Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/269

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STY'LES. 21-5 tbemselvcs must be rendered alive to the !)enefit.s which would result to tliem from adopt- ing plans of this kind, before they can be carried into execution with much prospect. of success. Good, however, will residt from making such plans known, because it will prepare the way for them in the minds of the rising generation. 494. Locality. The place where such an assemblage of buildings ought to be erected must depend on the kind of labour supplied by the occupants, and the demand for it. Such a Design as the present would answer best in the immediate neighbourhood of a large manufactory, or, in a mining district ; or, in short, wherever mankind are employed in masses : but it would also answer for a central situation in an agricultural district, where the number of hands required was such, that none of the eighty men supposed to be here congregated together would require to walk more than a mile to and from their work morning and evening. In the neighbourhood of a large town like London, such a working man's college might be set down, though at a distance of several miles ; be- cause there is always abundance of puljlic conveyances to carry the occupants to and from their work, and others might be started, either by individuals or by the college itself, to carry a gi-eater number, and at a cheaper rate. In the best cultivated districts of Scotland, where the farms are large, it is the custom, during harvest, and we believe also during the turnip-hoeing season, to carry the labourers to the field and back again in carts ; the same thing is also done with the colliers in the coal districts of Staffordshire, and has been lately adopted with the letter-carriers in London. Why, then, might not even an agricidtural college, and much more a manufacturmg or a mining one, support a public carriage for the accommodation of those of its inmates who had to go the greatest distance to their work ? Such a college must always have a certain portion of land for the growth of culinary vegetables, &c., the culture of which would till up all the spare time of the horses and their driver. 495. Situation. Whatever may be the locality of such working-man's college, the situation ought to be dry and elevated ; and the summit of a regular knoll, or a level spot, will always be found preferable to an irregular surface, on account of the greater 440 ^Bx loS sil I 4s:ii-j3i3ti ;/o 9S 7':