On Architecture

1. IN the first place, inspect the country from the point of view of health, in accordance with what is written in my first book, on the building of cities, and let your farmhouses be situated accordingly. Their dimensions should depend upon the size of the farm and the amount of produce. Their courtyards and the dimensions thereof should be determined by the number of cattle and the number of yokes of oxen that will need to be kept therein. Let the kitchen be placed on the warmest side of the courtyard, with the stalls for the oxen adjoining, and their cribs facing the kitchen fire and the eastern quarter of the sky, for the reason that oxen facing the light and the fire do not get rough-coated. Even peasants wholly without knowledge of the quarters of the sky believe that oxen ought to face only in the direction of the sunrise.

2. Their stalls ought to be not less than ten nor more than fifteen feet wide, and long enough to allow not less than seven feet for each yoke. Bathrooms, also, should adjoin the kitchen; for in this situation it will not take long to ready a bath in the country. Let the pressing room, also,

3. The oil room must be situated so as to get its light from the south and from warm quarters; for oil ought not to be chilled, but should be kept thin by gentle heat. In dimensions, oil rooms should be built to accommodate the crop and the proper number of jars, each of which, holding about one hundred and twenty gallons, must take up a space four feet in diameter. The pressing room itself, if the pressure is exerted by means of levers and a beam, and not worked by turning screws, should be not less than forty feet long, which will give the lever man a convenient amount of space. It should be not less than sixteen feet wide, which will give the men who are at work plenty of free space to do the turning conveniently. If two presses are required in the place, allow twenty-four feet for the width.