1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



337 



The first story is nine feet liigh. The second is 

 like those last described. 



SECOND STOllY PLAN. 



Though this house would not be out of place on 

 almost any village lot, it is especially suited to one 

 somewhat irregular in surface or outline. It is well 

 fitted for a corner house, the fronts, seen in the en- 

 graving, showing on the two streets. In any event, 

 the lot on which it stands should be of good size. 



This plan may be eai^ily spoiled. No alteration 

 should be attempted without good advice. Some 

 practical man may perhaps object to its irregularity. 

 He may Avonder that one part of the house stands 

 back of the other. If he prefer the square, dreary, 

 double house, so common formerly, and seen some- 

 times still, his wish is easily gratified, and for a 

 model he can take a packing-box. 



The cost of this house is $1,625. 



For the New England Farmer. 



POTATOES AGAIN. 



Mr. Editor : — Every one holds very tenacious- 

 ly to his own judgment in all things, potatoes not 

 excepted. Each farmer knows how much he ex- 

 pects, and how much he raises from an acre of 

 ground ; and if the product exceeds his anticipa- 

 tions, all well ; if not, why the season was not favor- 

 able. Himself excused, he, in the prevalently be- 

 coming assertion, says, with all the swell of a Dutch 

 sage, — "Farming don't paj-." As don^t is self-evi- 

 dent to most ])ersons, and especially to intelligent 

 observers, under the means, further remarks are not 

 needed. 



Farming requires study, money and a disposition 

 to try the soil. In East or West the same necessi- 

 ty is found of understanding the applications for 

 different localities and soils. Improvements are 

 necessary in all that hands can be placed upon. 



And tlie practice of farming is better conducted 

 by intelligent men than by the antiquated booby 

 whose chief end is to work hard and drink cider — 

 and who lives on the same jDlace that his father 

 wore out before him. 



I am of the opinion that good, fxiir, fully ripe, 

 and middling potatoes, plnnted on well ])repared 

 ground, will insure a good and respectable crop. 

 Nevertheless, yet notwithstanding, if — . Enough. 



w. 



For the New England Farmer. 



CHEAP LUXURIES-LAWNS. 



BY H. F. FRENCH. 



Without attempting to philosophize upon emo- 

 tions of Beauty, we may assume that the contem- 

 plation of some objects in Nature gives pleasure to 

 all, in a greater or less degree. This idea of Beau- 

 ty seems in some degree innate or natural, and to 

 be independent of the idea of Utility. 



A leopard is more beautiful than a donkey, and 

 a rose is more beautiful than a potato, unless to a 

 half-starved Irishman, though the donkey and the 

 potato be the very tjpes of Utility, as the leopard 

 and rose are of mere Beauty. All persons, how- 

 ever uncultivated their taste, seem pleased with 

 cultivated nature, if the expression be allowable, 

 such as lawns and hedges, and beds of flowers, and 

 similar embellishments of artificial grounds, though 

 many persons entirely overlook the natural beauties 

 of forest, and river, and mountain, which have sur- 

 rounded them from childhood. It is, perhaps, be- 

 cause the one comes to them as a surprise, and so 

 attracts the attention, while the natural surround- 

 ings of their youth had never such novelty as to 

 call for especial notice. Beauty, like the vital air, 

 has surrounded them always, and been inhaled with 

 every breath unconsciously, and doubtless, like this 

 same air, would be somewhat missed were its exis- 

 tence to cease. This natural taste increases indefi- 

 nitely by cultivation, and every man who has a 

 house and land, desires at once to make it beautiful 

 to those within, and attractive to those without. 



Extravagant expenditure about our houses is the 

 besetting and somewhat peculiar sin of Americans. 

 The man who even builds a house, without pecuni- 

 ary embarrassment, by reason of inaccurate esti- 

 mates at the outset, or a gradual yielding up of 

 his common sense to the desire to make a display of 

 his taste, such a man is rare ; but the man who not 

 only builds a house, but also undertakes landscape 

 gardening, and lives to a respectable old age out of 

 the alms-house, would be a curiosity. 



Yankees are proverbial for getting their money's 

 worth, but that is only done in the way of trade. 

 Nobody gets worse cheated than they, when they 

 leave business and go a pleasuring. In all New 

 England we pay too much for yime wood architec- 

 ture, in the way of houses and stables and orna- 

 mental fences, and the Hke, and too little for those 

 ornaments which Nature so readily offers us, such 

 as lawns and hedges, and grand and graceful trees. 

 We can see in any village of moderate pretensions, 

 many dwellings where hundreds have been ex- 

 ])ended in the ])oorest attempts at the Gothic or 

 Grecian style, while all around is as bare and deso- 

 late as a brick-yard, the funds of the builder having 

 been exhausted by the time the roof was covered. 

 Again, we see before many a cheap house, a front 



