Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/304

 280 COTTAGE, FAllM, AND VILLA AIICIHTECTUIIE. There are also papers covered with green trellis-work, with roses and other flowers entwined ; and it is sometimes the custom to cover the ceilings, as well as the walls, with such papers. This practice may be allowable in towns, as creating an allusion to the country ; but, in a country cottage, we consider it in bad taste, as not contrasting with local circumstances. 584. An instniclwc natural history paper for cottagci, and the walls of nurseries and school-rooms, a contributor suggests, might be formed by printing figures of all the commoner and more important plants and animals with the scientific and popular names beneath them ; each plant or animal being surrounded by lines, so as to appear either in frames, or as if painted on the ends of stones or bricks. The advantage of the framed lines would be to give unity to the paper as a whole, and also to admit of repairs by taking out any single frame or stone, and replacing it by another. There is no I'eason, but the expense, why a geographical paper should not be formed ; or one exhibiting all the principal rivers, mountains, and cities in the world; or the portraits of eminent men, with their names ; or perpetual almanacks ; or lists of weights and measures ; or chronological or arithmetical tables ; or, in short, any useful and instructive subject, which it would be beneficial to the cottager to have frequently before his eyes. We all know how easily, and yet how deeply, the mind is impressed with objects that we are continually in the habit of seeing ; and that what is learned through that medimn in childhood is rarely, if ever, forgotten in after-life. Children, brought up in nurseries or cottages decorated in the manner we have mentioned, would thus have their minds stored with useful ideas, instead of fanciful images. 585. The Floors of Cottages of the comnion kind do not admit of much ornament. Entrance porches and lobbies may be paved with a description of tiles callt/d (piarries, which are formed in small squares of six inches on a side; coloured blue, red, drab, and black ; and sold at Newcastle under Line, at from 2«. 2d. to 2i-. 8f/. per square yard. A superior sort is sold at lOs. ; and a sort known as Wright's quarries, which have dark brown figures in pigment on their surface, let into a pale yellow ground, and are very ornamental, are sold for 25«. per superficial yard. In countries where tiles are not taxed as in Britain (where the duty, in 1 8;52, is ^^1 : 4s. : Srf. per thousand), the price would of course be much cheaper. Quarries of diflferent colours are set in mortar or cement, so as to appear like tessellated pavement ; and Wright's figured quarries are used to form bordering and centres to his plain ones, or to floors of rubbed stone : in either case, they make a very ornamental and substantial flooring. When all the rooms of a cottage are on the ground floor, and when they are not fined under, a substitute for boards, at once ornamental, cheap, and comfortable, may be formed by paving them with one or diffen nt kinds of wood, obtained from the branches of trees, which have been cut into lengths of ft)ur or six inches, and set endways on gravel or in mortar; or, pieces of board, of various woods, resembling tile quarries in size, or stained of diff'erent colours by acids, might be embedded in cement, either in imitation of tessellated pavement, or of the Continental practice of parquetted floors. A very good composition for laying imder such floors is made of one part of quicklime, two of sharp sand, and as much oil of rny kind as will bring the other ingredients to the consistence of mortar. A sound, warm, and durable floor is formed in the following manner: the ground being well drained, and covered to the depth of a foot with loose stones, lay on these a stratum of a mixture of gravel and newly slacked lime, to the depth of six inches; let this be well beaten, and brought to a perfect level, and after it has dried a week or a fortnight, according to the weather, cover it, to the depth of two inches, with a composition of equal parts of quick- lime and powdered smithy ashes, brought to the consistency of mortar by the addition of bullock's blood, stale milk, oil, or any other description of greasy matter. As soon as this is laid on, it must be well beaten with the back of a spade, or rolled with a cast-iron roller ; after which, if immediately well and long rubbed with coarse woollen cloths, it may be brought to a high polish. The colour, when bullock's blood is used, is at first brown, but after some weeks it changes to a light grey. When yellow ochre is added to the mixture, a Bath stone colour is produced. One of the simplest modes of pro- curing a composition floor, in countries where Roman cement can be easily obtained, is to bed plain tiles in this material ; then coat them over with a mixture composed of one part of cement, and two of sharp sand ; and, a month afterwards, to give the floor a second coating of the same mixture, with the addition of as much lime and yellow ochre as will commimicate a cream-coloured tinge to the surface. Or, the second coat may be com- posed of powdered Portland, Bath, or other freestone, and oxide of lead mixed up with oil, as in Hamhn's mastic (see § 527). A great object, in all ground-floors of cottages, is to lay such a foundation as to insure their dryness; we liave mentioned several modes of attaining this end, and we add the following (which is said to be practised in Bengal), as suitable for districts in Britain, or other temperate climates, where pottery is cheap. " The area of the house or room to be floored is first made perfectly leve' ; nnglazed