Foundation Walls 163 



tion and a suitable and well -placed roof, the 

 balance of the outside may be extremely plain 

 and yet it will be beautiful. Some of our 

 modern houses rest on unpointed, poorly con- 

 structed, and narrow foundations, are bedecked 

 with peaks, pigeon lofts, and dog-eared cor- 

 nices, and remind one of the suspenderless, 

 barefooted darky crowned with a cast-off silk 

 hat. 



If the foundation is too small and shabbily 

 built, no amount of paint and cornice can re- 

 lieve the house from a look of shabby gentility. 

 A few brown or cream-colored stones or bricks, 

 when placed on the outside of the foundation 

 where it shows above ground, will give dignity, 

 beauty and a substantial look to the whole 

 house. It may do for it what a nickel does for 

 one's shoes. 



The roof of the farm house, and for that 

 matter of all other houses, should, in the trying 

 climate of America, have an ample projection. 

 An abbreviated cornice may be admissible if the 

 building is constructed of stone which is of suf- 

 ficient density to resist the American tooth of 

 time. Fig. 76 shows a section of an abbrevi- 

 ated and a well extended cornice. The house 

 which has this short-cut cornice stands within a 

 few hundred feet of the one with the wide pro- 

 jecting eaves. During the past twenty years it 



