No. 14. LAFAYETTE, TIPPECANOE Co., INDIANA, DEAR SIR: The plan proposed in several of your communications for ditching and fencing the western prairies, I feel confident from experiment, will prove eminently successful. In this assertion I am sustained by the opinion of many distinguished farmers in this country, who have examined a "scraper" or "ditcher," modelled on the plan you recommend, and have also witnessed its operations. A machine designed for similar purposes, but manufactured and worked at a much greater cost, has been extensively used during the past summer in the northern counties of this State, and its employment, as far as I learn, has been attended with signal success. For ordinary purposes, your ditcher will be preferable, costing as it does only two or three dollars, and requiring only a comparatively small outlay of labor. The cost of the machine above referred to, as used in the northem portion of the State, is several hundred dollars, and it is complicated in its structure. The free use of ditching machines on the prairies and in the construction of roads will add thousands of dollars yearly to the value of western lands. Our farmers seem determined to ascertain the utility of these inventions by a thorough trial. With sentiments of respect, yours truly, Hon. HENRY L. ELLSWORTH. H. W. ELLSWORTH. เ No. 15. Plan of cheap cottages. After selecting a suitable spot of ground, as near the place of building as practicable, let a circle of ten feet or more be described. Let the loam be removed, and the clay dug up one foot thick, or, if clay is not found on the spot, let it be carted in to that depth. Any ordinary clay will answer. Tread this clay over with cattle, and add some straw cut six or eight inches long. After the clay is well tempered with working it with cattle, the materials duly prepared for the making the brick. A mould is then formed of brick, of the size of the brick desired. In England they are usually made eigh teen inches long, one foot wide, and nine inches thick. I have found the more convenient size to be one foot long, seven inches wide, and five inches thick. The mould should have a bottom. The clay is then placed in the moulds in the same manner that brick moulds are ordinarily filled. A wire, or piece of iron hoop, will answer very well for striking off the top. One man will mould about as fast as another can carry away, two moulds being used by him. The bricks are placed upon the level ground, where they are suffered to dry two days, turning them up edgewise the second day, and then packed in a pile, protected from the rain, and left to dry ten or twelve days, during which time the foundation of the building can be prepared. If cellar is desired, this must be formed of stone or brick, one foot above the 3 University of 1 surface of the ground. For cheap buildings on the prairie, wood sills, twelve or fourteen inches wide, may be laid on piles or stones. This will form a good superstructure. Where lime and small stones abonnd, grout made of those materials (lime and stones) will answer very well. In all cases, however, before commencing the walls for the first story, it is very desirable, as well in this case as in walls of brick, to lay a single course of slate; this will intercept the dampness so often rising in the walls of brick houses. The wall is laid by placing the brick lengthwise, thus making the wall one foot thick. Ordinary clay, such as is used for clay mortar, will suffice, though a weak mortar of sand and lime, when these articles are cheap, is recommended, as affording a more adhesive material for the plaster. The wall may safely be carried up one story, or two or three stories; the division walls may be seven inches, just the width of the brick. The door and window frames being inserted as the wall proceeds, the building is soon raised. The roof may be shingles or thatch. In either case, it should project over the sides of the house, and also over the ends, at least two feet, to guard the wall from vertical rains. The exterior wall is plastered with good lime mortar, and then with a second coat pebble-dashed. The inside is plastered without dashing. The floors may be laid with oak boards, slit, five or six inches wide, and laid down without jointing or planing, if they are rubbed over with a rough stone after the rooms are finished. Doors of a cheap and neat appearance may be made by taking two single boards of the length or width of the doors; placing these vertically, they will fill the space. Put a wide batten on the bottom and a narrow one on the top, with strips on the side, and a strip in the middle. This door will be a batten door, but presenting two long panels on one side and a smooth surface on the other. If a porch or verandah is wanted, it may be roofed with boards laid with light joints, and covered with a thick paper dipped in tar, and then adding a good coat, after sprinkling it with sand from a sand box, or other dish with small holes. Houses built in this way are dry, warm in winter, and cool in summer, and furnish no retreats for vermin. Such houses can be made by common laborers, if a little carpenter's work is excepted, in a very short time, with a small outlay for material, exclusive of floors, windows, doors, and roof. The question will naturally arise, will the wall stand against the rain and frost? 1 answer they have stood well in Europe; and the Hon. Mr. Poinsett remarked to me that he had seen them in South America, after having been erected three hundred years. Whoever has noticed the rapid absorption of water by a brick that has been burnt, will not wonder why brick walls are damp. The burning makes the brick porous, while the unburt brick is less absorbent; but it is not proposed to present the unburnt brick to the weather. Whoever has erected a building with mercantile brick will at once perceive the large number of soft and yellow brick, partially burnt, that it contains-brick that would soon yield to the mouldering influence of frost and storms. Such brick are, however, placed within, beyond the reach of rain, and always kept dry. A good cabin is made by a single room twenty feet square. A better one is eighteen feet wide, and twenty four feet long, cutting off eight feet on one end for two small rooms, eight by nine each. How easy could a settler erect such a cabin on the western prairie, where clay is usually found about fifteen inches below the surface, and where stone and lime are often both very cheap. The article of brick for chimneys is found to be quite an item of expense in wooden houses. In these mud houses no brick are needed, except for the top of the chimneys, the oven, and casing of the fireplace-though this last might be well dispensed with. A cement, to put around the chimneys, or to fill any other crack, is easily made by a mixture of one part of sand, two of ashes, and three of clay. This soon hardens, and will resist the weather. A little lard or oil may be added, to make the composition still harder. Such a cottage will be as cheap as a log cabin, less expensive than pine buildings, and durable for centuries. I have tried the experiment in this eity, by erecting a building eighteen by fifty four fect, two stories high, adopting the different suggestions now made. Although many doubted the success of the undertaking, all now admit it has been very successful, and presents a convenient and comfortable building, that appears well to public view, and offers a residence combining as many advantages as a stone, brick, or wood house presents. I will add what Loudon says in his most excellent work, the Encyclopædia of Agriculture, pp. 74 and 75: "The great art in building an economical cottage is to employ the kind of materials and labor which are cheapest in the given locality. In almost every part of the world the cheapest article of which the walls can be made will be found to be the earth on which the cottage stands, and to make good walls from the earth is the principal art of the rustic or primi-. tive builder. Soils, with reference to building, may be divided into two classes: clays, loams, and all such soils as can neither be called gravels mor sands, and sands and gravels. The former, whether they are stiff or free, rich or poor, mixed with stones or free from stones, may be formed into walls in one of these modes, viz.: in the pisé manner, by lumps moulded in boxes, and by compressed blocks. Sandy and gravelly soils may be always made into excellent walls, by forming a frame of boards, leaving a space between the boards of the intended thickness of the wall, and filling this with gravel mixed with lime mortar, or if this can not be got, with mortar made of clay and straw. In all cases, when walls, either of this class or the former, are built, the, foundations should be of stone or brick, and they should be carried up at least a foot above the upper surface of the platform. **We shall here commence by giving one of the simplest modes of construction, from a work of a very excellent and highly estimable individual, Mr. Denson of Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, the author of the Peasant's Voice, who built his own cottage in the manner described below: Mode of building the mud walls of cottages in Cambridgeshire.-After a laborer has dug a sufficient quantity of clay for his purpose, he works it ap with straw; he is then provided with a frame eighteen inches in length, six deep, and from nine to twelve inches in diameter. In this fratne he forms his lumps, in the same manner that a brickmaker forms his bricks; they are then packed up to dry by the weather; that done, they are fit for the use, as a substitute for bricks. On laying the foundation of a cottage, a few layers of brick are necessary, to prevent the lumps from contracting a damp from the earth. The fireplace is lined and the oven is built with bricks. I have known cottagers, where they could get the grant of a piece |