ere are found in the older states many farm
and country houses that are almost models, in their way, for convenience
in the main purposes required of structures of their kind, and such as
can hardly be altered for the better. Such, however, form the exception,
not the rule; yet instead of standing as objects for imitation, they
have been ruled out as antiquated, and unfit for modern builders to
consult, who have in the introduction of some real improvements, also
left out, or discarded much that is valuable, and, where true comfort is
concerned, indispensable to perfect housekeeping. Alteration is not
always improvement, and in the rage for innovation of all kinds, among
much that is valuable, a great deal in house-building has been
introduced that is absolutely pernicious. Take, for instance, some of
our ancient-looking country houses of the last century, which, in
America, we call old. See their ample dimensions; their heavy, massive
walls; their low, comfortable ceilings; their high gables; sharp roofs;
deep porches, and spreading eaves, and contrast them with the ambitious,
tall, proportionless, and card-sided things of a modern date, and draw
the comparison in true comfort, which the ancient mansion really
affords, by the side of the other. Bating its huge chimneys, its wide
fire-places, its heavy beams dropping below the ceiling overhead, and
the lack of some modern conveniences, which, to be added, would give all
that is desired, and every man possessed of a proper judgment will
concede the superiority to the house of the last century.

That American house-building of the last fifty years is out of joint,
requires no better proof than that the main improvements which have been
applied to our rural architecture, are in the English style of farm and
country houses of two or three centuries ago; so, in that particular, we
acknowledge the better taste and judgment of our ancestors. True, modern
luxury, and in some particulars, modern improvement has made obsolete,
if not absurd, many things considered indispensable in a ruder age. The
wide, rambling halls and rooms; the huge, deep fire-places in the
chimneys; the proximity of out-buildings, and the contiguity of stables,
ricks, and cattle-yards--all these are wisely contracted, dispensed
with, or thrown off to a proper distance; but instead of such style
being abandoned altogether, as has too often been done, the house itself
might better have been partially reformed,