1850. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



261 



Construction. — This cottage is to be built of 

 wood, and the weather-boarding is to be put on in the 

 vertical manner, with battens nailed over the joints. 



In many parts of the country, where lumber planed 

 by machinery is not easily obtained, we would use 

 inch boards rough, or without planing, and put them 

 on with square edges (not matched.) The batten 

 completely covers the joint. This will cheapen the 

 cottage considerably, if planing is to be done by hand ; 

 and for all outbuildings and cheap cottages, rough 

 boarding, either painted and sanded, or washed over 

 by the cottager himself with a cheap wash,* 

 produces an effect even more satisfactory to the 

 eye, because more rustic and picturesque than 

 planed boards. 



But steam-planed boards and plank are now 

 offered so cheaply (that is to say, at only three 

 or four dollars per thousand feet additional cost, 

 being at the same time matched or tongued and 

 grooved,) that they are now almost universally 

 used for covering houses with verticle boarding. 



Planed-and-matched flooring boards, one 

 inch thick, and of good quality, can be had here 

 for about seventeen dollars per thousand feet, or 

 at Rochester or Bangor for fourteen dollars. 

 The same boards rough, are worth on the Hud- 

 son fourteen dollars, and at Rochester eleven , 

 dollars ; and as this cottage would require about ' 

 fourteen hundred feet of weather-boarding, the 

 economy in cither of these localities by using 

 roush boards, would be only about five dollars - 

 in the cost of the whole cottage ; so that, under 

 these circumstances, we should prefer the planed 

 boards, because there is some additional warmth 

 in the clocer joints made by having the edgea 

 matched. 



To make the cottage comfortable for the 

 north, it should be filled-in with soft bricks, 

 placed on edge, so as to allow the inside wall 

 to be plastered on the bricks, as described in 

 page 53. In the milder parts of the Union this 

 will not be necessary, and, if omitted, the cost 

 of the cottage will be lessened about twenty- 

 five dollars — counting the price of soft bricks 

 at three dollars per thousand. 



The hood over the front door, as shown in the en- 

 graving, is a foot wide, and is supported by brackets 

 more ornamental than those under the windows, to de- 

 note the greater importance of the principal entrance. 



The roof of this cottage projects two feet, and, 

 like all cheap cottages in this country, is covered 

 with shingles. On the sides, the rafters are contin- 

 ued out to support thfl eves, and on the gables short 

 pieces of joist are fitted in to support the sheathing 

 of th>3 roof, and to give unity of effect. 



Estimate. — On the Hudson, this cottage, with a 

 cellar under the whole building, and filled-in with 

 bricks on edge, will cost $400. An estimate from 

 an experienced builder at Rochester places the cost 

 there at $330. 



PROF. JOHNSTON'S LECTURES. 



We have received from C. M. Saxton, of New York, 

 Publisher of Agricultural Books, a copy of Prof. 

 Johnston's Lectures, delivered before the N. Y. State 

 Agricultural Society, and the membersof the Legis- 

 lature. They are well printed and nicely bound, 

 making a book of about 220 pages, which sells for 

 seventy-five cents, bound in cloth, and fifty cents in 

 paper. We are indebted to the publisher for the 

 accompanying portrait. 



WOOD. — Take a clean barrel 

 that will hold water. Pnt in it half a bushel of fresh quick-lime, 

 and slake it by pouring over it boiling water sufficient to cover it 

 4 or .5 inches deep, and stirring it till slaked. When quite slaked, 

 dissolve in water and add 2 lbs. of sulphate of zinc (wliite vitriol.) 

 which in a few weeks will cause the white- wash to linrden on the 

 wood work . Add sufficient water to bring it to the consistence of 

 thick white-wash. To make the above wash a pleading cream 

 color, add 4 lbs. yellow ochre. For a fawn color, take 4 lbs umber. 

 1 lb, Indian red. and >^lb. lampblack. (Lampblack, when mixed 

 with water colors, should first be thoroughly dissolvod in alcohol.) 

 To make the wash grey or stone color, add 1 ib raw umber and 2 

 lbs. lampblack. The color may be put on with a white-wash brush 



The following facts were furnished by B. P. John- 

 son, Corresponding Secretary of the New York State 

 Agricultural Society : 



" Prof. Johnston is a native, I understand, of Kil- 

 marnock, in the east of Scotland, and was educated, 

 it i.^ believed, at the University of Glasgow. He 

 pursaed the study of chemistry with Berzelius, a 

 distinguished Swedish chemist, and travelled very 

 extensively, at an early period of his life, in the 

 northern regions of Europe — in Sweden, Norway, 

 Finland, and Russia — traversing the whole breadth 

 of European Russia to the Wolga. Subsequently, 

 he made himself familiar with the agriculture of 

 other portions of Europe, by personal examination. 

 At the foundation of Durham University, in England, 

 he was appointed one of its teachers, and is now 

 reader in chemistry and mineralogy in that distin- 

 guished institution. He was appointed Professor of 

 the Agricultural Chemical Association, of the High- 

 land and Agricultural Society of Scotland, in Novem- 

 ber, 1843, for five years, and during that period, hia 

 labors were productive of great good to the agricul- 

 tural interests of Scotland. 



" Professor Johnston published his lectures on 

 Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, in 1841, and 



