1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



475 



although heated to the same degree, transmit no 

 heat through the glass. And as to the color of 

 blinds, nothing so agreeably softens the light, as 

 the old-fashioned dark green. Therefore, I think 

 any person -who prefers to have his country house 

 white, with green blinds, may defend his taste in 

 80 doing. 



If, however, you have a neighbor close by, 

 whose house is not shaded with trees, and who 

 will have it glaring white, you have reason to 

 complain. He might almost as well cover his 

 house with looking-glasses, and continually flash 

 the sun into your eyes. A bare white house with 

 the sun full upon it, at about two o'clock, P. M., 

 in July, and sand or gravel all around, is nearly 

 as bad to approach as a rebel masked battery. 

 No man has a moral right to have his house or 

 fences white, unless he shades them with foliage, 

 and relieves them with green sward. Artists 

 usually avoid the introduction of white into their 

 landscape pictures, because it does not harmo- 

 nize with other colors. Downing says that Price, 

 in his essa}'s on the Beautiful and Picturesque, 

 expresses the idea that very white teeth gave a 

 silly expression to the countenance, and Horace 

 Walpole called somebody — "the gentleman with 

 the foolish teeth." Most of us, however, would 

 regard any person as "foolish," who prefers teeth 

 of any color than white. 



In England, there are no white buildings, for 

 the very good reason that the climate will not al- 

 low them to stay white, if so painted. There, 

 everything takes a sober gray tint, whether you 

 will or no. 



Though we tolerate white, yet we do not com- 

 mend or use it. But what shall the color be ? 

 The old mansion was to be painted anew. For 

 sixty years it had be&n white or a light straw col- 

 or. There are serious objections to very dark 

 colors. They absorb heat, making the house 

 warmer in summer, and causing the wood to shrink 

 and expand with the alternations of weather. 

 This is a practical, not merely a theoretical mat- 

 ter, as this very house will testify. The back side 

 of the house, which is the south side, was origi- 

 nally painted dark red with Spanish brown, for 

 economj', as was the almost universal fashion fifty 

 years ago, when white lead was more costly. It 

 has been kept of the same color ever since, re- 

 painted as often as the rest of the house. The 

 effect of the heat and cold has been such, that 

 many of the nails were entirely drawn out, and 

 most of them were started, and many clapboards 

 cracked, so that the painter and I, upon solemn 

 consideration, concluded that they did not de- 

 serve a coat of paint, and condemned them to 

 remain, after carefully re-nailing, until the house 

 needs another painting, then to be renewed, and 

 painted with the rest. 



A witness is bound to tell the whole truth, and 

 I have doubts whether the difference in color tells 

 the whole story. It is just twenty years since the 

 house was painted, and then it received two heavy 

 coats. It looked rusty, but by no means bare, 

 except on the window sills and some exposed 

 spots, not worse than the meeting-house which 

 has been painted two or three times since, and 

 stands right out-of-doors, without shade or shel- 

 ter. Three sides of the house are so covered with 

 trees, that in summer time, only a glimpse of a 

 chimney or a window, occasionally, is caught by 

 the traveller, till he reaches nearly to the door. 

 The trees are elms, rock-maples and horse-chest- 

 nuts, and they are thick enough to break the 

 blasts, even in winter, and to entirely shade in 

 summer. I think the paint has worn twice as 

 long on account of this protection, and not one 

 of the nails, which, by the way, are of wrought- 

 iron, had started. The back of the house is un- 

 sheltered by trees, and takes the unmitigated heat 

 and cold. Trees should not touch the house, nor 

 lie over the roof, because they render it damp and 

 unhealthy, and promote decay, if too thick and 

 near ; but with their stems, say at twenty or thir- 

 ty feet distance, they are a blessing and a comfort 

 every way. When the Swamscut House and oth- 

 er buildings were burnt at Exeter, the fine old 

 church, which stands opposite, was only saved 

 from destruction by the row of young elms which 

 stood in front of it, which held up their green, 

 leafy screens between it and the flames, and suf- 

 fered martyrdom in its cause. There was much 

 talk of it, at the time, and for once, "the poor 

 wise man who saved the city," by planting trees, 

 was held in honor. 



Sir Joshua Reynolds advised to paint the house 

 the color of the fresh soil on which it stands ! and 

 on the whole, though there is no rule for taste, it 

 is perfectly safe to say, that soft, quiet shades, 

 such as gray, drab, fawn, light brown are always 

 pleasing, while violent colors, such as yellow, red 

 and green are not so, in house coloring. 



As to contrasts, ladies and artists profess to 

 know what colors match. Nature contrasts by 

 laws not much esteemed by milliners. Her green 

 leaves and blue sky, her many-colored flowers set 

 in green sward, or in leafy festoons, and again, 

 her dark eyes and hair, with a white skin and 

 teeth of ivory, defy all precise rules of combina- 

 tion. It was an old fashion to paint farm-houses 

 red, and sometimes yellow, with white trimmings. 

 Of late, and perhaps by Mr. Downing's teachings, 

 it is thought in better taste to paint the trimmings 

 of a darker shade than the body of the building. 



After proper deliberation, we have adopted this 

 idea upon the family mansion, giving the house 

 a sort of gray stone color, the trimmings and 

 fence a decidedly darker shade of the same, and 



