Rural Architecture

L >> Lewis Falley Allen >> Rural Architecture

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Although we decline to give specific directions about what varieties of
furniture should constitute the furnishings of a house, or to illustrate
its style or fashion by drawings, and content ourself with the single
remark, that it should, in all cases, be strong, plain, and durable--no
sham, nor ostentation about it--and such as is _made for use_: mere
trinkets stuck about the room, on center tables, in corners, or on the
mantel-piece, are the foolishest things imaginable. They are costly;
they require a world of care, to keep them in condition; and then, with
all this care, they are good for nothing, in any sensible use. We have
frequently been into a country house, where we anticipated better
things, and, on being introduced into the "parlor," actually found
everything in the furniture line so dainty and "prinked up," that we
were afraid to sit down on the frail things stuck around by way of
seats, for fear of breaking them; and everything about it looked so
gingerly and inhospitable, that we felt an absolute relief when we could
fairly get out of it, and take a place by the wide old fireplace, in the
common living room, comfortably ensconced in a good old easy,
high-backed, split-bottomed chair--there was positive comfort in that,
when in the "parlor" there was nothing but restraint and _dis_comfort.
No; leave all this vanity to town-folk, who have nothing better--or who,
at least, think they have--to amuse themselves with; it has no fitness
for a country dwelling, whatever. All this kind of frippery smacks of
the boarding school, the pirouette, and the dancing master, and is out
of character for the farm, or the sensible retirement of the country.

In connection with the subject of furniture, a remark may be made on the
_room_ arrangement of the house, which might, perhaps, have been more
fittingly made when discussing that subject, in the designs of our
houses. Some people have a marvellous propensity for introducing into
their houses a _suite_ of rooms, connected by wide folding-doors, which
must always be opened into each other, furnished just alike, and devoted
to extraordinary occasions; thus absolutely sinking the best rooms in
the house, for display half a dozen times in the year, and at the
sacrifice of the every-day comfort of the family. This is nothing but a
bastard taste, of the most worthless kind, introduced from the city--the
propriety of which, for city life, need not here be discussed. The
presence of such arrangement, in a country house, is fatal to everything
like domestic enjoyment, and always followed by great expense and
inconvenience. No room, in any house, should be too good for occupation
by the family themselves--not every-day, and common-place--but
occupation at any and all times, when convenience or pleasure demand it.
If a large room be required, let the single room itself be large; not
sacrifice an extra room to the occasional extension of the choicer one,
as in the use of folding-doors must be done. This "parlor" may be better
furnished--and so it should be--than any other room in the house. Its
carpet should be not too good to tread, or stand upon, or for the
children to roll and tumble upon, provided their shoes and clothes be
clean. Let the happy little fellows roll and tumble on it, to their
heart's content, when their mother or elder sisters are with them--for
it may be, perhaps, the most joyous, and most innocent pleasure of their
lives, poor things! The hearth-rug should be in keeping with the carpet,
also, and no floor-cloth should be necessary to cover it, for fear of
soiling; but everything free and easy, with a comfortable, inviting,
hospitable look about it.

Go into the houses of our great men--such as live in the country--whom
God made great, not money--and see how _they_ live. We speak not of
statesmen and politicians alone, but great merchants, great scholars,
great divines, great mechanics, and all men who, in mind and
attainments, are head and shoulder above their class in any of the walks
of life, and you find no starch, or flummery about them. We once went
out to the country house--he lived there all the time, for that
matter--of a distinguished banker of one of our great cities, to dine,
and spend the day with him. He had a small farm attached to his
dwelling, where he kept his horses and cows, his pigs, and his poultry.
He had a large, plain two-story cottage house, with a piazza running on
three sides of it, from which a beautiful view of the neighboring city,
and water, and land, was seen in nearly all directions. He was an
educated man. His father had been a statesman of distinguished ability
and station at home, and a diplomatist abroad, and himself educated in
the highest circles of business, and of society. His wife, too, was the
daughter of a distinguished city merchant, quite his equal in all the
accomplishments of life. His own wealth was competent; he was the
manager of millions of the wealth of others; and his station in society
was of the highest. Yet, with all this claim to pretension, his house
did not cost him eight thousand dollars--and he built it by "days-work,"
too, so as to have it faithfully done; and the furniture in it, aside
from library, paintings, and statuary, never cost him three thousand.
Every room in it was a plain one, not more highly finished than many a
farmer's house can afford. The furniture of every kind was plain,
saving, perhaps, the old family plate, and such as he had added to it,
which was all substantial, and made for use. The younger children--and
of these, younger and older, he had several--we found happy, healthy,
cheerful, and frolicking on the carpets; and their worthy mother, in the
plainest, yet altogether appropriate garb, was sitting among them, at
her family sewing, and kindly welcomed us as we took our seats in front
of the open, glowing fireplace. "Why, sir," we exclaimed, rubbing our
hands in the comfortable glow of warmth which the fire had given--for it
was a cold December day--"you are quite plain, as well as wonderfully
comfortable, in your country house--quite different from your former
city residence!" "To be sure we are," was the reply; "we stood it as
long as we could, amid the starch and the gimcracks of ---- street,
where we rarely had a day to ourselves, and the children could never
_go_ into the streets but they must be tagged and tasselled, in their
dress, into all sorts of discomfort, merely for the sake of appearance.
So, after standing it as long as we could, my wife and I determined we
would try the country, for a while, and see what we could make of it.
We kept our town-house, into which we returned for a winter or two; but
gave it up for a permanent residence here, with which we are perfectly
content. We see here all the friends we want to see; we all enjoy
ourselves, and the children are healthy and happy." And this is but a
specimen of thousands of families in the enjoyment of country life,
including the families of men in the highest station, and possessed of
sufficient wealth.

Why, then, should the farmer ape the fashion, and the frivolity of the
butterflies of town life, or permit his family to do it? It is the
sheerest possible folly in him to do so. Yet, it is a folly into which
many are imperceptibly gliding, and which, if not reformed, will
ultimately lead to great discomfort to themselves, and ruin to their
families. Let thoughtless people do as they choose. Pay no attention to
their extravagance; but watch them for a dozen years, and see how they
come out in their fashionable career; and observe the fate of their
families, as they get "established" in the like kind of life. He who
keeps aloof from such temptation, will then have no cause to regret that
he has maintained his own steady course of living, and taught his sons
and daughters that a due attention to their own comfort, with economical
habits in everything relating to housekeeping, will be to their lasting
benefit in future.

But, we have said enough to convey the ideas in house-furnishing we
would wish to impart; and the reader will do as he, or she, no doubt,
would have done, had we not written a word about it--go and select such
as may strike their own fancy.

We received, a day or two since, a letter from a person at the west,
entirely unknown to us, whose ideas so entirely correspond with our own,
that we give it a place, as showing that a proper taste _does_ prevail
among many people in this country, in regard to buildings, and
house-furnishings; and which we trust he will pardon us for publishing,
as according entirely with our own views, in conclusion:

----, ----, Ill., Dec. 18, 1851.

DEAR SIR,--I received, a few days since, a copy of the first number
of a periodical called the "Plough," into which is copied the
elevation of a design for a farm house, purporting to be from a
forthcoming work of yours, entitled "Rural Architecture." Although a
perfect stranger to you, you will perhaps allow me to make one or
two suggestions.

I have seen no work yet, which seems fully to meet the wants of our
country people in the matter of furniture. After having built their
houses, they need showing how to furnish them in the cheapest, most
neat, comfortable, convenient, and substantial manner. The furniture
should be designed for use, not merely for show. I would have it
plain, but not coarse--just enough for the utmost convenience, but
nothing superfluous. The articles of furniture figured, and
partially described in the late works on those subjects, are mostly
of too elaborate and expensive a cast to be generally introduced
into our country houses. There is too much _nabobery_ about them to
meet the wants, or suit the taste of the plain American farmer.

As to out-houses--the barn, stable, carriage and wagon-house,
tool-house, piggery, poultry-house, corn-crib, and granary, (to
say nothing of the "rabbit-warren" and "dovecote,")--are necessary
appendages of the farm house. Now, as cheapness is one great
desideratum with nearly all our new beginners in this western
region, it seems to me, that such plans as will conveniently include
the greatest number of these under the same roof, will be best
suited to their necessities. I do not mean to be understood that,
for the sake of the first cost, we should pay no regard to the
appearance, or that we should slight our work, or suffer it to be
constructed of flimsy or perishable materials: we should not only
have an eye to taste and durability, but put in practice the most
strict economy.

I hope, in the above matters, you may be able to furnish something
better suited to the necessities and means of our plain farmers,
than has been done by any of your predecessors.

I remain, &c., most respectfully yours,

----, ----.

Having completed the series of Designs for dwelling houses, which we had
proposed for this work, and followed them out with such remarks as were
thought fitting to attend them, we now pass on to the second part of our
subject: the out-buildings of the farm, in which are to be accommodated
the domestic animals which make up a large item of its economy and
management; together with other buildings which are necessary to
complete its requirements. We trust that they will be found to be such
as the occasion, and the wants of the farmer may demand; and in economy,
accommodation, and extent, be serviceable to those for whose benefit
they are designed.

AN APIARY, OR BEE-HOUSE.

Every farmer should keep bees--provided he have pasturage for them, on
his own land, or if a proper range for their food and stores lie in his
immediate vicinity. Bees are, beyond any other domestic _stock_,
economical in their keeping, to their owners. Still they require care,
and that of no inconsiderable kind, and skill, in their management, not
understood by every one who attempts to rear them. They ask no food,
they require no assistance, in gathering their daily stores, beyond that
of proper housing in the cheapest description of tenement, and with that
they are entirely content. Yet, without these, they are a contingent,
and sometimes a troublesome appendage to the domestic stock of the farm.

We call them _domestic_. In one sense they are so; in another, they are
as wild and untamed as when buzzing and collecting their sweets in the
vineyard of Timnath, where the mighty Sampson took their honey from the
carcass of the dead lion; or, as when John the Baptist, clothed with
camel's hair, ate "locusts and wild honey" in the arid wastes of
Palestine. Although kept in partial bondage for six thousand years, the
ruling propensity of the bee is to seek a home and shelter in the
forest, when it emerges in a swarm from the parent hive; and no amount
of domestic accommodation, or kindness of treatment, will induce it
willingly to migrate from its nursery habitation to another by its side,
although provided with the choicest comforts to invite its entrance.
It will soon fly to the woods, enter a hollow and dilapidated tree, and
carve out for itself its future fortunes, amid a world of labor and
apparent discomfort. The bee, too, barring its industry, patience, and
sweetened labors, is an arrant thief--robbing its nearest neighbors,
with impunity, when the strongest, and mercilessly slaughtering its
weaker brethren, when standing in the way of its rapacity. It has been
extolled for its ingenuity, its patience, its industry, its
perseverance, and its virtue. Patience, industry, and perseverance it
has, beyond a doubt, and in a wonderful degree; but ingenuity, and
virtue, it has none, more than the spider, who spins his worthless web,
or the wasp, who stings you when disturbing his labors. Instinct, the
bee has, like all animals; but of kind feeling, and gratitude, it has
nothing; and with all our vivid nursery remembrance of good Doctor
Watts' charming little hymn--

"How doth the little busy bee," &c. &c.,

we have long ago set it down as incorrigible to kind treatment, or
charitable sympathy, and looked upon it simply as a thing to be treated
kindly for the sake of its labors, and as composing one of that
delightful family of domestic objects which make our homes attractive,
pleasant, and profitable.

The active labors of the bee, in a bright May or June morning, as they
fly, in their busy order, back and forth from their hives, or the
soothing hum of their playful hours, in a summer's afternoon, are among
the most delightful associations of rural life; and as a luxury to the
sight, and the ear, they should be associated with every farmer's home,
and with every laborer's cottage, when practicable. And as their due
accommodation is to be the object of our present writing, a plan is
presented for that object.

In many of the modern structures held out for imitation, the bee-house,
or apiary, is an expensive, pretentious affair, got up in an ambitious
way, with efforts at style, in the semblance of a temple, a pagoda, or
other absurdity, the very appearance of which frightens the simple bee
from its propriety, and in which we never yet knew a colony of them to
become, and remain successful. The insect is, as we have observed, wild
and untamable--a savage in its habits, and rude in its temper. It
rejects all cultivated appearances, and seeks only its own temporary
convenience, together with comfortable room for its stores, and the
increase of its kind; and therefore, the more rustic and simple its
habitation, the better is it pleased with its position.

[Illustration: APIARY.]

The bee-house should front upon a sheltered and sunny aspect. It should
be near the ground, in a clean and quiet spot, free from the intrusion
of other creatures, either human or profane, and undisturbed by noisome
smells, and uncouth sounds--for it loathes all these instinctively, and
loves nothing so much as the wild beauty of nature itself. The plan here
presented is of the plainest and least expensive kind. Nine posts, or
crutches, are set into the ground sufficiently deep to hold them firm,
and to secure them from heaving out by the frost. The distance of these
posts apart may be according to the size of the building, and to give it
strength enough to resist the action of the wind. The front posts should
be 9 feet high, above the ground; the rear posts should be 7 feet--that
a man, with his hat on, may stand upright under them--and 6 feet from
the front line. The two end posts directly in the rear of the front
corner posts, should be 3 feet back from them, and on a line to
accommodate the pitch of the roof from the front to the rear. A light
plate is to be fitted on the top line of the front posts; a plate at
each end should run back to the posts in rear, and then another
cross-plate, or girt, from each one of these middle posts, to the post
in rear of all, to meet the plate which surmounts this rear line of
posts; and a parallel plate, or rafter, should be laid from the two
intermediate posts at the ends, to connect them, and for a central
support to the roof. Intermediate central posts should also be placed
opposite those in front, to support the central plate, and not exceeding
12 feet apart. A shed roof, of boards, or shingles, tightly laid, should
cover the whole, sufficiently projecting over the front, rear, and
sides, to give the house abundant shelter, and make it architecturally
agreeable to the eye--say 12 to 18 inches, according to its extent. A
corner board should drop two feet below the plate, with such finish, by
way of ornament, as may be desirable. The ends should be tightly boarded
up against the weather, from bottom to top. The rear should also be
tightly boarded, from the bottom up to a level with the stand inside,
for the hives, and from 15 to 18 inches above that to the roof. Fitted
into the space thus left in the rear, should be a light, though
substantial, swing door, hung from the upper boarding, made in sections,
extending from one post to the other, as the size of the house may
determine, and secured with hooks, or buttons, as may be convenient. The
outside of the structure is thus completed.

The inside arrangement for the hives, may be made in two different ways,
as the choice of the apiarian may govern in the mode in which his hives
are secured. The most usual is the _stand_ method, which may be made
thus: At each angle, equidistant, say 18 to 24 inches, inside, from the
rear side and ends of the building--as shown in the ground plan--and
opposite to each rear and end post, suspend perpendicularly a line of
stout pieces of two-inch plank, 4 inches wide, well spiked on to the
rafters above, reaching down within two feet of the ground--which is to
hold up the bottom of the stand on which the hives are to rest. From
each bottom end of these suspended strips, secure another piece of like
thickness and width, horizontally back to the post in rear of it, at the
side and ends. Then, lengthwise the building, and turning the angles at
the ends, and resting on these horizontal pieces just described, lay
other strips, 3x2 inches, set edgewise--one in front, and another in
rear, inside each post and suspended strip, and close to it, and secured
by heavy nails, so that there shall be a double line of these strips on
a level, extending entirely around the interior, from the front at each
end. This forms the hanging frame-work for the planks or boards on which
the hives are to rest.

Now for the hives. First, let as many pieces of sound one and a half, or
two-inch plank as you have hives to set upon them, be cut long enough to
reach from the boarding on the rear and ends of the building, to one
inch beyond, and projecting over the front of the outer strip last
described. Let these pieces of plank be well and smoothly planed, and
laid lengthwise across the aforesaid strips, not less than four inches
apart from each other--if a less number of hives be in the building than
it will accommodate at four inches apart, no matter how far apart they
may be--these pieces of plank are the _ferms_ for the hives, on which
they are to sit. And, as we have for many years adopted the plan now
described, with entire success, a brief description is given of our mode
of hive, and the process for obtaining the surplus honey. We say
surplus, for destroying the bees to obtain their honey, is a mode not at
all according to our notions of economy, or mercy; and we prefer to take
that honey only which the swarm may make, after supplying their own
wants, and the stores for their increasing family. This process is given
in the report of a committee of gentlemen appointed by the New York
State Agricultural Society, on a hive which we exhibited on that
occasion, with the following note attached, at their show at Buffalo,
in 1848:

"I have seen, examined, and used several different plans of _patent_
hive, of which there are probably thirty invented, and used, more or
less. I have found all which I have ever seen, unsatisfactory, not
carrying out in full, the benefits claimed for them.

"The bee works, and lives, I believe, solely by instinct. I do not
consider it an inventive, or very ingenious insect. To succeed well, its
accommodations should be of the _simplest_ and _securest_ form.
Therefore, instead of adopting the complicated plans of many of the
patent hives, I have made, and used a simple box, like that now before
you, containing a cube of one foot square _inside_--made of one and a
quarter inch sound pine plank, well jointed and planed on all sides, and
put together perfectly tight at the joints, with white lead ground in
oil, and the inside of the hive at the bottom champered off to
three-eighths of an inch thick, with a door for the bees in front, of
four inches long by three-eighths of an inch high. I do this, that there
may be a thin surface to come in contact with the shelf on which they
rest, thus preventing a harbor for the bee-moth. (I have never used a
patent hive which would exclude the bee-moth, nor any one which would so
well do it as this, having never been troubled with that scourge since I
used this tight hive.) On the top of the hive, an inch or two from the
front, is made a passage for the bees, of an inch wide, and six to eight
inches long, to admit the bees into an upper hive for surplus honey,
(which passage is covered, when no vessel for that purpose is on the
top.) For obtaining the honey, I use a common ten or twelve-quart water
pail, inverted, with the bail turned over, in which the bees deposit
their surplus, like the sample before you. The pail will hold about
twenty pounds of honey. This is simple, cheap, and expeditious; the pail
costing not exceeding twenty-five cents, is taken off in a moment, the
bail replaced, and the honey ready for transportation, or market, and
_always in place_. If there is time for more honey to be made, (my bees
made two pails-full in succession this year,) another pail can be put on
at once.

"Such, gentlemen, in short, is my method. I have kept bees about twenty
years. I succeed better on this plan than with any other."

In addition to this, our hives are painted white, or other light color,
on the outside, to protect them from warping, and as a further security
against the bee-moth, or miller, which infests and destroys so many
carelessly-made hives, as to discourage the efforts of equally careless
people in keeping them. Inside the hive, on each end, we fasten, by
shingle nails, about half-way between the bottom and top, a small piece
of half-inch board, about the size of a common window button, and with a
like notch in it, set upward, but stationary, on which, when the hive is
to receive the swarm, a stick is laid across, to support the comb as it
is built, from falling in hot weather. At such time, also, when new, and
used for the first time, the under-side of the top is scratched with the
tines of a table fork, or a nail, so as to make a rough surface, to
which the new comb can be fastened. In addition to the pails on the top
of the hives, to receive the surplus honey, we sometimes use a flat box,
the size of the hive in diameter, and six or seven inches high _inside_,
which will hold twenty-five to thirty pounds of honey. The pails we
adopted as an article of greater convenience for transporting the honey.

The other plan of arranging the hives alluded to, is suspending them
between the strips before described, by means of _cleats_ secured on to
the front and rear sides of the hive, say two-thirds the way up from the
bottom. In such case, the strips running lengthwise the house must be
brought near enough together to receive the hives as hung by the
_cleats_, and the bottom boards, or forms, must be much smaller than
those already described, and hung with wire hooks and staples to the
sides, with a button on the rear, to close up, or let them down a
sufficient distance to admit the air to pass freely across them, and up
into the hive--Weeks' plan, in fact, for which he has a patent, together
with some other fancied improvements, such as chambers to receive the
boxes for the deposit of surplus honey. This, by the way, is the best
"patent" we have seen; and Mr. Weeks having written an ingenious and
excellent treatise on the treatment of the bee, we freely recommend his
book to the attention of every apiarian who wishes to succeed in their
management. As a rule, we have no confidence in _patent_ hives. We have
seen scores of them, of different kinds, have tried several of great
pretension to sundry virtues--such as excluding moths, and other
marvelous benefits--and, after becoming the victim of bee empirics to
the tune of many a dollar, have thrown aside the gimcracks, and taken
again to a common-sense method of keeping our bees, as here described.
The bees themselves, we feel bound to say, seem to hold these
patent-right habitations in quite as sovereign contempt as ourself,
reluctantly going into them, and getting out of them at the first safe
opportunity. But, as a treatise on bee-keeping is not a part of this
present work, we must, for further information, commend the inquirer on
that subject to some of the valuable treatises extant, on so prolific a
subject, among which we name those of Bevan, Weeks, and Miner.

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