Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/115

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 91 air, nor a free circulation of such air as there is. This Design is also well adapted for a lodge, and is worthy of being exposed to view on three sides, instead of being almost entirely covered with vegetation. The practice of almost entirely covering buildings in the country with creepers, can, by no means, be considered as in good taste : a few may be trained up a plain building, or a ruin ; but to cover a handsome piece of architecture in this way, is to defeat the very intention for which that architecture was produced. In the country, all is vegetation : w^hat beauty, therefore, can be expected from clothing with foliage an object, which, to produce any effect at all, must operate by contrast ? In the town, all is archi- tecture ; and there, the introduction of vegetation of any kind on a building, can, in point of effect, hardly be carried too far. In the country, the white or grey walls of-the plainest cottage, are a relief to the eye from the eternal monotony of green, by which such cottages are generally surrounded. In addition to this, it should never be forgotten that all vegetation near a house, especially that of deciduous plants, encourages damp and insects. 187. Garden. We have added a garden, on the supposition that this Design might be thought worth adoption, as a gate lodge, or by an independent labourer, or small farmer without children. We have shown in it a building, and yard, for two cows and two horses, g'; and another yard with a privy, a place for pigs, another for poultry, and a third between them for wood, h. It is of great consequence that the floors of these buildings should be raised at least one foot above the surface of the yard, and that their walls should be of such a thickness as to ensure warm.th to the animals. The necessity and advantage of this will appear in Book II. There are several small borders and angles, round the house and beneath its terrace or platform, which are supposed to be devoted to flowers and ornamental plants. There are two compartments, i and k, which, in the case of horses or cows being kept, might be devoted to lucerne, saintfoin, Hemerocallis, (see Gard. Mag. Vol. V. p. 451,) Symphytum, or some other perennial forage plant, according to the soil ; in order that they may always afford food at a short notice, when it may be inconvenient to send to a greater distance. To a family of two persons without a servant, in Britain, and to small farmers in America and Australia, where servants or helpers, are scarcely to be got at any price, arrangements of this sort should always be kept in view. The four compartments, I, I, and 166 m, m, may be used as a kitchen garden ; and the four larger compartments, n,o,p,q, for growing corn crops. But if the garden is supposed to be on a smaller scale, and to contain only a quarter of an acre, instead of five acres, then these four large compartments may be devoted to the usual rotation of culinary vegetables; and the four smaller ones to a grass- plot for drying clothes, and to strawberries ; either, or both. The two compartments, r and s, may serve for gooseberries, currants, and raspberries ; fruits that ought to be in every cottage garden, where the climate is suitable for them. 188. In forming Grass-plots for drying Clothes, where ap- pearance is an object, there ought always to be tubes built in or inserted in the ground, for the purpose of holding the posts, to which lines, for hanging the clothes on, are attached. These tubes, fig. 166, are generally about eighteen inches long and four inches wide 1(53 inside at top, and three inches at bottom, with a plug, t, to cover each when its post is taken out and laid in the dry. Posts for being so used have a shoulder at their lower end, fig. 167, u, for pre- venting them from being wedged too firmly into the receiving box. The top of such a line post has generally two pins, v, passed through it in opposite directions, for the purpose of fastening the lines. In some situations, instead of moveable posts, the lines may be tied to fixed posts, ornamented by creepers ; or to trees with narrow heads, such as the Lombardy poplar ; or for some description of clothes, cords may be stretched under the far projecting eaves of the roof all round the house. One end of the cord in this case is fixed, and the other passes over a pulley, and is made fast to a hook in the wall. The advantage of passing a cord over a pulley, fig. 168, w, is, that the line may be lowered to receive the articles to be dried, and then hoisted up again. This mode of drying nlothes is very common in Germany "'frf S