The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste - Devoted to Horticulture, Landscape, Gardening, Rural Architecture, Botany, Pomology, Entomology, Rural Economy, &C., January to December, 1855 #262815

Thus the architecture of the country suffers the moment that any thing beyond the plainest and simplest structures are attempted. Out of the large cities it is difficult to find really skillful, tasteful, well-trained architects. Indeed. There is little use for them, because most of the country people design and superintend the building of their own houses, with such aid as they can get from a master builder and the few who do employ an architect, are scarcely willing to pay enough to compensate an artist for the mechanical execution of the drawing, to say nothing whatever of the mental labor performed in studying the design. Hence it is that so many of our country houses are without harmony and preportion in their parts, simply rectangular boxes, destitute of a single feature that can impart an idea of the beautiful.