STONE B UILDINGS IVY. 181 



tected by the ivy, are much less damp than those not so shielded. 

 It is also generally supposed in America that stone houses are 

 much damper than wood. This may be so with some kinds of 

 porous stone, but I can testify from my own experience that it is 

 not so with others. A slight furring out on the inside, and lath 

 and plaster, will in all cases remove this objection to any stone. 

 A good stone house is warmer in winter, cooler in summer,* 

 equally dry and healthful, and, if built in convenient and appro- 

 priate style, every way much more satisfactory and comfortable 

 than our common, slight-framed buildings. As for the ivy, I 

 think it is one of the most beautiful things God has given us, and 

 the man who can and does not let it beautify his habitation, is 

 sinfully ungrateful. It grows luxuriantly on the north side of a 

 house or wall in the climate of New York. (My experience is 

 with the Irish ivy.) f 



The day after I reached here, my host had occasion to go to a 

 horse-fair at Welsh Pool, a place some twenty miles distant, and 

 invited me to accompany him. We went in a dog-cart, a kind 

 of heavy gig, which here takes the place of our light boat- wagon. 

 It is a box (large enough to hold a dog or two in driving to sport- 

 ing ground), hung low, between two small, heavy wheels, with a 

 seat on the top of it for two, looking forward, and sometimes 

 another in which two more can sit looking backward. On the 

 back, to exempt it from the tax upon more luxurious vehicles, is 

 painted the owner's name, business, and place of residence, thus : 

 "John Brown, Farmer, Oswestry, Shrops." All the humbler 

 class of carriages are thus marked here, including farm carts. 



The landscapes were agreeable in the country we passed 



* In a late rapid change of weather, the thermometer on the outside of my house rose 

 in 18 hours from 19 deg. to 35 deg., while that within the walls remained stationary at 

 20 deg., not rising even one degree, though there was no fire within two rooms of it, 



t I am sorry to say it has been sadly cut down by the winters of 1856 and 1857. 



