k it better to
build cellars separate from the residence, (an arrangement much more
healthful, as well as convenient and desirable.) For the preservation in
warm weather of meats, milk, and other perishable articles, a
refrigerator, or, better still, an ice closet, can be set up at one end
of the laundry. This can be supplied with ice through an outside door,
and is infinitely better and more convenient than any cellar or spring
house.

The kitchen is without a fire-place, but is provided with a ventilator
in the chimney near the ceiling. The cooking may be done by a stove,
which, if properly contrived, is one of the most effective ventilators,
and preferred by many housekeepers for all kitchen purposes. Or a range
can be placed in the chimney, if desirable, or a fire-place, if it
should be considered indispensable.

[Illustration: FIG. 41.--_Elevation._]

[Illustration: FIG. 42.--_Plan._]

A door under the stair-way separates the front and rear halls, and
disconnects the kitchen apartments from the rest of the house. All the
doors opening into the rear hall should be hung with the new spiral
spring butt, the best door spring that has come under our notice. It is
entirely concealed, and works without a fault.

The closets in the dining room are finished to give an interior
appearance of a bay window. The dining room and the two chambers above,
are intended to be heated by a fire-place heater set in the chimney,
thus warming three rooms, at pleasure, with one fire. A small stove in
the library will keep that comfortable. Or, in place of all this, the
whole house may be heated by any of the approved modes, in the use of
hot air, hot water, or steam.

[Illustration: FIG. 43.--_First Floor._]

The library, parlor, or general living room in a country house--and we
like these rooms in one--should have the cheerful, healthful luxury of
an open fire-place, and we know of no more elegant, cleanly and
effective contrivance for this purpose than Dixon's low down,
Philadelphia Grate, in which wood, coal, or any other fuel can be used
equally well. The advantages combined in this grate are these:--the
fire flat on the hearth, and radiating the heat from an oval cast iron
backing: cold air supplied from below, and ashes, dirt, &c., shaken down
into an ash-pit in the cellar, beneath the grate. We speak confidently
of this invention, after a trial of two winters, and do not hesitate to
say that, compared with this, the ordinar