568 Abstract Report of Afjricultural Discussions. 
about 125Z. a-piecc, ought to take all these savings into account. He 
would give them the result of his calculations with respect to the cot- 
tages which he was going to build at Bishop's Waltham. Those 
cottages were to bo erected near some brickworks, for men who were 
employed at those works. These men — many of ■nhom were earning 
30s. a week — thought it very hard that they should have to pay 6s. a 
week for a cottage ; and consequently economy was an object in that 
case, as well as in the case of cottages intended for persons earning 
only 10s. a week. He estimated that these cottages would cost 90Z. a 
piece, exclusive of a well and the oven. The cottage with three bed- 
rooms, of which he had spoken, would, he believed, cost lOOL In this 
plan the living-room was 12 feet square, with a height of 8 feet. The 
height of the bedrooms averaged 8 feet 6 inches. 
Dr. Cnisp wished to say a few words with respect to Mr. Taylor's 
opinion, that the badness of the materials of cottages of the old kind, 
and especially the damj) which arose from them, had been a gTcat 
som-ce of illness in the rural districts. In his younger days he had a 
good deal to do with the treatment of disease amongst the peasantry, 
and he did not remember a single case in which illness was occasioned 
by a damj) cottage. The som-ces of illness were unfortunately very 
abundant — an imhealthy locality, the holes in which cottages are 
always jjlaced, and the badness of the water obtained from wells and 
ponds, are frightful causes of disease. If the cottages of the rm-al 
population be compared with the dwellings of the poor in London, 
although some moral defects in the former exist, and the occu- 
pants are generally too much crowded and hiiddled together, still the 
comparison is in their favoiu*. Statistics certainly did not show that 
much disease arose from the ill-construction of the cottages ; they 
rather tended to show that it arose from malaria and such like in- 
fluences. A roof like that recommended by by Mr. Taylor would, he 
imagined, be extremely hot in summer, and cold in winter. A thatch 
roof had a gTcat advantage, in point of warmth, over both tile and 
slate. 
Mr. Taylor's grate could never bo used generally in cottages where 
wood vv'as continually bm-nt, and his impression was that it would be 
constantly out of order. 
He might just state that an Exmoor cottage could be built for 60Z., 
the materials being obtained on the spot. In tlie Bath and West of 
England Society's Journal several plans arc given for building cheap 
cottages. After all everything hinges on the question of cost ; and he 
hoped that that part of the question would be entertained more fully 
on some future occasion. 
The Chaikmax thought it was useless to talk about building thatched 
cottages now, as the straw was wanted for other pm'poses. 
Mr. Taylor said, The opinion which had been expressed that the 
grate would be constantly getting out of order, should be tested by 
facts. It was used at all the stiitions of the London, Chatham, and" 
Dover Railway Company, and did not get out of order there. There 
are not more unmerciful men with fireplaces than railway porters. At 
any station you may see a handsome grate, and alongside it a crowbar. 
