AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Q01 
COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 
It is easier to decide what the color of city 
houses should be than of those in the country. Ev¬ 
ery one can see that streets lined with rows of 
white buildings would be intolerable; none but 
eagles’ eyes could endure the glare. City houses 
should mostly be of a sober tint, absorbing, not 
reflecting, the sun’s rays, and not easily disfigured 
by dust and smoke. But the case is somewhat 
different with buildings in the country. 
Formerly, white was the prevailing fashion. It 
was a neat and cheerful color, and supposed to 
be the most durable. But a change was at length 
decreed in this fashion. Foreign writers con¬ 
demned it, and native writers echoed their words 
with emphasis. Artists and travelers gave it a 
shower of ridicule. White, they said, “ is too 
intense a color—it does not harmonize with the 
hues of a landscape. A house so painted forces 
itself into notice—it impudently stares you in the 
face. An object of a sober tint, unexpectedly 
gilded by the sun, is like a serious countenance 
suddenly lighted up by a smile ; a whitened ob¬ 
ject is like the eternal grin of a fool. No ar¬ 
tist, of any reputation, would introduce a white 
house upon his canvas. The color is too glaring 
for the eye to rest upon, under our brilliant 
sunshine.” And so on. These criticisms turned 
the fashion into the opposite extreme. Dark, 
sombre colors, became all the rage. Many beau¬ 
tiful cottages and cheerful houses embowered 
among trees, were changed into gloomy, barn¬ 
like, prison-like structures. The most popular 
color was what the painters styled ‘’Victoria 
brown,” a dingy, melancholy hue, in faint imita¬ 
tion of free stone. Nobody really liked the 
change ; it was a little too abrupt; but then it was 
the fashion, and it must be swallowed down as a 
very genteel thing. But common sense could 
not be long silenced, and she soon spoke out as 
follows : “ Oh, ye sons of men, why run to such 
extremes ! Because, white is too glaring, must 
ye therefore take refuge in black 1 Choose some 
of the softer and more cheerful colors which I 
furnish you,—the various shades of gray, fawn, 
light drab, cream-color, straw-color, ihe many 
pleasing tints in your rocks and sands.” Men 
listened to this sage monitor, and the result was 
most happy. Now, houses are mostly painted in 
sober hues, but not in gloomy brown ; in cheerful 
hues, but not in intense white. 
Let us not maintain, however, that no country 
house should be painted white. A white cottage 
with green blinds, nestled among trees and fes¬ 
tooned with vines, is one of the pleasantest 
scenes in any landscape. Nor would we object, 
in all cases, to green blinds on other houses which 
are painted in some neutral tint. The porch, 
cornice, window-frames and other dressings, 
should be painted a darker or lighter shade than 
the bouse itself, to relieve what would otherwise 
he bald monotony. 
Barns and other out-buildings should be paint 
ed a darker shade than the house, to make them 
inconspicuous, and to mark their inferior uses. 
Several enterprising farmers of our acquaintance, 
have lately rebuilt their barns, clap-boarding 
them and painting them, white ! Why do you so 1 
we asked one the other day. “ Oh, well,” said he, 
‘‘I think as much of my barn as I do of my house ; 
and then, I wanted to spruce up a little.” Want¬ 
ed to spruce up a little ; 'that was it. But his cat¬ 
tle and pigs have rubbed their muddy hides against 
his clean white paint, as if determined to get it 
as near the once fashionable “ Victoria brown ” 
as possible. 
Fences should be painted in some subdued col¬ 
or, so as not to attract much notice. “ A fence,” 
says Cooper, “which looks as if it were covered 
with clothes hung up to dry, does very little to¬ 
wards aiding the picturesque.” 
And now, having left the house and got on 
“ the fence,” we shall decline saying anything 
more. 
WONDERS OF THE BEE-HIVE, 
Number III. 
When we follow the bee to its own home, we 
find that it is not a solitary independent worker, 
but one of a community, more dependent on other 
bees than a child upon the care and protection of 
human society. But where do the bees live 1 
They seek a shelter from the rain, the wind and 
the sun. Sometimes, though rarely, they choose 
an open, exposed situation, where the only pro¬ 
tection is the foliage of a tree. Mr. Langstroth 
mentions that in Philadelphia, a swarm settled on 
a willow tree near the Pennsylvania Hospital, and 
remained there so long that the boys pelted it with 
stones to get possession of its comb and honey. 
He speaks of another swarm that lodged under 
the lowermost limb of an oak tree, standing by 
itself in a corn field, and when it was discovered, 
there were found to be three pieces of omb, each 
about eight inches square. 
A correspondent of a daily journal writing from 
Cuba last Spring, describes the curious beehives 
which he saw on that island. “ They were simp¬ 
ly sections of hollow trees, three feet long, laid 
on their sides, with the ends entirely open, in 
which the industrious insects carried on all their 
domestic manufacture in plain sight, and without 
any seclusion which our Northern bees appear to 
consider so indispensable.” 
Sometimes a colony of bees, seeking a new 
home, can find nothing better than a chimney, and 
so they proceed to furnish to the best of their 
ability the apartments it affords them. In a state 
of Nature, a company of emigrant bees would be 
likely to find the cavity of a hollow tree, and to 
make themselves as comfortable in it as in any 
palace which man could build for them. When 
the Charter Oak was blown down last year at 
Hartford, a swarm of bees was found to have 
been in possession of the cavity. The old fash¬ 
ioned traditional form of a hive, shown at the 
head of this article is well known. These hives, 
made of twisted straw, are still used to a consid¬ 
erable extent on the other side of the Atlantic, 
but are rarely seen in this country, where lumber 
is cheap. The most common hive is a simple box, 
twelve or fifteen inches square and a foot and a 
half high, with the top-board projecting a little on 
every side, so as to shed the rain. Various pat¬ 
terns for utility and ornament have been devised, 
but the principle common to them all, is, to fur¬ 
nish the bees with at least one large apartment 
as a home and abiding place for old and young. 
It is important to know the proper size and shape 
and color of a hive ; but this is a subject which 
comes more appropriately under the department 
of bee-culture. Some hives are made with glass 
sides, and the bees do not refuse to work in them, 
even when exposed to the full light of day. They 
are invaluable for purposes of study, observation 
and experiment. It is a mistake to suppose that 
“our Northern bees ” consider seclusion from 
the light indispensable. 
As we approach an apiary at certain seasons, 
the first thing that attracts attention is the odor. 
Especially at the time of gathering buckwheat 
honey, the peculiar smell gives indication of the 
treasures jvhich the bees are transferring to their 
cells. Then perhaps the busy hum of labor is 
heard, and the eye perceives the air filled with 
fleet insects coming and going in constant and 
quick succession. While three of our senses thus 
testify that we are in the neighborhood of the hive, 
it will be well for us if no sharp sting appeals to 
the sense of feeling, and “makes conviction 
doubly sure.” Still, unless we offer some insult 
or attempt some act of violence, we may hope to 
escape without injury, and substituting taste for 
feeling, may partake of some honey, and be con¬ 
tent with the evidence of four senses out of five. 
But how are we to find out “ the wonders of 
the Beehive 1” Here is a common hive, and the 
air is full of bees, but how are we to know what 
is going on inside 1 There’s not a hole or crack 
to be found except that little entrance-way, half 
an inch high and four inches long, and he who will 
may run the risk of putting his face down there. 
We do not propose to go in bodily, and for the 
present we will not even knock at the door, but 
standing on the outside we will watch the en¬ 
trance, as if we were members of the detective 
police, and keep an eye on all comers and goers. 
That broad alighting board will show us some 
things worth noticing, even if we can not see be¬ 
yond it. 
First, we notice the bees com ing out of the 
hive, fifty or sixty a minute, and starting without 
hesitation for their pasture. The eye soon learns 
to follow them and distinguish them at a consid¬ 
erable distance ; but they go in different direc¬ 
tions, each minding its own business. Others 
however are balancing themselves in the air be¬ 
fore the hive with their faces turned toward it. 
And some that come out of the entrance hole, do 
not leave the alighting board, but walk up and 
down before the hive. We find that the bees that 
come out are not all empty handed. One has 
something in its palpi that looks like a piece of 
wax, and away it flies with it. Another has a 
dead bee in its fore legs ; a heavy load, but it 
does its work manfully, and does not let go till it 
comes to the ground ten feet from the hive. And 
here comes another with something like a white 
bee, held in the same way. We watch where it 
falls and hasten to pick it up; and sure enough it 
has the form of a bee, but is not perfect. It must 
be a young bee, that has met a violent death be¬ 
fore coming to maturity. And what comes here, 
this big, blustering, buzzing thing 1 Is that the 
kingl No, don’t be afraid, that is the drone ; it 
won’t hurt you. They say “ a barking dog never 
bites,” and it is certain that the drones nevei 
sting. They are gentlemen of leisure, and do no! 
happen to have any weapons of offense or defense. 
We can catch one then in our fingers without 
fear. He struggles, but can do us no harm; we 
see he is much larger and stouter than the working 
bees, and has longer hairs, but he has no means 
of gathering honey from flowers, and no baskets 
on his thighs for, bringing home pollen ; and pro¬ 
bably no drone was ever seen attempting to get 
his dinner in the fields, or bringing sweet things 
home for the little ones. 
And how is it with the king 1 There is no 
king at all; there is one bee in the hive, the only 
perfect female, which is the mother-lee of the 
whole family, and she is usually called the queen, 
but it would be a most remarkable thing for us to 
see her leaving or entering the hive. Only on rave 
