W2 On the Erection of Labourers^ Cottages. 
and ill compliment to the young lady, who has the merit of originating 
these useful articles, I take the liberty of naming them in plain English, 
"the Bygrave Plant Preservers."* 
I am, Gentlemen, 
A Subscriber to the Horticultural Register, and 
A Practical Gardener. 
J\rewpori, Isle of Wight, Jug. \5th, 1831. 
P. S. ** The Bygrave Plant Preservers" are manufactured at Mr. Stare's 
Potteries, Fareham, Hampshire. I believe the retail price for a small 
number is aboat 3d. each, but I apprehend that a large quantity might 
be purchased at a rate not exceeding half that simi. 
Article V. — Remarks- mt the Erection of Labourers' Cot- 
tages. Ry A Brfck' layers' Labourer. 
Gentlemrn, 
The subject of improving the dwellings of the labouring classes, 
and of bettering the condition of the poor, has been ably treated on by 
many learned literary, and political, gentlemen ; and, indeed, there are 
few persons who have witnessed the miserable and wretched habitations 
of that large and useful body of the community, (many of them, in some 
parts of North-Britain and Ireland, being little better than those of the 
darker ages, when men lived in the caverns and dens of the rocks) that 
do not feel greatly interested in the subject in question. It is, however, 
particularly gratifying, to see by the various communications to the dif- 
ferent periodicals, that in many parts of the country, labourers have the 
happiness to live under proprietors who have thinking minds and bene- 
volent dispositions; nevertheless, there is still a great, very great scope 
for improvement : many places have undergone no change whatever to- 
wards improvement, notwithstanding the great deal that has been written 
on that subject, and the many examples set them by their neighbours. 
It is to lay before the landed proprietor, the means of bettering his de- 
pendents — of uniting utility and comfort with the picturesque — and of 
erecting a cottage without the expense of an architect's fees, that the sub- 
joined dra\\ings are sent. Before describing them, it may be necessary 
here to remark, that I am a great lover of the picturesque ; and I abomi- 
nably abhor, those plain, flat, and unseemly cottages, which, to use the 
words of a foreigner, in his observations on London, " resemble so 
many holes in a brick wall." Nor do I agree with your correspondent 
" Artus," (page 63,) that the external ornaments of a cottage "like the 
* A valuable improvement. The youngs lady deserve* the best thanks of Florticiilturists 
for the invention.— Conductors. 
