en 
876 
erecting good agricultural cottages. Hither to 
give a narrative of the improvements which have 
been effected, or to sketch a view of the present 
condition of cottages throughout Britain, or to 
describe model plans of a few good individual 
structures, would far outrun the limits within 
which we feel obliged to restrain this subject ; 
and we shall merely give a curtailed statement 
of the general specifications in a prize essay by 
Mr. George Smith, published in No. 24 of the 
Highland Society’s Transactions, and refer any 
of our readers who desire further information to 
that essay itself, and to other excellent papers in 
the 44th and 52d Nos. of these Transactions, in 
the 49th No. of the Quarterly Journal of Agri- 
culture, in the 4th vol. of the communications to 
the Board of Agriculture, and in the 4th and 5th 
vols. of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England. 
Mr. Smith’s specifications apply altogether or 
very nearly to good cottages of all possible sorts 
in stone districts; yet we may briefly indicate 
the precise plans and the estimated cost of 
cottages, which they were expressly written to 
illustrate. The estimate of expense takes the 
stones at prime cost, and assumes the builder to 
afford all materials and workmanship, but to have 
these carted free of expense to the site. First is 
a single cottage, to cost £70; second, a single 
cottage, £75; third, asingle cottage, £83; fourth, 
a double cottage, £130; fifth, a double cottage, 
£136; sixth, a double cottage, £160; seventh, a 
combined cottage for four families, £252; and, 
eighth, a combined cottage for six families, £330. 
The first single cottage has a kitchen and a room, 
each 16 feet by 12 ; a space of 44 feet between these 
for beds and lobby; a scullery and a closet in a 
lean-to behind; and a cellar and other conveni- 
ences at the rear of the scullery. The second 
single cottage has a kitchen and a room, each 16 
feet by 114; a lobby and a large bed-closet be- 
tween the kitchen and the room; a scullery off 
the end, and a light bed-closet off the middle of 
the kitchen; a narrow stair behind the bed- 
closet, leading to a loft over the whole; wall- 
presses in both the kitchen and the room ; and 
cellar and other conveniences at the east end of 
the house. The third single cottage has a porch, 
an irregular plan, a sort of picturesque outline, 
and a convenient and comfortable interior, and 
might suit well for a gate-lodge or a gardener’s 
house on a property whose mansion is in the old 
English style. The first double cottage has two 
porches in the middle of the front, placed back 
to back; and each of its two dwellings has a 
kitchen of 16 feet by 12, a scullery and a pantry 
in a lean-to behind, a cellar and other conveni- 
ences in the rear, and a room of 16 feet by 11, 
with wall closets in inside walls. The second 
double cottage has porches at the ends and an 
overhanging pavilion roof; and each of its dwell- 
ings has a tool-house behind the porch, a kitchen 
of 16 feet by 13, a room of 16 feet by 11, a pantry 
COTTAGE. 
and a cellar, a back-scullery fitted with boiler, 
water-pipe, and sink, and exteriorly a pig-house 
and a poultry-house, with yards and other con- 
veniences. The third double cottage has a hand- 
some elevation, and a general outline like that 
of a large single cottage; and each of its dwell- 
ings has a compact and convenient arrangement, 
comprises three apartments, with closet, scullery, 
pantry, cellar, and other accommodations, and 
has a bed-room over the centre, and a loft over 
the kitchen. The combined cottage for four 
families consists of a centre and two wings; each 
wing is a dwelling-house, with a kitchen of 16 
feet by 12, a room of the same size, wall-presses, 
space for beds between the kitchen and the 
room, an interior scullery, and exterior cellar and 
other conveniences; and each half of the central 
compartment is also a separate dwelling-house, 
with a kitchen of 17 feet by 12, a back scullery, 
a room of 12 feet by 105, a pantry in the lobby, 
and exteriorly a yard, a cellar, and other con- 
veniences; and two of the four dwellings have 
pig-houses, two have poultry-houses, and the 
four have combinedly a cow-house. 
In digging and levelling for the erection of any 
of the cottages, the whole area is made uniform, 
and the trenches are excavated to the depth of 
2% feet below the floor-level, and made 3} feet 
wide. The foundation-course is laid three feet 
broad, with large flat-bedded stones; the walls 
are brought in to the breadth of two feet by an 
offset at each side; the whole walls are built of 
prime rubble stones, laid on their natural bed, 
with properly prepared mortar; the division- 
walls of the double cottages are carried close up 
to the slates; the base-course, the corners, the 
rebates, the soles and lintels of doors and win- 
dows, the chimney-tops, the door-steps, and all 
projections, are executed with neatly broached 
ashlar; and the corners are broached to the | 
breadth of six inches on each face, and back- 
checked half an inch for harling. All the ground 
floors are formed of dressed flags, neatly squared 
and jointed, and laid on a level stratum of lime 
riddlings and dry stone shivers. The jambs, lin- 
tels, and hearths of the fire-places are formed of 
polished stone. A dwarf wall, 12 inches thick, is 
built across, under each of the floored rooms, for 
supporting the sleeper joists; and four iron- 
grated openings, each 8 inches square, are made 
in the base-course round the floored rooms, for 
the circulation of air under the flooring. All the 
doors and windows have safe lintels, of one inch 
in thickness to every foot in length, and have at 
least nine inches of solid hold of the walls at each 
end, ‘The scantling for the ties and rafters of 
the roof is not less than 6} inches broad and 2} 
thick, and is formed out of Baltic white wood 
battens; the cupples are set at the distances of 18 
inches, on level wall plates, 7 inches by 13 inch ; 
the joists of the floored rooms are 7 inches broad 
and 24 thick, and are placed at distances of 
18 inches, and floored over with grooved and 
