April, 1909 
34 —The living-room is paneled with oak battens forming panels which 
are covered with Japanese grass cloth of a golden hue 
cement as the little 
house illustrated in 
photographs, page 
165. This was 
literally rescued by 
it from destruction, 
since it was a ruin- 
ous old shack (Fig. 
25) on ground 
bought for a park 
by the city of Lin- 
coln, Neb., and un- 
salable. But the 
energetic State geol- 
ogist, Prof. Erwin 
H. Barbour, was in- 
terested to try the 
experiment of re- 
claiming it by meth- 
ods possible to any 
owner of a dilapi- 
dated structure, and 
did so on behalf of 
the Park Board. 
The actual work 
was intrusted to the 
head gardener of 
the Lincoln park 
system, who had 
had no previous ex- 
perience in stucco 
work, in order to 
test the results that 
might be reached by 
any average farmer, 
ranchman or ama- 
teur worker in ce- 
ment. Professor 
Barbour’s _ descrip- 
tion of his work is 
worth quoting at 
length, to encourage 
the others: 
“The curved and 
rickety weather- 
boards were nailed 
securely to the stud- 
ding regardless of 
breaks, cracks, knot 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
35 —The house of Mr. Wright at Brantwood, New Jersey, is built after the 
same floor plan as figure 33 
37—The entrance gate to the home of Mr. Henry Fenn, at Upper Montclair, New Jersey 
. 
‘them down. 
35—Delft blue and white is the color scheme 
of the dining-room 
holes, missing 
pieces, misfit lumber 
and rotten spots. 
Metal lath, which 
comes in convenient 
strips about eigh- 
teen inches wide by 
nine feet long, was 
nailed securely over 
the house. It is put 
on by nailing 
through it into the 
studding and then 
bending the nails 
over and pounding 
As 
soon as the house 
was properly lathed 
a coat of cement 
plaster was troweled 
on with a firm hand 
so as to insure good 
keys and at the same 
time completely fill 
cracks and joints in 
the weatherboard- 
ing. It matters not 
how rough this coat 
is, in fact it is well 
to further roughen 
it by scratching. 
“This is known 
as the scratch coat. 
The scratcher which 
we used was made 
by driving a few 
wire nails through 
a small wooden 
block. With this 
simple tool the 
cement was quickly 
and effectively 
Sicivant che ad and 
roughened before it 
had set, thus pre- 
paring it for the 
succeeding coat. 
The formula for 
mixing the scratch 
