The Horticulturist, it is presumed, visits not only houses built in the modern style, with all the "modern improvements," but is a welcome guest at many an old farm-house, built, perhaps, a century ago. It is with regard to such dwellings that I wish to make a few suggestions - architecturally. It is often the case, that the original building, in such houses as I refer to, is a very insignificant member of a large cluster which have been built at different intervals; a small nucleus, which seems to have slowly crystallized the others about it. Of course, there are all the styles of domestic architecture combined which have been in vogue for a long time.

There is generally something of picturesqueness about such a residence, which commands attention from the mere passer-by, when he sees so plainly the little history of a family for several generations written out legibily in the very features of the house they occupy; an interest much greater than most new houses can elicit from the spectator.

But it often happens that Nature adopts the dwelling into the beauty of her landscape much easier than the occupants can for their own convenience. For want of any system or general plan in its arrangement, each part having been built to suit only the special requirements of the occasion, it has become very in convenient. It is rambling; rooms that should be closely adjoined are far apart, and those that ought to be farthest removed from each other, open together. A long distance must be traversed in setting the table for a single meal; for the cellar-way, perhaps, opens from one of the parlors, and the china is in a chimney-cupboard of the other, and the pantry is in some equally convenient place. The kitchen, which is often the dining-room, suffers most from an ill-arranged plan, being the "vital centre" of a farm-house. This is the only department on which the twenty different architects have worked in harmony, for each of them seems to have thought it desirable that almost every other apartment of the house should open from the kitchen. The consequence is, the side partitions are so filled with doors, that there is scarcely room to set back a table against the wall.

There is not a spot in the room where one can sit down without soon finding himself in some one's passage-way. Let us see; connecting doors of this one room open into the parlor, (behind the cooking-stove,) living-room, bed-room, stairway, front hall, east "stoop," west "stoop," wood-house, sink-room, and back-kitchen, besides several closets. There is a small window under one of the "stoops," which, in winter, when the leaves are off the low maple directly in front of it, lets in a few horizontal rays. There is one more window wedged in between the wood-house and the milk-room wings, which contributes another beam.

With all this concentration of the useful members of the house, we look in vain for the expected convenience. Too much has been attempted, and the reverse is the effect. This part of the house is a failure for the various purposes which it must serve. The principal room of the kitchen department is neither a pleasant nor convenient dining-room, living-room, nor kitchen.

[Mr. Benton has hit upon a fruitful theme; one eminently suggestive of criticism. The "rise and history" of some old country houses would prove as interesting as a romance. We hope Mr. Benton will give some illustrations of how the "old home" can be modernized. - Ed].