492 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 8 



course, the best, tiles and bricks next, and wood. 

 Poor people use turf, others straw, cut of a proper 

 length, laid across the wall on the top, and kept 

 down by earth. This has the double disadvan- 

 tage of not looking so well and of requiring to be 

 renewed every five or six years; all hough this is 

 sometimes neglected for ten or twenty years, with 

 no improvement in beauty, certainly; but without 

 as great a change as could be expected from such 

 culpable neglect. I have read an account of a 

 wall several miles in length, in South America, 

 which had been without a copinir for more than 

 sixty years, and yet it was standing and availa- 

 ble. A wall of this kind carefully constructed, 

 rusticated with the lime and sand wash, with a 

 coping of durable materials, will stand pretty near- 

 ly as long as the earth on which it is erected, and 

 of which it is really a part. As it has been used 

 without any admixture, it must necessarily be in- 

 corruptible. 



The question of the cost of such a work is 

 worthy of inquiry; but it cannot be as expensive 

 as a tolerably good looking wooden fence, which 

 will not last twenty years, alter having been con- 

 tinually repaired for the last half of that time. 



Six workmen (negroes) is the best number lor 

 a set to work together, (and several sets may be 

 under the same superintendant) can construct in 

 one day three square toises of Pise, that is, a 

 wall six feet high and eighteen feet long; seventy- 

 five cents per day, as the cost of each hand, is a 

 very full allowance, as some of them, the carriers, 

 may he inferior. This makes the expense of such 

 n -wall, independent of the wash and coping, 

 $4.50 per day. This requires then about ninety- 

 two such day's work to enclose a square of four 

 acres which make $414, which is less than a good 

 I )06t and plank fence can be erected for. The cost, 

 as specified here, is in reality much more than it 

 would be in most cases; for this is reckoned at the 

 price it would cost by paying the hire of the hands: 

 wheras such work would be usually done by the 

 plantation hands. If it be, however,desired to make 

 a comparison between a fence of this kind and one 

 of any other sort, the labor of the hands must be val- 

 ued at the same price for the common worm, or post 

 and rail fence,not forgetting the hauling; but, for arjy 

 timber fence of a superior grade, the cost should be 

 estimated by the price of carpenter's work, besides 

 the cost of materials. 



For a house, the foundation should be laid in 

 stone or brick, in order chiefly to intercept the 

 moisture arising by capillary attraction or other- 

 wise, which might injure the building. The struc- 

 ture, in Pise, commences then about one foot 

 above th§ surface of the ground, and may be con- 

 tinued as high as with brick, with perfect safety, 

 and the materials for it are taken on the very spot 

 by digging a cellar. If the house is a mere out- 

 building, such as a kitchen, stable, servant's house, 

 &c„ it is usually rusticated, as wan said of the 

 wall; but, if intended for a large and handsome 

 house, it is rough cast, and any ornament may 

 then be added to it. The pounding of the earth 

 to form these walls, &c. so incorporates the whole 

 into one mass, that, if the work has been well 

 done, it may be said that, the building is of one 

 solid piece, and is undoubtedly more strong, firm 

 and permanent than a brick house, unless the 

 bricks are of a very good quality, and very care- 

 fully laid in the besthme-mortar. 



There is much land of great value in the neigh- 

 borhood of towns, the culture of which is some- 

 times abandoned on account of the scarcity of 

 timber and its short duration, which renders fen- 

 cing in such situations very expensive. All such 

 might be enclosed with a Pise wall at a compara- 

 tively small cost, and would make it worth while 

 to make in the soil of such enclosed land, such 

 improvement as would render it of permanent fer- 

 tility, for which a large town always furnishes 

 abundant materials. 



The above is respectfully presented to the Soci- 

 ety, with the desire that the subject may be treat- 

 ed with the attention which it. deserves, and with 

 the assurance that the writer is perfectly satisfied 

 of the great and incalculable benefits that must 

 necessarily arise from the adoption of this mode of 

 constructing houses and fencing, wherever it is 

 practicable, and that it is so, probably, in a majori- 

 ty of places. 



I neglected to observe in the proper place, lhat 

 the amount of work estimated as the usual day's 

 work of a set of six hands, is for the building of 

 houses, the walls of which are usually nearly 

 double the thickness necessary for a fence, and 

 that, therefore, such a set of hands can most pro- 

 bably make a great deal more of the very plain 

 work required for a comparatively thin wall. I 

 leave, however, this estimate as it is, so as to 

 have it at the highest cost possible or proba- 

 ble. 



Respectfully submitted by 



N. HE11BEMOKT, 



Chairman of the Committee on Rural Subjects. 



From the Horticultural Register. 

 KEEPING CABBAGES IN WINTER. 



The principal gardener in the Shaker establish- 

 ment in New Lebanon, Columbia Co., New York, 

 directs not to pull up cabbages in autumn "till 

 there is danger of their being too fast in the 

 ground to be got up. If there happens an early 

 snow it will not injure them. When they are re- 

 moved from the garden, they should be set out 

 again in the bottom of a cellar. If the cellar is 

 pretty cool, it will be the better." 



From the American Gardener's Magailiis. 

 ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE TULIP. 



The season for planting bulbs being at hand, 

 and presuming that some remarks would not at 

 this time be unappropriate, particularly in regard 

 to the flowering of the tulip, I with pleasure send 

 you the following, which will be, perhaps, of 

 some interest to your readers, and extend the cul- 

 tivation of this favorite flower. 



To attempt to describe this lovely genus, would, 

 I humbly conceive, be an insult to the common 

 sense of any community. The beauty of the tu- 

 lip flower draws the attention of the most careless 

 observers, and as it were, makes itself known to 

 them at once, because it is one of those kind of 

 flowers, when taken notice of, is rarely or ever for- 

 gotten. The Dutch are famed through the civil- 

 ized world, for their splendid collections; inasmuch 

 as some of their private ones have been valued at 



