Mr. PortaTs Farm. 
25)1) 
house, shows that attention has been given to the minutest details. 
The accommodation for grazing-bcasts is perhaps larger than is 
required in a country, where it is better policy to make dung by 
sheep folding in the field, than by hauling roots home for cattle 
in the yard. It must not, however, be forgotten that they were 
built some twelve years since, when fat prize oxen were thought 
the right thing everywhei'e : on the whole, there are few better 
planned premises for a landlord farmer in the country. 
As buildings for a tenant farmer, those on Mr. Melville Portal's 
farm at Whitehill may be recommended as a model of compact- 
ness, economy, and suitability to the farming of this country. 
The whole is a rectangular parallelogram, 83 feet by 65, under 
one roof, with a span of 65 feet — this width being obtained by 
a lean-to attached on either side of the walls of the main build- 
ing. The farm consists of 650 acres, and the actual, not the 
estimated, cost of the buildings was 700/. — a little over 1^. an 
acre, double that proportion not being an uncommon calculation. 
This is an example of adaptation to the present, and the probable 
requirements of the most approved style of farming in a chalk 
district, which will surely be followed. Ancient and obsolete 
fashions are rejected with an intelligent perception of what a 
modern farmer wants. Large barns are not required at the pre- 
sent day, when the locomotive steamer can thresh out the corn 
at the rick side. A permanent engine is not so useful as one 
which can be taken anywhere, and to which the plough or the 
cultivator, as well as the threshing-machine, can be attached ; 
neither is much accommodation needed for grazing heavy bul- 
locks in a county where the saying is — "The sheep pay the 
rent." 
The cottages at Laverstoke attract the attention of every passer- 
by. The walls are of flint stones resting on brick, carried as 
high from the ground as the water sputters, with brick facings, 
and ornamented wood-work gables and porches. Their good 
looks have caught the eye of the photographer. But your prac- 
tical man, disbelieving in the union of the beautiful with the 
useful and economical, asks, " What a^re they inside ; and what 
did they cost ? They mud be very expensive." This is a mis- 
take. The accommodation is sufficient, and the cost, again not 
the estimate, of a pair is only 210/., with no cheap materials 
near at hand, and with lime brought from Teffont, near Salis- 
bury. N-o ugliness could be cheaper or more commodious than 
these examples of elegance, convenience, and economy. Mr. 
Melville Portal's arrangements for letting his cottages are similar 
to Sir William Heathcote's : those for the carter, the shepherd, 
and the yardman go with the farm ; all others are in the land- 
lord's own hands. 
VOL. XXII. Y 
