360 
On the Construction of Cottages. 
The wall so built retains its fresh appearance for very many 
years under thatch, and when repair becomes necessary may be 
renewed again at a cost of St/, per square yard, all expenses in- 
cluded ; and the second coat is as durable as the first. The 
writer has clay walls covered with thatch, which have been thus 
repaired within a few years, after standing forty years. Sometimes 
the casing of a new wall is delayed for a year. Some persons, 
Dixon among others, recommend rough-casting these walls with 
lime-mortar ; but that plan fails — the rough-cast soon comes off. 
If it is wanted to carry walls up a considerable height in one 
season, clay-bricks 20 inches by 14 inches, and 6 inches thick, 
must be formed and dried in the sun for a portion of the wall : 
these may be set in clay-mortar at any period of the erection. 
.A very excellent parsonage- house has been built in this way. 
The clay is worked, the wall built and faced complete, for 1*. 
per square yard and beer ; 2s. in the pound is allowed for 
beer in all trades on the amount of labour, which will bring the 
square yard of clay wall to Is. \^d. ; add thereto \\d. per square 
yard for raising clay or chalk (chalk-rubbish may be had at the 
lime-kilns gratis) and sweeping up road-grit, and ?>d. per square 
yard for straw, and the total cost of 1 square yard of clay-wall is 
Is. 6f/., exclusive of carting and the use of horses. The straw 
used is the short wheat-straw thrown out of the barn, fit only for 
littering the yards, not good enough for thatch or the riding- 
stable. . This wall requires no further plastering inside to make it 
fit for occupation. 
In estimating the cost of stone-work I shall put the stone at 
] id. per bushel, that being the price it is sold lor hereabouts ; 
the cost of throwing out building-stone from the gravel-pits is 
Yld. per score bushels only : but I fix the price of \^d. a bushel, 
because stone is a saleable commodity, which clay is not; but 
where stone is plentiful it may almost be taken like clay, at the 
cost of raising it. 
A rod of 14-inch stone-work requires 200 bushels of stone. 
s. d. 
Cost of stone per square yard . . . . 0 10 
Lime 1^ bushel, do. do. at 5d. per bushel . 0 7^ 
Sand do. do. do. at Id. do. . 0 Ij 
Labour and beer ...... 1 
Cost of a square yard of stone-work . . 2 8j 
But in the stone- work of this neighbourhood the corners of the 
house, and the sides of the doors and windows, must be brick ; 
the additional cost per square yard on this account will be near 
