The Flooring. 11 



Scotland must be lined, unless artificially warmed. Felt 

 is the best material, as its strong smell of tar will keep 

 away most insects. Matting is trequently used, and will 

 make the house sufficiently warm, but it harbours vermin, 

 and therefore, if used, should be only slightly fastened to 

 the walls, so that it can be often taken down and well 

 beaten, and, if necessary, fumigated. 



Various materials are recommended for the flooring. 

 Boards are warm, but they soon become foul. Beaten 

 earth, with loose dust scattered over it some inches deep, 

 is excellent for the feet of the birds, but is a harbour for 

 the minute vermin which are often so troublesome, and 

 even destructive, to domestic fowls. Mowbray recommends 

 a floor of '' well-rammed chalk or earth, that its surface, 

 being smooth, may present no impediment to being swept 

 perfectly clean." Chalk laid on dry coal-ashes to absorb 

 the moisture is excellent. A mixture of cow-dunof and 

 water, about the consistency of paint, put on the surface of 

 the floor, no thicker than paint, gives it a hard surface 

 which will bear sweeping down. It is used by the natives 

 of India, not only for the floors, but often for the walls of 

 their houses, and is supposed to be healthy in its applica- 

 tion, and to keep away vermin. Miss Watts says : " Dig 

 out the floor to about a foot deep, and fill in with burnt 

 clay, like that used extensively on railways, the strong 

 gravel which is called ' metal ' in road-making, or any loose 

 dry material of the kind. Let this be well rammed down, 

 and then lay over it, with a bricklayer's trowel, a flooring 

 of a compost of cinder-ashes, gravel, quick-lime, and water. 

 This flooring is w^ithout the objections due to those which 

 are cold and damp, and those which imbibe foul moisture. 

 Stone is too cold for a flooring ; beaten earth or wood 

 becomes foul when the place is inhabited by living animals ; 

 and a flooring of bricks possesses both these bad qualities 

 united." Bricks are the w^orst of all materials ; they retain 

 moisture, whether atmospheric or arising from insufficient 

 drainage ; and thus the temperature is kept low, and dis- 

 ease too often follows, especially rheumatic attacks of the 

 feet and legs. However, trodden earth makes a very good 



