300 MY FARM. 



economy. I may now add to these the effects of 

 little unimportant architectural devices, not requiring 

 a practical builder, and which while they lend a great 

 charm to landscape, give an individuality to a man's 

 home. 



The reader will perhaps allow me to particularize 

 from my own experience. There were, to begin 

 with, some four or five disorderly buildings about 

 the farm-house sheds, shops, coal-houses, smoke- 

 houses built up of odds and ends of lumber boards 

 matching oddly, some half painted, others too rough 

 for paint altogether scarcely bad enough for removal, 

 and yet terribly slatternly and dismal in their general 

 effect. They were not worth new covering ; painting 

 was impossible ; and whitewashing would only have 

 lighted up the seams and inequalities more staringly. 

 A half a mile away was a little mill, where cedar 

 posts were squared by a circular saw, and the slabs 

 were packed away for fuel (and very poor fuel they 

 made). One day, as my eye lighted upon them, an 

 idea for their conversion to other uses struck me, and 

 fructified at once. I bought a cord or two at a nom- 

 inal rate, and commenced the work of covering my 

 disjointed and slatternly outbuildings with these 

 rough slabs. It was a simple business, requiring 

 only even nailing, with here and there a little * fur- 

 ring out ' to bring the old angles to a square, with 



