, or that we should slight our work, or suffer it to be
constructed of flimsy or perishable materials: we should not only
have an eye to taste and durability, but put in practice the most
strict economy.

I hope, in the above matters, you may be able to furnish something
better suited to the necessities and means of our plain farmers,
than has been done by any of your predecessors.

I remain, &c., most respectfully yours,

----, ----.

Having completed the series of Designs for dwelling houses, which we had
proposed for this work, and followed them out with such remarks as were
thought fitting to attend them, we now pass on to the second part of our
subject: the out-buildings of the farm, in which are to be accommodated
the domestic animals which make up a large item of its economy and
management; together with other buildings which are necessary to
complete its requirements. We trust that they will be found to be such
as the occasion, and the wants of the farmer may demand; and in economy,
accommodation, and extent, be serviceable to those for whose benefit
they are designed.

AN APIARY, OR BEE-HOUSE.

Every farmer should keep bees--provided he have pasturage for them, on
his own land, or if a proper range for their food and stores lie in his
immediate vicinity. Bees are, beyond any other domestic _stock_,
economical in their keeping, to their owners. Still they require care,
and that of no inconsiderable kind, and skill, in their management, not
understood by every one who attempts to rear them. They ask no food,
they require no assistance, in gathering their daily stores, beyond that
of proper housing in the cheapest description of tenement, and with that
they are entirely content. Yet, without these, they are a contingent,
and sometimes a troublesome appendage to the domestic stock of the farm.

We call them _domestic_. In one sense they are so; in another, they are
as wild and untamed as when buzzing and collecting their sweets in the
vineyard of Timnath, where the mighty Sampson took their honey from the
carcass of the dead lion; or, as when John the Baptist, clothed with
camel's hair, ate "locusts and wild honey" in the arid wastes of
Palestine. Although kept in partial bondage for six thousand years, the
ruling propensity of the bee is to seek a home and shelter in the
forest, when it emerges in a swarm from the parent hive; and no amount
of domestic accommodation, or kindness of