46 HOME AND GARDEN 



pression of the needs and means of fulfilling them 

 proper to the country. 



Many are the defects of the old buildings, for 

 when they were reared no provision was made for 

 preventing the damp from the earth from rising into 

 the walls, and the brick flooring was laid straight 

 on the earth or sand, without any under layer of 

 damp-proof concrete. One has to admit that modern- 

 built cottages are warmer, drier, and more healthy ; 

 but, to those who feel as I do, it is a matter of 

 never-ending regret that those who build them have 

 so little care for local tradition, and for the import- 

 ance, from some of the higher points of view, of using 

 local material in the same spirit of simple truth that 

 animated the builders of old days. The ease of 

 modern communication, and the pressure of trade 

 competition, together with the sordid striving for 

 cheapness, are the regrettable causes of the building 

 of the wretched mongrel cottages, roofed with slates 

 from Wales, or machine-pressed tiles from Stafford- 

 shire, that are hung on rafters of cheap white fir 

 from Norway ; no wonder the poor things look hideous 

 and ashamed, and as if aware that they have no right 

 to exist. It is just as easy, though a little more 

 costly both of money and thought, to build the 

 perfectly sound and wholesome cottage of the right 

 local material. In several cases it is being done in 

 my neighbourhood by owners who make it a matter 

 of conscience to build well and rightly. In my own 



