AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 219 



ON BALLOON BUILDINGS. 



Westchester Farm School, ^ 

 Mount Vernon, N. Y,, June 15, 1856. ^ 

 Hon. H. Meigs, Sec^y JV, F. Farmers' Club: 



Dear Sir — The great pressure of business on our hands, conse- 

 quent upon the purchase of our farm and establishment of our 

 school has prevented our regular attendance upon the meetings 

 of the cluh, and at such times we feel the great benefit to us and 

 farmers generally by the regular publication of the newspaper 

 reports of the proceedings. The influence of the club is by this 

 means transmitted throughout the length and breadth of the 

 country, not only by the original reports themselves, but also be- 

 cause of their being copied into many agricultural papers, and 

 from their passing into the columns of their secular exchanges. 

 We are now erecting our house, which, you may remember, is built 

 in the Western "Balloon" style. There is not an upright stick 

 of timber in the frame larger than two by four inches, and yet it 

 promises to be as lasting and strong as any ordinary framed build- 

 ing. As some of the club may never have seen one of the kind 

 we think it will not be amiss to furnish a short description. 



The sills are framed as usual in other styles of houses; then we 

 take two by four stuff, which runs thirteen feet long, stand each 

 piece up on end and nail it to the sill with tenpenny nails. Open- 

 ings are left for doors and windows and strips inserted at proper 

 heights for framing them. Having gone around the frame in this 

 manner a notch is sawri out of the uprights at the place where 

 you wish the second stry floor beams to come, one inch deep and 

 wide enough to admit a pine board, which being thus let in to 

 the uprights is nailed fast. Continue this all around and your 

 uprights are braced one way and you have a support fur your 

 floor-beams. When these are put in, your uprights are b.aced 

 another way. Now saw off the uprights at a unifoim height, nail 

 a piece on the tops horizontally and proceed with your s cond 

 story in like manner. 



On the outside we nail common rough hemlock boards putting 

 them on diagonally, letting them on each of the four sides run 

 different w^ays, and over these come the clapboards, or upright 

 siding as taste may dictate. By this means jou perceive your 

 frame is braced in every way, and it is so warm that it is unne- 

 cessary to fill in with brick. In three days four ]nen framed (»ur 

 sills, nailed all the uprights, laid the floor beams in two stcirics, 

 made some of the partitions, and put on most of the luMuLuck 

 shealhiug. 



