COTTAGE, a name mostly applied to a small house, erected for the use and accommodation either of the farm labourer. or those engaged in some other occupation, but more generally of those employed in agriculture.
The word cottage is also used in modern parlance to designate a small elegant residence, more properly a or, as sometimes called, a cottage erne. Houses of this description, however, do not belong to our present subject, which must be understood as treating of the cottage in the acceptation of the term explained in the preceding para graph.
Ciittages w ore f innerly constructed of rude and perishable fnatcrlds: as. earthy substances straw ; cottages of this consistence were .lenominatel mud cottuyes iu seine d'st•iets. an 1 cab dui., in others ; but thcso have now- giN en way to it more durable kind, though per haps as expensive in the erection, ninch more comfo•ta ble, and elle:tiler in the end, as they require little or no re pairs tor many years.
In the construction of cottages, economy, convenience, cleanliness. cumfort. and decency, must be the chief points ill view. and these ought to be united with as much pictu resque beauty as cireumstances will admit.
" The required." observes Mr. Dean. in his very interesting work, " Essays in Agricultural Build ings," " is not such as would be looked fig! by persons moving in a higher sphere of life, and w ho are a"customed, compara tively, to luxuries; the labourer belong: to a totally distinct of society. Let the dwellings of the pour be scientifi cally construeted. and much illness and misery will be pre vented. In ctreetinr this, the whole community is interested, as parochial expenses are increased or diminished according to the healthy state of the labouring. population.
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waist in heightening the landscape. It then become: a ques tion with the owner of an estate, whether he will, in the erec tion of cottages. incur a small additional outlay tit this pur pose.
Englan I has justly been designated a cultivated garden, and perhaps in no particular possesses a greater p•e-eminence of :111)e:tran•e over other countries, than in the beauty of her rural scenery ; which, it is submitted, may he greatly en hanced by the substitution of cottages erected in accordance with architectural principle;, in lieu of the clumsy-looking and condh•tless building; existing ill many districts." \Ve fully agree with \lr. Dean in these observations, and we trust that noblemen and gentlemen in the mana
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