be cold and cheerless ; if from the west, they will be so 

 heated by the summer's afternoon sun, as to become comfortless to the poor laborer, after a hard day's 

 work ; whereas, on the contrary, receiving the light from the east or the south, they will be always warm 

 and cheerful. So like the feelings of men in a higher sphere are those of the poor cottager, that if his 

 habitation be warm, cheerful, and comfortable, he will return to it with gladness, and abide in it with 

 pleasure. 



2725. They should be rendered convenient, by having a porch or shed, to screen the entrance, and to 

 hold the laborer's tools ; by having a shed to serve as a pantry, and store-place for fuel ; by having a 

 privy for cleanliness and decency's sake ; by a proper disposition of the windows, doors, and chimneys ; 

 by having the stairs, where there is an upper floor, not less than three feet wide, the rise or height not 

 more than eight inches, and the tread or breadth not less than riine inches ; and, lastly, by proportioning 

 the size of the cottage to the family that is to inhabit it ; there should be one lodging-room for the parents, 

 another for the female, and a third for the male children ; it is melancholy, he says, to see a man and his 

 wife, and sometimes half a dozen children, crowded together in the same room, nay, often in the same 

 bed ; the horror is still heightened, and the inconveniency increased, at the time the woman is in child- 

 bed, or in case of illness, or of death ; indeed, whilst the children are young under nine years of age, 

 there is not that offence to decency, if they sleep in the same room with their parents, or if the boys and 

 girls sleep together, but after that age they should be kept apart. 



2726. Cottages should not be more than twelve feet wide in the clear, that being the greatest width that 

 it would be prudent to venture the rafters of the roof, with the collar-pieces only, without danger of 

 spreading the walls ; ajid by using collar-pieces, there can be fifteen inches in height of the roof thrown 

 into the upper chambers, which will render dormer-windows useless. 



2727. Cottages should be always built in pairs, either at a little distance from one another, or close ad- 

 joining, so as to appear one building, that the inhabitants may be of assistance to each other, in case of 

 sickness or any other accident. 



2728. For economy, cottages should be built strong, and with the best of materials, and these materials 

 well p\it together ; the mortar must be well tempered and mixed, and lime not spared ; hollow walls bring 

 on decay, and harbour vermin ; and bad sappy timber soon reduces the cottage to a ruinous state. 

 Although cottages need not be fine, yet they should be regular ; regularity will render them ornaments to 

 the country, instead of their being, as at present, disagreeable objects. 



2729. A piece of ground should be allotted to every cottage, proportionable to its size ; the cottage should 

 be built in the vicinity of a spring of water a circumstance to be attended to; and if there be no 

 spring, let there be a well. 



2730. On the foregoing seven principles, he recommends all cottages to be built. 

 They may be divided into four classes or degrees: first, cottages with one room; 



.secondly, cottages with two rooms; thirdly, cottages wnth three rooms ; and, fourthly, 

 cottages with four rooms; plans of each of which, that have great merit in their dis- 

 tribution, may be seen in his very able work. 



2731. An economical mode of constructing the walls of brick-built cottages, is described 

 by Dearn, in a Tract on Hollow Walls (London, 1820). These walls are only nine 

 inches wide, and built hollow, by laying the courses alternately lengthways on edge, 

 and crossways on the broad fac. ?. Another description of hollow walls has been 

 invented by Silverlock of Chiches.ter, and used by him in building garden walls (See 

 Enci/c. of Gardening), in which al I the bricks are laid on edge, but alternately length- 

 ways and crossways of the wall ; or, in bricklayers' language, header and stretcher. 



