Catalogue of Works on Gardening, fyc. 639 



the basin ought to terminate ; by which means the soil basin may always be 

 kept clean by pouring down the common slops of the house. No surface 

 being left from which smell can arise, except that of the area of the pipe, the 

 double flap, to be hereafter described, will prevent the escape of the evapora- 

 tion from this small surface, and also insure a dry and clean seat. 



" 12. The situation of the liquid-manure tank should be as far as possible 

 from that of the filtered water tank or clear water well. It should be covered 

 by an air-tight cover of flag-stone, and have a narrow well adjoining, into 

 which the liquid should filter through a grating, so as to be pumped up or 

 taken away without grosser impurities, and in this state applied to the soil 

 about growing crops*. 



" 13. In general, proprietors ought not to intrust the erection of labourers' 

 cottages on their estates to the farmers, as it is chiefly owing to this practice 

 that so many wretched hovels exist in the best cultivated districts of Scot- 

 land and in Northumberland. 



" 14. No landed proprietor, as we think, ought to charge more for the land 

 on which cottages are built than he would receive for it from a farmer, if let 

 as part of a farm ; and no more rent ought to be charged for the cost of 

 building the cottage and enclosing the garden than the same sum would yield 

 if invested in land, or, at all events, not more than can be obtained by govern- 

 ment securities. 



" 15. Most of these conditions are laid down on the supposition that the 

 intended builder of the cottage is actuated more by feelings of human 

 sympathy than by a desire to make money ; and hence they are addressed to 

 the wealthy, and especially to the proprietors of land and extensive manu- 

 factories or mines. 



"2557. Designing Cottages. In page 1140 we have summed up the es- 

 sential requisites for a labourer's cottage, with a view to convenience, comfort, 

 and other directly useful properties. The following Rules are to be con- 

 sidered as additional to those given in the page referred to, and as having for 

 their object to superadd to comfort and convenience the beauties of Archi- 

 tectural Design and Taste. 



" 1. Every exterior wall should show a plinth at its base, and a frieze or 

 wall-plate immediately under the roof. In the case of earthen walls, the 

 plinth should be of brick or stone, and the wall-plate of wood. The stones 

 of the plinth should be larger than those used in the plain parts of the wall 

 which are above it ; and the upper finishing of the plinth may be the outer 

 edge of a course of slates, flag-stone, tiles, or bricks, laid in cement, extending 

 through the entire thickness of the wall, in order to prevent the rising of 

 damp ; the appearance of the edge of this course as a moulding or string 

 course crowning the plinth will, therefore, be highly expressive of utility : or 

 the entire plinth may be built in cement, which will be equally effective in 

 preventing the rising of damp, as well as expressive of that important use. 



" 2. The pitch of the roof, whatever may be the material with which it is 

 covered, should be such as to prevent snow from lying on it ; and for this 

 purpose the cross section should in many cases be an equilateral triangle. 

 Cottages which form gate-lodges in the Grecian or Italian styles form ex- 

 ceptions to this rule ; but such lodges never express the same ideas of com- 

 fort as high-roofed cottages, with high and bold chimneys, Such lodges, 

 indeed, are commonly called 'boxes;' and in fact many of them are so de- 

 ficient in height, and in every other dimension, that they give rise to ideas the 

 very opposite of those of freedom and comfort. 



" 3. When the wall of a house is built of rubble-work, small stones, or 

 bricks, the sharp right angles formed at the sides of the doors and windows, 

 and at the corners of the building are liable to be injured by accident or the 

 weather ; so that first the mortar of the joints, and afterwards the stones or 

 bricks, drop out. To guard against this evil, or the idea of it, larger stones 

 are used in building jambs and corners, or the jambs are splayed or rounded 

 off; while the lintels and sills of the doors and windows are formed of single 



