Page:Cyclopedia of Painting-Armstrong, George D (1908).djvu/24

6 bear and camel's-hair brushes with tin. The ordinary paint brushes contain the inferior or coarser grades of bristles, the varnish brushes are selected or finer qualities. The oval and round brushes are numbered by the brush-maker to designate sizes, from No. 6 down to No. 1. thence from one to 000000. For carriage painting the sizes between one and four naughts are considered best, the smaller ones may be used, but it is advantageous to use as large a brush as possible on most of the work. Small brushes called tools are numbered from 1 up to 10, the latter being the largest. Brushes are generally used in sets, as, for example, in painting a body or gear, a large brush for laying the paint would be used, and a small tool for cleaning up around the moldings, nuts and bolt-heads. It would be an almost endless task to illustrate and describe all of the many varieties of paint and varnish brushes, and a few of the principal ones only will receive attention here. Russia is the great bristle growing country, and her exports reach as high as 5,000 tons of this commodity every year. Hogs in countless herds roam the deep Muscovite forests, where the oak, the pine, the beech, larch and other nut bearing trees cover the ground with acorns and nuts to the depth of a foot or more. But these swine are not all of value for their bristles. The perfect bristle is found only on a special race, and that race fattened in a certain way. On the frontiers of civilization all over the Muscovite territory are the government tallow factories, where animals reared too far from the habitation of men to be consumed for human food are boiled down for the sake of their fat. The swine are fed on the refuse of these tallow factories at certain seasons, and become in prime condition after a few months' feeding. It is from these animals that the bristles of commerce mainly come. When the swine are fattened, and their bristles in fine color, they are driven in kraals so thickly that they can scarcely stand—irritated and goaded by the herdsmen till they are sullen with