atures and character, in adapting them
to his own uses, and, in so doing, to even embellish--if such a thing be
possible--such exquisite objects with his own most ingenious handiwork.
Indeed, it is a profanation to do otherwise; and when so to improve them
requires no extraordinary application of skill, or any extravagant
outlay in expense, not to plan and to build in conformity with good
taste, is an absolute barbarism, inexcusable in a land like ours, and
among a population claiming the intelligence we do, or making but a
share of the general progress which we exhibit.

It is the idea of some, that a house or building which the farmer or
planter occupies, should, in shape, style, and character, be like some
of the stored-up commodities of his farm or plantation. We cannot
subscribe to this suggestion. We know of no good reason why the walls of
a farm house should appear like a hay rick, or its roof like the
thatched covering to his wheat stacks, because such are the shapes best
adapted to preserve his crops, any more than the grocer's habitation
should be made to imitate a tea chest, or the shipping merchant's a rum
puncheon, or cotton bale. We have an idea that the farmer, or the
planter, according to his means and requirements, should be as well
housed and accommodated, and in as agreeable style, too, as any other
class of community; not in like character, in all things, to be sure,
but in his own proper way and manner. Nor do we know why a farm house
should assume a peculiarly primitive or uncultivated style of
architecture, from other sensible houses. That it be a _farm_ house, is
sufficiently apparent from its locality upon the farm itself; that its
interior arrangement be for the convenience of the in-door farm work,
and the proper accommodation of the farmer's family, should be quite as
apparent; but, that it should assume an uncouth or clownish aspect, is
as unnecessary as that the farmer himself should be a boor in his
manners, or a dolt in his intellect.

The farm, in its proper cultivation, is the foundation of all human
prosperity, and from it is derived the main wealth of the community.
From the farm chiefly springs that energetic class of men, who replace
the enervated and physically decaying multitude continually thrown off
in the waste-weir of our great commercial and manufacturing cities and
towns, whose population, without the infusion--and that continually--of
the strong, substantial, and vigorous