re are but very few who do
not,) that they take abundant time to consider well every thing relating
to them; and although the hope of building may be very remote, it should
not be considered time lost to begin to give one's thoughts a definite
form of what he thinks a house should be; for if nothing else results,
it may furnish a valuable hint for a friend, and will certainly enlarge
one's information and experience in these matters. Almost every one is
capable, with such hints as have been freely given in the volumes of the
HORTICULTURIST, in the leading papers which treat on rural art, and the
numerous valuable publications on rural architecture, to make such a
combination of rooms as will best suit his peculiar wants, tastes, or
fancies, and then, with the aid of an architect, it can readily be freed
from mechanical impracticabilities, and put into a proportionate and
harmonious form. Architecture, both in design and construction, is a
profession that requires long years of study and practice to develop an
expert, and those who really want a good thing at the least cost,
usually seek such assistance; those who prefer to do their own designing
and building, find out with absolute certainty the most expensive modes
of erecting very ugly and ill-proportioned structures.

DESIGN No. 11.

A SUBURBAN SUMMER HOUSE.

[Illustration: FIG. 38.]

In the adornment of ornamental grounds, some considerable attention has
been given to summer houses, and similar structures; but these have been
mainly _rustic_ in their design and finish, and in this respect well
adapted to their purpose and surroundings. The good taste of these
structures will not be called in question. There are locations, however,
in the more immediate vicinity of our large cities, where a style less
rustic would seem to be more in harmony with the architecture which is
found to prevail. We refer to residences on the outskirts of our large
cities, with inclosures containing a few city lots. Here the
architecture, so far from being rural, is, on the contrary, stiff,
sharp, and sometimes very ornate. A rustic summer house in such a place
would be an incongruity. A rustic house is in itself a beautiful object;
but there is a certain charm in association which can not be widely
departed from without doing violence to our conceptions of the fitness
of things; and hence a purely rustic house without rural surroundings is
destitute of the chief elements which g