COTTAGES
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was greatly superior to the Highland shoaling, or round-roofed cottage, which was built wholly of turf.
In some parts of Scotland, particularly in Dumfries, Perth ,Forfar and Kincardine shires, cottages are still constructedof clay ; and when properly made, they arc warm, and evendurable, and not very expensive; and they are consideredmuch superior to the dry-stone cottage.
Stone, however, is the most common material, and cotta-ges, in the best cultivated districts, are usually built of stoneand clay, or stone and lime, according to circumstances. Infarming villages, where feus, or even long leases have beengranted of the site of the house and garden, to blacksmiths,house-carpenters, and other mechanics, it has been customaryto build with stone and lime, where the house consists evenof but one story, and is only a cottage.
In the southern counties of Scotland , and particularly inBerwickshire, and the Lothians, the cottages attached tofarms are now generally constructed from 18 to 20 feet inlength, and 16 in breadth, divided into two apartments,the first of which may be called the living room, and theother the store or lumber room, where meal, potatoes,coals, &c. are kept. The height of the side-wall is usuallyfrom seven to eight feet, and they have rarely more than onefioor; being considered, when of that construction, to bewarmer, and less liable to have the roofs' damaged by theviolent winds so frequent in Scotland .
For the sake of economy, when only two cottages are re-quired, they are usually erected together, as one gable answersfor both, and are therefore cheaper when thus built in pairs.
When the size of a farm requires a number of cottages,they are commonly attached to one another; and as marriedservants are usually allowed to keep cows and pigs, housesfor these are sometimes placed on the back-wall, or at the endof the range of cottages; or their cows are kept along withthose of their masters, in the byre or cow-house at the farm-offices, and their pigs in small hovels near the cottages.