Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/379

 MODEL DESIGNS FOR FARM HOUSES. 355 exemplify in a series of Miscellaneous Designs for Farm Houses and Farmeries, most of which have been executed in different parts of Britain, and some in France. 707. The Arrangement of the first two Sections of this Chapter, therefore, will be in the order of General Principles with Model Designs, and Miscellaneous Designs with Details and Remarks. Sect. I. General Principles and Model Designs for Farm Houses and Farmeries. 708. The object of this section is to show what parts of a farm house are peculiar to it as such, and the best mode of constructing and arranging these ; what are the details of a farmery, with the relative position for eacli object there ; and what is the best arrange- ment for a Farm House and Farmery, as a whole. SuBSECT. 1 . General Principles and Model Designs for the Arrangement of a Farm House. 709. The Interior of a Farm House may be arranged in three divisions : viz., the apartments of the family, including such of the servants as live in the house ; the rooms for farm-house stores ; and the places where the in-door business of the farm house is carried on. In farm houses of the smallest size, all these may be obtained under one roof; but in the case of large farms, where fifteen or twenty persons live on the premises, all those offices, or places, in which the in-door business of the farm house is carried on, such as the dairy and its appendages, the cider-house, the brewhouse, the bakehouse, the wash-house, and the cleaning place, ought to be in a building or buildings separate from the house, but not far distant from it. Cellars of most kinds, however, such as those for potatoes, and other roots or vegetables to be used by the family ; for fruits ; and for beer, ale, wines, &c, ; and the larder, pantry, and coal-house, may be in the same build- ing as the farm house. 710. Of the Apartments for the Familij we need enter here into (cw details in addition to those which have been given in the preceding Book. The number of living-rooms in a farm hoase will depend on the extent of the farm, and on the style in which the farmer chooses or can afford to live. The smallest farm-house should have at least one good parlour ; and for a farm of 800 acres or upwards, of good productive soil, there ought to be in the dwelling-house, at least two good sitting-rooms, and a small library or office for business ; besides three or four bed-rooms, and a nursery. In farm houses where it is the custom to board and lodge the out-door labourers, a larger kitchen will be required for them to dine in, and a larger kitchen range to cook their food. IMore bed-chambers will also be necessary, and these should always have a separate staircase from that leading to the better rooms. In some parts of Britain where the farmer and his out-door labourers are nearly on a par in point of intelligence and manners, they continue to dine at the same table in the kitchen. This is by no means the practice in districts where the farmers are highly intelligent, and superior in their manners to their servants, as, for example, in East Lothian ; but when the latter are raised nearer to the level of the former by the universality of education, this excellent patriarchal practice will in all probability be restored. 711. The Sleeping- Rooms for wimarried Farm Servants, in most parts of Britain, are generally such as merit extreme reprobation. Those of the men are frequently in lofts over stables or cow-houses, without light, or sufficient space for air ; subject to the deleterious exhalations arising from horse or cow dung ; sometimes badly ventilated, and at other times under a roof insufficient to exclude the wind and the rain. Female servants are lodged in-doors, but often in damp back-kitchens, store-rooms for the coarser articles, harness-rooms, dark closets, or low, ill-ventilated garrets. " I am sorry," says the excellent and benevolent jNIr. Waistell, when speaking on this subject, " that the health of servants is often less attended to than the health of cattle. Too often," he adds, " there is neither chimney nor window by which to ventilate servants' bed-rooms, and when there is no window they are not likely to be properly cleaned. What )-enders them still worse is, their being partly occupied as store-rooms for green fruit or bacon, or for drying new-made cheese : the effluvia from all these articles contaminates the air, and renders it greatly injurious to the health of those who breathe it ; indeed, all strong- scented bodies, placed in bed-rooms, are more or less pernicious. I shall, therefore, enumerate," he continues, " a few more of those tilings from which farmers and their families not unfrequently suffer in their healths, without being, perhaps, at all aware of their pernicious effects. The air of rooms is rendered unwholesome by keeping in them oil, oil colours, impure wool, sweaty saddles, soap, tallow, fat, fresh meat whether raw or dressed, wet clothes and other wet articles ; by foul linen, washing, drying, and ironing ; by the fumes from charcoal fires, which are extremely pernicious, and frequently fatal ; by gi-een plants, and flowers however fragrant ; and by saffron and hops, which last articles. Dr. Willich says (Enci/c. of Dom. Econ.), have also sometimes proved fatal." ( Waistell on Agricultural Buildings, p. 22.) There is no department of farm architecture