Victor Appleton - "Tom Swift And His Photo Telephone"

R.M. Ballantyne - "The Young Fur Traders"

Frances Wilson Huard - "With Those Who Wait"

William Hayley - "Ballads"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Rural Architecture

L >> Lewis Falley Allen >> Rural Architecture




This completes the household establishment, and we leave the
surroundings to the correct judgment and good taste of the proprietor to
complete, as its position, and the variety of objects with which it may
be connected, requires.

Stone and brick we have mentioned as the proper materials for this
house; but it may be also built of wood, if more within the means and
limits of the builder. There should be no pinching in its proportions,
but every part carried out in its full breadth and effect.

The cost of the whole establishment may be from $2,000, to $3,000;
depending somewhat upon the material used, and the finish put upon it.
The first-named sum would build the whole in an economical and plain
manner, while the latter would complete it amply in its details.


MISCELLANEOUS.

It may be an objection in the minds of some persons to the various plans
here submitted, that we have connected the out-buildings _immediately_
with the offices of the dwelling itself. We are well aware that such is
not always usual; but many years observation have convinced us, that in
their use and occupation, such connection is altogether the most
convenient and economical. The only drawback is in the case of fire;
which, if it occur in any one building, the whole establishment is
liable to be consumed. This objection is conceded; but we take it, that
it is the business of every one not able to be his own insurer, to have
his buildings insured by others; and the additional cost of this
insurance is not a tithe of what the extra expense of time, labor, and
exposure is caused to the family by having the out-buildings
disconnected, and at a _fire-proof_ distance from each other. There has,
too, in the separation of these out-buildings, (we do not now speak of
barns, and houses for the stock, and the farmwork proper,) from the main
dwelling, crept into the construction of such dwellings, by modern
builders, _some_ things, which in a country establishment, particularly,
ought never to be there, such as privies, or _water-closets_, as they
are more _genteelly_ called. These last, in our estimation, have no
business _in_ a _farmer's_ house. They are an _effeminacy_, only, and
introduced by _city_ life. An _appendage_ they should be, but separated
to some distance from the living rooms, and accessible by sheltered
passages to them. The wood-house should adjoin the outer kitchen,
because the fuel should always be handy, and the outer kitchen, or
wash-room is a sort of _slop_-room, of necessity; and the night wood,
and that for the morning fires may be deposited in it for immediate use.
The workshop, and small tool-house naturally comes next to that, as
being chiefly used in stormy weather. Next to this last, would, more
conveniently, come the carriage or wagon-house, and of course a stable
for a horse or two for family use, always accessible at night, and
convenient at unseasonable hours for farm labor. In the same close
neighborhood, also, should be a small pigsty, to accommodate a pig or
two, to eat up the kitchen slops from the table, refuse vegetables,
parings, dishwater, &c., &c., which could not well be carried to the
main piggery of the farm, unless the old-fashioned filthy mode of
letting the hogs run in the road, and a trough set outside the door-yard
fence, as seen in some parts of the country, were adopted. A pig can
always be kept, and fatted in three or four months, from the wash of the
house, with a little grain, in any well-regulated farmer's family. A few
fowls may also be kept in a convenient hen-house, if desired, without
offence--all constituting a part of the _household_ economy of the
place.

These out-buildings too, give a comfortable, domestic look to the whole
concern. Each one shelters and protects the other, and gives an air of
comfort and repose to the whole--a family expression all round. What so
naked and chilling to the feelings, as to see a country dwelling-house
all perked up, by itself, standing, literally, out of doors, without any
dependencies about it? No, no. First should stand the house, the chief
structure, in the foreground; appendant to that, the kitchen wing; next
in grade, the wood-house; covering in, also, the minor offices of the
house. Then by way of setting up, partially on their own account, should
come the workshop, carriage-house, and stable, as practically having a
separate character, but still subordinate to the house and its
requirements; and these too, may have their piggery and hen-house, by
way of tapering off to the adjoining fence, which encloses a kitchen
garden, or family orchard. Thus, each structure is appropriate in its
way--and together, they form a combination grateful to the sight, as a
complete rural picture. All objections, on account of filth or vermin,
to this connection, may be removed by a cleanly keeping of the
premises--a removal of all offal immediately as it is made, and daily or
weekly taking it on to the manure heaps of the barns, or depositing it
at once on the grounds where it is required. In point of health, nothing
is more congenial to sound physical condition than the occasional smell
of a stable, or the breath of a cow, not within the immediate contiguity
to the occupied rooms of the dwelling. On the score of neatness,
therefore, as we have placed them, no bar can be raised to their
adoption.




DESIGN IV.


This is perhaps a more ambitious house than either of the preceding,
although it may be adapted to a domain of the same extent and value. It
is plain and unpretending in appearance; yet, in its ample finish, and
deeply drawn, sheltering eaves, broad veranda, and spacious
out-buildings, may give accommodation to a larger family indulging a
more liberal style of living than the last.

By an error in the engraving, the main roof of the house is made to
appear like a double, or gambrel-roof, breaking at the intersection of
the gable, or hanging roof over the ends. This is not so intended. The
roofs on each side are a straight line of rafters. The Swiss, or hanging
style of gable-roof is designed to give a more sheltered effect to the
elevation than to run the end walls to a peak in the point of the roof.

By a defect in the drawing, the roof of the veranda is not sufficiently
thrown over the columns. This roof should project at least one foot
beyond them, so as to perfectly shelter the mouldings beneath from the
weather, and conform to the style of the main roof of the house.

[Illustration: FARM HOUSE. Pages 115-116.]

The material of which it is built may be of either stone, brick, or
wood, as the taste or convenience of the proprietor may suggest. The
main building is 44x36 feet, on the ground. The cellar wall may show 18
to 24 inches above the ground, and be pierced by windows in each end, as
shown in the plan. The height of the main walls may be two full stories
below the roof plates, or the chambers may run a foot or two into the
garret, at the choice of the builder, either of which arrangements may
be permitted.

The front door opens from a veranda 28 feet long by 10 feet in depth,
dropping eight inches from the door-sill. This veranda has a hipped
roof, which juts over the columns in due proportion with the roof of the
house over its walls. These columns are plain, with brackets, or braces
from near their tops, sustaining the plate and finish of the roof above,
which may be covered either with tin or zinc, painted, or closely
shingled.

The walls of the house may be 18 to 20 feet high below the plates; the
roof a pitch of 30 to 45deg, which will afford an upper garret, or
store, or small sleeping rooms, if required; and the eaves should
project two to three feet, as climate may demand, over the walls. A
plain finish--that is, ceiled underneath--is shown in the design, but
brackets on the ends of the rafters, beaded and finished, may be shown,
if preferred. The gables are _Swiss-roofed_, or _truncated_, thus giving
them a most sheltered and comfortable appearance, particularly in a
northerly climate. The small gable in front relieves the roof of its
monotony, and affords light to the central garret. The chimneys are
carried out with partition flues, and may be topped with square caps, as
necessity or taste may demand.

Retreating three feet from the kitchen side of the house runs, at right
angles, a wing 30x18 feet, one and a half stories high, with a veranda
eight feet wide in front. Next in rear of this, continues a wood-house,
30x18 feet, one story high, with ten feet posts, and open in front, the
ground level of which is 18 inches below the floor of the wing to which
it is attached. The roof of these two is of like character with that of
the main building.

Adjoining this wood-house, and at right angles with it, is a building
68x18 feet, projecting two feet outside the line of wood-house and
kitchen. This building is one and a half stories high, with 12 feet
posts, and roof in the same style and of equal pitch as the others.


[Illustration: GROUND PLAN.]

INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.

The front door from the veranda of the house opens into a hall, 18x8
feet, and 11 feet high, amply lighted by sash windows on the sides, and
over the door. From the rear of this hall runs a flight of easy stairs,
into the upper or chamber hall. On one side of the lower hall, a door
leads into a parlor, 18 feet square, and 11 feet high, lighted by three
windows, and warmed by an open stove, or fireplace, the pipe passing
into a chimney flue in the rear. A door passes from this parlor into a
rear passage, or entry, thus giving it access to the kitchen and rear
apartments. At the back end of the front hall, a door leads into the
rear passage and kitchen; and on the side opposite the parlor, a door
opens into the sitting or family room, 18x16 feet in area, having an
open fireplace, and three windows. On the hall side of this room, a door
passes into the kitchen, 22x16 feet, and which may, in case the
requirements of the family demand it, be made the chief family or living
room, and the last one described converted into a library. In this
kitchen, which is lighted by two windows, is a liberal open fireplace,
with an ample oven by its side, and a sink in the outer corner. A flight
of stairs, also, leads to the rear chambers above; and a corresponding
flight, under them, to the cellar below. A door at each end of these
stairs, leads into the back entry of the house, and thus to the other
interior rooms, or through the rear outer door to the back porch. This
back entry is lighted by a single sash window over the outside door
leading to the porch. Another door, opposite that leading down cellar,
opens into the passage through the wing. From the rear hall, which is
16x5 feet, the innermost passage leads into a family bedroom, or
nursery, 16x14 feet, lighted by a window in each outside wall, and
warmed by an open fireplace, or stove, at pleasure. Attached to this
bedroom is a clothes-closet, 8x4 feet, with shelves, and drawers. Next
the outer door, in rear end of the hall, is a small closet opening from
it, 6x4 feet in dimensions, convertible to any use which the mistress of
the house may direct.

[Illustration: CHAMBER PLAN.]

Opening into the wing from the kitchen, first, is a large closet and
pantry, supplied with a table, drawers, and shelves, in which are stored
the dishes, table furniture, and edibles necessary to be kept at a
moment's access. This room is 14x8 feet, and well lighted by a window of
convenient size. If necessary, this room may have a partition, shutting
off a part from the everyday uses which the family requires. In this
room, so near to the kitchen, to the sink, to hot-water, and the other
little domestic accessories which good housewives know so well how to
arrange and appreciate, all the nice little table-comforts can be got
up, and perfected, and stored away, under lock and key, in drawer, tub,
or jar, at their discretion, and still their eyes not be away from their
subordinates in the other departments. Next to this, and connected by a
door, is the dairy, or milk-room, also 14x8 feet; which, if necessary,
may be sunk three or four feet into the ground, for additional coolness
in the summer season, and the floor reached by steps. In this are ample
shelves for the milkpans, conveniences of churning, &c., &c. But, if the
dairy be a prominent object of the farm, a separate establishment will
be required, and the excavation may not be necessary for ordinary
household uses. Out of this milk-room, a door leads into a wash-room,
18x14 feet. A passage from the kitchen also leads into this. The
wash-room is lighted by two windows in rear, and one in front. A sink is
between the two rear windows, with conductor leading outside, and a
closet beneath it, for the iron ware. In the chimney, at the end, are
boilers, and a fireplace, an oven, or anything else required, and a door
leading to a platform in the wood-house, and so into the yard. On the
other side of the chimney, a door leads into a bathing-room, 7x6 feet,
into which hot water is drawn from one of the boilers adjoining, and
cold water may be introduced, by a hand-pump, through a pipe leading
into the well or cistern.

As no more convenient opportunity may present itself, a word or two will
be suggested as to the location of the bath-room in a country house. In
city houses, or country houses designed for the summer occupancy of city
dwellers, the bathing-rooms are usually placed in the second or chamber
story, and the water for their supply is drawn from cisterns still above
_them_. This arrangement, in city houses, is made chiefly from the want
of room on the ground floor; and, also, thus arranged in the
city-country houses, _because_ they are so constructed in the city. In
the farm house, or in the country house proper, occupied by whom it may
be, such arrangement is unnecessary, expensive, and inconvenient.
Unnecessary, because there is no want of room on the ground; expensive,
because an upper cistern is always liable to leakages, and a consequent
wastage of water, wetting, and rotting out the floors, and all the
slopping and dripping which such accidents occasion; and inconvenient,
from the continual up-and-down-stair labor of those who occupy the bath,
to say nothing of the piercing the walls of the house, for the admission
of pipes to lead in and let out the water, and the thousand-and-one
vexations, by way of plumbers' bills, and expense of getting to and from
the house itself, always a distance of some miles from the mechanic.

The only defence for such location of the bath-room and cisterns is, the
convenience and privacy of access to them, by the females of the family.
This counts but little, if anything, over the place appropriated in
this, and the succeeding designs of this work. The access is almost, if
not quite as private as the other, and, in case of ill-health, as easily
approachable to invalids. And on the score of economy in construction,
repair, or accident, the plan here adopted is altogether preferable. In
this plan, the water is drawn from the boiler by the turning of a cock;
that from the cistern, by a minute's labor with the hand-pump. It is let
off by the drawing of a plug, and discharges, by a short pipe, into the
adjoining garden, or grassplat, to moisten and invigorate the trees and
plants which require it, and the whole affair is clean and sweet again.
A screen for the window gives all the privacy required, and the most
fastidious, shrinking female is as retired as in the shadiest nook of
her dressing-room.

So with water-closets. A fashion prevails of thrusting these noisome
things into the midst of sleeping chambers and living rooms--pandering
to effeminacy, and, at times, surcharging the house--for they cannot,
at _all_ times, and under _all_ circumstances, be kept perfectly
close--with their offensive odor. _Out_ of the house they belong; and if
they, by any means, find their way within its walls proper, the fault
will not be laid at our door.

To get back to our description. This bathing-room occupies a corner of
the wood-house.

A raised platform passes from the wash-room in, past the bath-room, to a
water-closet, which may be divided into two apartments, if desirable.
The vaults are accessible from the rear, for cleaning out, or
introducing lime, gypsum, powdered charcoal, or other deodorizing
material. At the extreme corner of the wood-house, a door opens into a
feed and swill-room, 20x8 feet, which is reached by steps, and stands
quite eighteen inches above the ground level, on a stone under-pinning,
or with a stone cellar beneath, for the storage of roots in winter. In
one corner of this is a boiler and chimney, for cooking food for the
pigs and chickens. A door leads from this room into the piggery, 20x12
feet, where half-a-dozen swine may be kept. A door leads from this pen
into a yard, in the rear, where they will be less offensive than if
confined within. If necessary, a flight of steps, leading to the loft
overhead, may be built, where corn can be stored for their feeding.

Next to this is the workshop and tool-house, 18x14 feet; and, in rear, a
snug, warm house for the family chickens, 18x6 feet. These chickens may
also have the run of the yard in rear, with the pigs, and apartments in
the loft overhead for roosting.

Adjoining the workshop is the carriage house, 18x18 feet, with a flight
of stairs to the hayloft above, in which is, also, a dovecote; and,
leading out of the carriage floor, is the stable, 18x12 feet, with
stalls for two or four horses, and a passage of four feet wide, from the
carriage-house into it; thus completing, and drawing under one
continuous roof, and at less exposure than if separated, the chief
every-day requirements of living, to a well-arranged and
highly-respectable family.

The chamber plan of the dwelling will be readily understood by reference
to its arrangement. There are a sufficiency of closets for all purposes,
and the whole are accessible from either flight of stairs. The rooms
over the wing, of course, should be devoted to the male domestics of the
family, work-people, &c.


SURROUNDING PLANTATIONS, SHRUBBERY, WALKS, ETC.

After the general remarks made in the preceding pages, no _particular_
instructions can be given for the manner in which this residence should
be embellished in its trees and shrubbery. The large forest trees,
always grand, graceful, and appropriate, would become such a house,
throwing a protecting air around and over its quiet, unpretending roof.
Vines, or climbing roses, might throw their delicate spray around the
columns of the modest veranda, and a varied selection of familiar
shrubbery and ornamental plants checker the immediate front and sides of
the house looking out upon the lawn; through which a spacious walk, or
carriage-way should wind, from the high road, or chief approach.

There are, however, so many objects to be consulted in the various sites
of houses, that no one rule can be laid down for individual guidance.
The surface of the ground immediately adjoining the house must be
considered; the position of the house, as it is viewed from surrounding
objects; its altitude, or depression, as affected by the adjacent lands;
its command upon surrounding near, or distant objects, in the way of
prospect; the presence of water, either in stream, pond, or lake, far or
near, or the absence of water altogether--all these enter immediately
into the manner in which the lawn of a house should be laid out, and
worked, and planted. But as a rule, all _filagree_ work, such as
serpentine paths, and tortuous, unmeaning circles, artificial piles of
rock, and a multitude of small _ornaments_--so esteemed, by some--should
never be introduced into the lawn of a _farm_ house. It is unmeaning,
in the first place; expensive in its care, in the second place;
unsatisfactory and annoying altogether. Such things about a farm
establishment are neither dignified nor useful, and should be left to
town's-people, having but a stinted appreciation of what constitutes
_natural_ beauty, and wanting to make the most of the limited piece of
ground of which they are possessed.

Nor would we shut out, by these remarks, the beauty and odor of the
flower-borders, which are so appropriately the care of the good matron
of the household and her comely daughters. To them may be devoted a
well-dug plat beneath the windows, or in the garden. Enough, and to
spare, they should always have, of such cheerful, life-giving pleasures.
We only object to their being strewed all over the ground,--a tussoc of
plant here, a patch of posey there, and a scattering of both everywhere,
without either system or meaning. They lower the dignity and simplicity
of the country dwelling altogether.

The business approach to this house is, of course, toward the stables
and carriage-house, and from them should lead off the main farm-avenue.

The kitchen garden, if possible, should lie on the kitchen side of the
house, where, also, should be placed the bee-house, in full sight from
the windows, that their labors and swarming may be watched. In fact, the
entire economy of the farm house, and its appendages, should be brought
close under the eye of the household, to engage their care and
watchfulness, and to interest them in all the little associations and
endearments--and they are many, when properly studied out--which go to
make agricultural life one of the most agreeable pursuits, if not
altogether so, in which our lot in life may be cast.

A fruit-garden, too, should be a prominent object near this house. We
are now advancing somewhat into the _elegances_ of agricultural life;
and although fruit trees, and _good_ fruits too, should hold a strong
place in the surroundings of even the humblest of all country
places--sufficient, at least, for the ample use of the family--they have
not yet been noticed, to any extent, in those already described. It may
be remarked, that the fruit-_garden_--the _orchard_, for market
purposes, is not here intended--should be placed in near proximity to
the house. All the _small_ fruits, for household use, such as
strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, grapes,
as well as apricots, plums, nectarines, peaches, pears, apples, quinces,
or whatever fruits may be cultivated, in different localities, should be
close by, for the convenience of collecting them, and to protect them
from destruction by vermin, birds, or the depredations of creatures
_called_ human.

A decided plan of arrangement for all the plantations and grounds,
should enter into the composition of the site for the dwelling,
out-houses, gardens, &c., as they are to appear when the whole
establishment is completed; and nothing left to accident, chance, or
after-thought, which can be disposed of at the commencement. By the
adoption of such a course, the entire composition is more easily
perfected, and with infinitely greater expression of character, than if
left to the chance designs, or accidental demands of the future.

Another feature should be strictly enforced, in the outward appointments
of the farm house,--and that is, the entire withdrawal of any use of the
highway, in its occupation by the stock of the farm, except in leading
them to and from its enclosures. Nothing looks more slovenly, and
nothing can be more unthrifty, in an _enclosed_ country, than the
running of farm stock in the highway. What so untidy as the approach to
a house, with a herd of filthy hogs rooting about the fences, basking
along the sidewalk, or feeding at a huge, uncouth, hollowed log, in the
road near the dwelling. It may be out of place here to speak of it, but
this disgusting spectacle has so often offended our sight, at the
approach of an otherwise pleasant farm establishment, that we cannot
forego the opportunity to speak of it. The road lying in front, or
between the different sections of the farm, should be as well, and as
cleanly kept as any portion of the enclosures, and it is equally a sin
against good taste and neighborhood-morality, to have it otherwise.


TREE-PLANTING IN THE HIGHWAY.

This is frequently recommended by writers on country embellishment, as
indispensable to a finished decoration of the farm. Such may, or may not
be the fact. Trees shade the roads, when planted on their sides, and so
they partially do the fields adjoining, making the first muddy, in bad
weather, by preventing the sun drying them, and shading the crops of the
last by their overhanging foliage, in the season of their growth. Thus
they are an evil, in moist and heavy soils. Yet, in light soils, their
shade is grateful to the highway traveler, and not, perhaps, injurious
to the crops of the adjoining field; and when of proper kinds, they add
grace and beauty to the domain in which they stand. We do not,
therefore, indiscriminately recommend them, but leave it to the
discretion of the farmer, to decide for himself, having seen estates
equally pleasant with, and without trees on the roadside. Nothing,
however, can be more beautiful than a clump of trees in a
pasture-ground, with a herd, or a flock beneath them, near the road; or
the grand and overshadowing branches of stately tree, in a rich meadow,
leaning, perhaps, over the highway fence, or flourishing in its solitary
grandeur, in the distance--each, and all, imposing features in the rural
landscape. All such should be preserved, with the greatest care and
solicitude, as among the highest and most attractive ornaments which the
farm can boast.

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