ses, the more natural and better course,--he certainly should possess
sufficient judgment to see that such plans be correct and will answer
his purposes.

The plans and directions submitted in this work are intended to be of
the most practical kind; plain, substantial, and applicable, throughout,
to the purposes intended, and such as are within the reach--each in
their kind--of every farmer in our country. These plans are chiefly
original; that is, they are not copied from any in the books, or from
any structures with which the writer is familiar. Yet they will
doubtless, on examination, be found in several cases to resemble
buildings, both in outward appearance and interior arrangement, with
which numerous readers may be acquainted. The object, in addition to our
own designs, has been to apply practical hints, gathered from other
structures in use, which have seemed appropriate for a work of the
limited extent here offered, and that may serve to improve the taste of
all such as, in building useful structures, desire to embellish their
farms and estates in an agreeable style of home architecture, at once
pleasant to the eye, and convenient in their arrangement.

INTRODUCTORY.

The lover of country life who looks upon rural objects in the true
spirit, and, for the first time surveys the cultivated portions of the
United States, will be struck with the incongruous appearance and style
of our farm houses and their contiguous buildings; and, although, on
examination, he will find many, that in their interior accommodation,
and perhaps relative arrangement to each other, are tolerably suited to
the business and convenience of the husbandman, still, the feeling will
prevail that there is an absence of method, congruity, and correct taste
in the architectural structure of his buildings generally, by the
American farmer.

We may, in truth, be said to have no architecture at all, as exhibited
in our agricultural districts, so far as any correct system, or plan is
concerned, as the better taste in building, which a few years past has
introduced among us, has been chiefly confined to our cities and towns
of rapid growth. Even in the comparatively few buildings in the modern
style to be seen in our farming districts, from the various requirements
of those buildings being partially unknown to the architect and builder,
who had their planning--and upon whom, owing to their own inexperience
in such matters, their employers