222 THE VILLA GARDENER. 



separate and specific agreements, without invalidating the general contract 

 entered into at first. Many persons, from good motives, or from a view to 

 economy, employ a carpenter or huilder in a small way, whom they wish to en- 

 courage, to carry buildings into execution ; but there cannot be a greater error. 

 Tradesmen in a small way of business are generally deficient in capital ; and, 

 not having a stock of seasoned materials by them, they never can do justice 

 to the work. The charges of such persons are, also, very frequently higher 

 than those of first-rate builders. We could give the history of many houses 

 in the neighbourhood of London, which have cost from 500Z. to between 

 30,000Z. and 40,00OZ., and have been built in this manner; and for doing which 

 the owners have bitterly repented ever afterwards. We know one gentleman 

 who, on his own judgment, aided by that of his carpenter and bricklayer, 

 laid out upwards of 40, OOOZ. in endeavouring to execute a plan for a mansion, 

 received from a first-rate architect ; but, in doing this, not thoroughly under- 

 standing the construction of a certain dome over a saloon, it has bectime 

 depressed at one part of the sides, and admits rain at the haunches of the 

 arch. Another gentleman commenced the building of a house on the day- 

 work system, which, if it be ever completed, will cost him three times more 

 than he ever contemplated laying out. B., a wealthy merchant about to 

 retire, employed, to build a country house, a very worthy carpenter, who had 

 married his wife's maid, and also had become a master in a small way : but, 

 whether from not having supplied him regularly with ready money, or 

 from some other cause with which we are unacquainted, certain it is, that 

 unseasoned timber was used in the partitions, roof, and floors ; and a very 

 warm summer, that of 1826, happening soon after the house was finished 

 and taken possession of, the whole of the partitions shrank and twisted to 

 sucli a degree, as to produce large rents in the plaster. The carpenter endea- 

 voured to persuade his employer that the foundations of the walls had given 

 way ; but this was too palpable an absurdity to be credited by any one. The 

 rents in the plaster of the partitions were filled up with putty in some places, 

 and with stucco in others ; but they are still conspicuous, and must necessa- 

 rily remain so till the lath and plaster are stripped off, and the stud-work 

 reclothed. The whole of the boarded floors in this house shrank so much, 

 that they were obliged to be twice taken up and relaid ; and all the ceilings 

 are cracked. Another merchant in a smaller way, a few years ago, built a 

 house in the country, which cost him 2000^., and employed a very respectable 

 jobbing carpenter that he had confidence in, from having been long accus- 

 tomed to employ him in petty jobs in town ; but confidence is often the result 

 of habit, want of inquiry, or indolence ; and this confidence may be deserved 

 by an individual in one point, or in several, and yet not be applicable to all 

 that that individual will, or is even entitled to, undertake. In this case, the 

 London carpenter and joiner, who could procure whatever credit was want- 

 ing for the execution of little jobs that he executed from time to time, under 

 the immediate eye, it may be said, of his timber- merchant, could not so 

 readily do this in the case of a more extensive contract for an erection in the 

 country, where he had never before been employed; and where, as his timber- 

 merchant well knew, if his employer did not, he had to purchase his experience, 

 and that necessarily at the expense of others, from having himself nothing 

 to lose. Whatever may have been the cause or causes, chalk lime, instead of 

 stone lime, was employed for the outside walls, and unseasoned timber for the 



