168 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
The Long White French Turnip. 
After our notice of this, last month, we receiv¬ 
ed further samples of the turnips, which we sub¬ 
mitted to several parties for trial, and they all 
unite in calling it the best they have ever tasted. 
See preceding page. The proprietor of one of our 
city hotels intends to raise a large crop for his 
own table. Several correspondents from differ¬ 
ent parts of the country write that they have re¬ 
ceived seed from Rhode-Island friends hitherto, 
and have found this turnip all that we have rep¬ 
resented it to be, and more; and they express 
gratification that we are bringing it before the 
country. One subscriber in Ohio, says: “if the 
Agriculturist , during its whole existence, accom¬ 
plished nothing more than to introduce this turnip 
generally, it would be well for the country that it 
had existed.” This is speaking in stronger terms 
than we can endorse, though we hope much for it. 
The seed can be sown at any time from the mid¬ 
dle of June to the first of August—better not till 
July, for a main crop. A plot of one-eighth of 
an acre, will give a fair chance for trial, and fur¬ 
nish a supply of excellent table turnips for all of 
next Winter and Spring, besides some for feeding 
stock. We have had numerous requests that we 
should sell the seed, but we have none to part 
with in that way. What we have will be given 
out in premiums for new subscribers, of which 
the particulars are noticed elsewhere under busi¬ 
ness notices. (Extra Premium No. 4). It will be 
easy to secure one, two, three, or more ounces 
free of cost, by simply securing that number of 
subscribers for either the English or German ed¬ 
itions. An ounce will plant fully an-eighth ol an 
acre, with careful sowing. 
Critique Upon the Farm Building Articles- 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
I have read with interest the article in your 
March number giving a model for a “ laborer’s 
cottage.” Most persons of ordinary common sense 
will agree with what is said about useless orna¬ 
ment, useless breaks, and ziz-zag roofs which in¬ 
vite leaks, &c., and in condemnation of the many 
pretentious, foolish, frail, inconvenient and expen¬ 
sive structures which have been “ perked up” all 
over the country. Perhaps it would be well to 
inquire how much of the fault justly found with 
them, should really be laid at the door of the 
architects, and how much with persons who have 
dispensed with an architect altogether, or if they 
have employed one have departed from his plans, 
or hampered him with instructions which have 
only hindered him and resulted to the injury of 
his employers ; or whether those who have em¬ 
ployed architects, have taken the trouble to disco¬ 
ver whether their architect has really been one 
who had a right to that title, or an ignorant pre¬ 
tender who has appropriated it. What your arti¬ 
cle hints at is certainly true, that many an excel¬ 
lent carpenter and mason has been spoiled, to 
make a bad architect. The only way in this free 
country to have beautiful things is for each one 
to study for himself what is beautiful in Nature 
and in Art. Then those who have occasion for 
the services of an artist will know how to dis¬ 
tinguish between the false one and the true ; will 
know bad work from good ; bad ornament from 
good ; will know that good ornament if misplaced, 
becomes offensive ; and will appreciate the beau¬ 
ty which lies in simple lines, and in the fitness of 
things. The series of articles, therefore, now 
coming out in your valuable paper, it is to be hoped 
will, by their boldness and force, do much toward 
bringing about such a result. 
But while most of your readers will approve of 
what is said in the particular article in question, 
to advocate simplicity, and to dispel the vulgar 
error that ornament is necessary to make a struc¬ 
ture pleasing, yet I think that at the same time 
all must admit that the cottage given as a model 
is not pleasing. Now, since beauty is not incom¬ 
patible with simplicity or convenience, could you 
not give us a cottage which will be just as cheap 
and just as convenient, and yet more pleasing in 
its appearance 1 Almost all of us are sensitive to 
a pleasing or a disagreeable result, though we 
cannot all analyze our feelings and tell just what 
it is which affects us, or why it gives us, as the 
case may be, pleasure or annoyance. I may not 
be able to tell why each of the following points in 
the model has a disagreeable effect, neither is it 
to be expected that those who have given the 
points no previous thought, will all find the same 
special faults that I do, though they may all agree 
in thinking the whole ugly. 
These objections are not based upon the appear¬ 
ance of the model only as shown in the engrav¬ 
ing, but upon the result of observations of thou¬ 
sands of similar cottages scattered all over the 
country. 
1. Almost every one must have noticed how 
peculiarly ugly is the very common arrangement 
which is adopted for the model of a main build¬ 
ing with the eaves to the road, and a lean-to be¬ 
hind. A lady who has a large property in a neigh¬ 
borhood where they are especially plentiful, calls 
them “ the thorn in the side.” They always have a 
mean, pretentious, best-foot-foremost look, stand¬ 
ing like a slatternly woman with her dirty hands 
—of which she is half ashamed—behind her. 
There are two old-fashioned arrangements of the 
lean-to, both quainter, cosier, and equally conve¬ 
nient. 
2. I have always noticed when a cottage or an 
unpretending farm-house has the door on one side, 
instead of facing on the public road, that it has a 
pleasanter and more complete-in-itself sort of 
look. They can still have the windows in front 
through which the good wife is able to see the 
“passing” while she is at work. 
3. The chimney in the model is too small and 
too short. I am no advocate of fancy chimney¬ 
pots, tops, shafts &c.; but we all like comfort and 
everything generous that suggests it. 
4. The use of extending the lean-to beyond the 
rest of the house is not apparent, and presents a 
peculiarly distasteful specimen of “ broken lines 
and ziz-zag angles.” 
5. As the porch has no seats and scarcely 
room for any, it seems a rather useless appendage 
for such a humble cottage ; besides, it is too high 
and too narrow. Would it cost much more to 
make it pleasant to sit in, and pleasant to look 
at 1 
6. The lean-to must be very dark. The only 
window is put just where it can give least light. 
7. Everybody must have noticed how annoy¬ 
ing it is to see a window stuck in one corner of a 
house, and no window, nor anything else in the 
other corner to balance it. Sometimes this can¬ 
not be helped, but almost always, by a little fore¬ 
thought, it can. It can in this instance, and with¬ 
out more expense; for by putting the bed-room 
behind (where it had better be, otherwise people 
could look in the front window and see the occu¬ 
pants dressing themselves), and the buttery and 
stairs in front, the front window can remain 
where it is, and the one window in the side of the 
house be placed in the centre, under the ridge in¬ 
stead of in the corner. 
8. Would it not be well if that shelf-like 
look of eaves could be avoided 1 And is it inten¬ 
tional, or the fault of the engraving, that the 
house appears to be set close down on the public 
road 1 
In conclusion, as others besides myself take an 
interest in the subject, will you not be good 
enough to mention in your next number, where 
we can find the log cabins in architectural works 1 
And also please to describe a log cabin, as usually 
made by choppers, and oblige 
An Attentive Reader. 
REMARKS. 
Our correspondent is a little hypercritical in the 
above strictures upon our “ laborer’s cottage but 
they shall be briefly noticed with all due respect 
to his (or her !) taste, as differing from our own. 
In the first place, the engraving is a bad one, and 
not a true copy of the drawing we sent to the en¬ 
graver,* but we were obliged to use that, or 
postpone the article for another month or two. 
The drawing did not give that “ shelf-like ” ap¬ 
pearance to the roof, which in reality combs 
over the front and gables, giving the cottage a 
cosy, hospitable look. As to the internal ar¬ 
rangement, it may be altered to the builder’s 
taste or convenience, there being nothing arbitra¬ 
ry in that; and windows may be inserted at pleas¬ 
ure, either in number or position. We gave the 
sketch as suggestive, mainly, intending more to 
lay down a principle of construction in the class 
of cheap cottages, than to dictate a particular plan 
of accommodation. 
As to some other alterations suggested by our 
correspondent, we only answer that our tastes, 
both in convenience and utility, differ It is a 
“ laborer’s cottage,” simply, and only a hundred 
and fifty, or two hundred dollar affair, at that. 
The porch is but a hint, and may be omitted alto¬ 
gether, or stretched along the whole front as a 
verandah, which last, as a thing of taste and ap¬ 
pearance, we would prefer, as giving the struc¬ 
ture a more finished and complete look. The 
chimney is but a vent for the smoke of a single 
stove-pipe—therefore, why so large and high as 
our correspondent demands 1 
Build that cottage lack from the highway, noton 
it, according to our description —not the cut ; 
throw a verandah along the entire front, with a 
few climbing plants spreading their shade along 
its columns, and the thing would look pleasant 
Our own built and inhabited model does so, evert 
without the porch. We might enter into a la¬ 
bored argument with our correspondent, moved 
thereto by his, or her suggestions, but this is not 
the place for it. 
In answer to the inquiry, “Where are the log 
cabins in architectural works 1” we say, page 110 
in Vaux’s Villa and Cottage Architecture, with 
four pages of Essay in connection We have 
seen “Jog cabins” in another work or two of the 
kind, not now recollected. We have “ carried 
up” many 11 a corner” of these log cabins in our 
early frontier life, lived in them for years, and 
know somewhat of their appertainings. We 
may describe one another day.— Ed. 
*Let us say, once for all, that in this entire series ol 
“Farm Buildings,” the engravings are entirely unsatis¬ 
factory—more so, on the whole, than anything else we 
have had to do with in this line. They have in e*ch case 
been returned too late for new cuts to be made. The first 
one criticised above, was received from the writer but a 
few hours before going to press, and of course was hasti¬ 
ly cut The remaining ones were given out to new parties 
who had executed some good work previously, but with 
this experience we shall be compelled to return to our long, 
time engravers, who have seldom disappointed us in the 
character of their work .—Publishing Editor. 
