Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/384

 360 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. 730. miere the dairy is connected with a group of other farm-house offices, including tlie dairy scullery, cheese-room, clieeseprcss-room, &c., it may occupy the north angle, or part of the north side of a square mass of building. The walls should in this case also be double, and the windows should be treble ; the outer one of wirecloth, and the two inner ones of glass. There should be double doors, and care should be taken that one should always be closed before the other was opened, and that neither should ever be left o])en for more than a few minutes at a time. To compensate for all inequalities of temperature, there should be a power of introducing a stream of water to run through the dairy, or spring water from a well, tank, or spring, so as to cover the whole of the floor, or to sjjrinkle it and the shelves, at pleasure, and thus reduce the temperature of the air in summer, or raise it in winter. To do this more rapidly, part of the floor may be perforated, and from each small hole a jet of water may be contrived to rise, on turning a cock ; or perforated pipes may pass under the dairy shelves, and under the middle part of the ceiling ; and from these there may be a power of producing an artificial shower to raise or lower the temperature at once. The process of introducing water in this way, either from the floor or from the ceiling, may seem at first intricate and ex- pensive ; but whoever has seen it done in Messrs. Loddiges's palm-house will allow that it is neither. We shall give some details hereafter, when speaking of fountains for villas. Common lead pipes, of half an inch in diameter, may be used ; and the perforations may be made with a stout sewing needle. The only matter of expense is the tank, or cistern of water, which should be so placed as to maintain the same temperature throughout the year ; and at the same time be above the level of the dairy ceiling, so as to give due force to the delivering pipes. If, however, the dairy be properly constructed, and a power contrived for flooding its floor with water (and, if no permanent jet can be made, this may be done by a common watering-pot), the two grand desiderata may in every case be certainly and economically obtained. The floor should be accurately paved, and sliould slope to a trap drain in the corner, as before directed for the washing-house. The shelves and benches should be formed of thin flag-stones, or slates, or of wood covered with lead ; the walls and ceiling shoidd be plastered with cement, or coated with a firm- .setting mortar, or should be inlaid with glazod tiles. The milk-pans are better portable than fixed ; because, if fixed, they must be scalded in the dairy ; and hot water should never be introduced into it, in summer at least, on account of its raising the temperature. Even milk directly from the cow should be allowed to stand to cool in the dairy scullery, before it is taken into the dairy ; because its temperature, when in large quantities, cither in summer or winter, would soon raise that of the apartment. A thermometer should be kept in the dairy, and the temperature should be never allowed to fall below 50", or rise above 55° ; experience proving that most cream is thrown up by milk in a medimn between these degrees. If at any time in winter the temperature of the dairy should fall too low, vessels of hot water may l)e carried in and set down on the floor, or the milk, in such a case, may be sent in direct from the cow. No articles of food, but milk, cream, and fresh butter, should ever be kept in a dairy ; nor, as Waistell tells us, should any thing that has a strong scent, even though it may be sweet, be placed in or near it. " Bad scents," he says, " greatly lessen the product of butter dairies, by preventing the complete separation of the cream from the milk." It is also certain that raw meat, if kept in a dairy, has such an effect upon the cream as to prevent the butter produced from it from keeping. This, and the facts stated by Waistell, it is diflicult to account for, but not more so than others equally well ascertained ; such as the influence which the leaves of certain milky-jiuced trees, such as the papaw tree and the fig for example, have in intenerating fresh meat. 731. The Dairy Scullery should be near the dairy, though not immediately adjoining it : it should h.ave a boiler for heating water, and two underground ])ipes with traps ; one for foul water, communicating with the liquid manure tank, and the other for waste milk, communicating with the pigs' food tank. From the latter piiie there may also be a communication with the dairy ; because it may sometimes be advisable to empty out milk there, without bringing it into the dairy scullery. The churning may be carried on in the dairy scullery ; for which purpose, on a large farm, provision ought to be made for the introduction of a shaft from a horse or a steam power for working the churn. There ought to be fixed benches and movable forms, for setting milk-pans and other dairy utensils on ; and a jiortable rack with a wheel and two feet like a wheelbarrow, for draining the pans and pails, and wheeling them out to a shed to dry. Figs. 741 to 746 show a Design for a double dairy, whith will keep the produce at a proper temperature, in whatever climate it may be built. It may also, with very little alteration, be partly or chiefly used as an ice-house, or as a wine or ale cellar. We shall first describe it as a dairy. Fig. 741 is the gronnd-))lan, in which a is an outer room, for airing and drying the utensils, or for drying cheese; being warmed by an open fireplace at h, and lighted and ventilated by two windows, c r, beneath which are two elevated sinks, rfc/.