Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/360

 S3G COTTAGK, FARM, AND VILLA AUCIIITECTUIIE. 701 m auJ the sidfs and ends of deal are now justly exploded. 663. i^«M?(5 includes palliasses, or straw mat- tresses ; hair, wool, or other mattresses ; hay, chaft", or feather beds ; bolsters, pillows, sheets, blankets, and counter- panes. The palliass is an inflexible mattress, stuffed «ith drawn wheat straw ; placed as the lower layer of the bed- ding, for the purpose of raising it, and giving a more agreeable basis to the feather-bed. The common mattress is formed by stuffing a canvass case with flocks, wool, baked horse-hair, sea grass, technically called U'lva marina, or any other articles which when put together form an elastic body, and afterwards quilting it down, and covering it with a description of cloth called ticken. The feather bed and the pillows are stuffed with feathers. In Scotland, mattresses and bolsters, exceedingly agreeable to sleep upon, are stuffed with tlie outer chaff of the oat, carefully sifted from the smaller chaff, and from all dust, and renewed once a year. In Italy, and in countries where the maize is in common culture, excellent mattresses are formed by stuffing them with the chaff of that grain. A few flowers of the hop mixed with the chaff of the bolster gives that article an agreeable fragrance, which is at the same time soporific. George III. at one time slept on a pillow entirely stuffed with hops ; and some years ago, when in Worcestershire, we think in 18L'3, we slept at a farm house, on a bed, bolster, and pillows, all stuffed with hops, and found that they formed a species of bedding soft and powerfully fragrant, though said to be unwholesome. 664. Subatitutes for Stuffing to beds, bolsters, and pillows have been proposed by upholsterers at different times, and some of them have lately been a good deal used ; of these we shall mention three ; viz., wire springs, air, and water. 665. Wire Springs for stuffing are nothing more than spiral coils of wire, fig. 704, gene- rally an eighth of an inch in diameter for mattresses, and smaller for cushions, carriage seats, &c. These springs are placed, side by side, on interlaced webbing, strained to a frame of the size of the intended bed, cushion, or seat ; they 704 ■ arc then all confined by cords to one height, and covered by a piece of ticken or strong canvass, strained tiglitly over them. On this is spread a layer of curled horse-hair, and an upper cover of ticken is then put over the whole, and nailed down tight to the under side of the wooden frame with tacks. For our own part, we prefer beds made with these spiral springs to any other ; not only from their greater elasticity, and the equal diffusion of the support which they afford to the body, but because, from the quantity of air among the springs, they can never become so warm as beds stuffed with any of the ordinary materials. The effect of spiral springs as stuffing has been long known to men of science ; but so little to upholsterers, that a patent for using them in stuffing was taken out, some years ago, as a new invention. Beds and seats of this description are now, however, made by upholsterers ' ==l-j=^=- generally, and the springs may be had from Birmingham by the hundred weight.