DAIS. 



DAMMARA. 



390 



The great dairies about London are kept very clean ; but the liquid 

 manure, which would be so valuable for the market-gardens, is lost, 

 and runs off by the sewers. In Belgium the urine would be contracted 

 for at the rate of 2A per cow per annum, which would produce 120(M. 

 a year in a dairy of 600 cows, and would pay a good interest for the 

 money expended in constructing large vaulted cisterns under each 

 cow-house. 



The dairy farms of England are chiefly in Gloucestershire, Devon- 

 shire, and Cheshire. They require a smaller capital than arable farms 

 of the same extent; the chief outlay is the purchase of cows. The 

 rent of good grass land is generally higher than if it were converted to 

 arable land, and th risk from seasons, and the variations in the price 

 of the produce, is much less in a dairy farm than in one where corn is 

 chiefly cultivated. Hence the rents are better paid, and there are 

 fewer failures among the tenants ; but the profits of a dairy farm, with- 

 out any arable land, are not considerable ; a decent livelihood for the 

 farmer and his family is all that can be expected. There is no chance 

 of profit in a dairy of which the fanner or his wife are not the imme- 

 diate managers. The attention required to minute particulars can 

 only be expected in those whose profit depends upon it. The dairies of 

 men of fortune may be arranged on the best and most convenient plan, 

 and be indispensable articles of luxury; but the produce consumed 

 has always cost much more than it could be purchased for. A proper 

 attention to keeping correct accounts of every expense will convince 

 any one of this truth. In a dairy farm the great difficulty is to feed 

 the cows in winter. It is usually so arranged, that the cows shall be 

 dry at the time when food is most scarce, and they are then kept on 

 inferior hay, or straw, if it can be procured. It is a great improvement 

 in a dairy if it has as much arable land attached to it as will employ 

 one plough, especially if the soil be light ; but the mode of cultivating 

 this farm must vary from that of other farms, since the food raised for 

 the cows must be a principal object. Corn is a secondary object ; and 

 the cultivation of roots and grasses must occupy a great portion of the 

 farm. When the grasses degenerate, a crop or two of corn is taken, 

 and the rotation is chiefly roots, corn, and grass cut for hay, until it 

 wears out. If the roots are well manured, the land keeps in excellent 

 heart. The old pastures are kept for summer feeding. Where there 

 is no arable land near a dairy farm, it deserves mature consideration 

 whether it will be advantageous or not to allow some of the pasture to 

 be ploughed up. It is often a dangerous experiment where the soil is 

 naturally heavy, which is the case with most dairy farms in England. 

 Arable land laid down to grass for the puqioses of the dairy seldom 

 liroduces fine-flavoured butter, or good cheese; but clover-hay is 

 excellent for young stock, or to fatten off the old cows. Lucern is 

 reckoned to make cows give very good milk ; nothing however can 

 equal a rich old pasture, as all dairymen agree. 



In hiring a dairy farm, it is an object of great importance that the 

 buildings be situated near the centre of the land, and that they be well 

 constructed and convenient. The nature of the feed must be ascer- 

 tained by experience. It is often impossible to say by mere inspection 

 whether a pasture will make good butter or cheese, especially the 

 latter. But those which have no great reputation may often be highly 

 improved by draining, and also by weeding, a thing too much neglected 

 in pastures. 



DAIS, or DEIS, a word which occurs very frequently in old English 

 authors ; as in Chaucer, ' Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,' v. 372. 

 Wei semed eche of hem ^ farre bnrgels, 

 To Bitten in a glide halle, on the deit. 



Tyrwhitt apprehends " that it originally signified the wooden floor 

 (Fr. (fat's, Lat. de assibws) which was laid at the upper end of the hall, 

 as we still see it in college-halls ;" and in most, if not all, of those ol 

 the city companies in London, and those belonging to the inns of 

 court. " That part of the room being floored with planks was called 

 the dais, the rest being either the bare ground, or, at best, paved with 

 atone ; and being raised above the level of the other parts, it was called 

 Ike livjh dais." He says that Menage, whose authority has led later 

 antiquaries to interpret dels a canopy, has evidently confounded rfets 

 with ders. But dais not only signified a canopy in old French, but it is 

 the term still employed in France for the canopy carried over the host 

 in processions, and for that which was formerly, at least on state occa- 

 sions, held above princes, ambassadors, &c. In the Dictionary of the 

 French Academy, haul daii is defined to be the raised place occupied 

 by the sovereign in public ceremonials, whether there is a dais (canopy) 

 above him or not. It is not improbable that as originally applied to 

 the raised platform in a hall, the term was equivalent to place of the 

 dais that is, state canopy ; the chief seat, which was always placed in 

 the centre of the high board, having a canopy over it. From its central 

 place the principal table itself seems in course of time to have been 

 called the dais, as well as the platform upon which it stood; and 

 people were said to sit at the dait instead of at the table vpon the doit : 

 thus, in Matthew Paris, ' Vit. Ab.,' p. 1070, " Priore prandente ad 

 magnam mensam, quarn dais vulgariter appellamus." The term is 

 used in this sense by Skelton, Roy, and other writers as late as the 

 time of the Tudors. In royal halls there were more daises than one. 

 Christine of Pisa (' Hist. Cha. V.,' p. iii. c. 33) says, that at a dinner 

 which Charles V. of France gave to the emperor Charles IV. in 1377, 

 there were five daitet. 



(Ducauge, Glossary ; Tyrwhitt's Notes on Chaucer's Canterbury Talcs, 

 4to., Oxford, 1798, vol. ii., p. 403.) 



DALAI LAMA. [LAMA; LAMAISIL] 



DAMAGES (old French, dama/je; Latin, damna), in law, signifies 

 the compensation that is given by the jury (or assessed by the court) 

 to the plaintiff for the wrong the defendant has done to him. That 

 wrong may consist in the non-payment of a debt or the non-performance 

 of a bargain, in which, and similar cases, damages are said to arise 

 ex contracts, being given for the breach of the contract or promise 

 to pay the debt or perform the bargain. If the wrong be the infliction 

 of personal injury, or the deprivation of personal liberty, or arise from 

 slander or imputations on personal character, the damages are said to 

 arise ex delicto ; that is, from the delict or wrong committed by the 

 defendant. 



In actions ex contractu, where the parties have stipulated for a 

 liquidated sum to be paid as damages, the jury are bound to give the 

 full amount of that sum ; but where they have stipulated merely for a 

 penalty to be paid, the jury may give less, or if the parties do not pro- 

 ceed for the penalty, they may give more. If the damages given be 

 excessive, the court will sometimes grant a new trial, but not so if they 

 be too small ; at least it is very unusual to do so, except in actions on 

 mere money demands or on inquisitions. 



DAMALURIC ACID (C lt H 12 0,). A volatile acid found by 

 Staedeler, along with damolic acid, in the urine of the cow. It is an 

 oily liquid, having the odour of valerian, and is heavier than water. 



DAMASCENE WORK. The damask, damascene, or Damascus 

 work, so often met with in choice specimens of metal manufacture, 

 especially on the old Damascus sword-blades, is a method of producing 

 a pattern or design by encrusting or inlaying one metal with another. 

 It was introduced linto Europe from the Levant, where it was much 

 practised in the middle ages, especially at Damascus. The metals 

 usually employed were silver or gold on copper or iron, gold on silver, 

 or silver on gold; but any other combination would equally come 

 within the principle of the art. 



There were several different modes of damascening. If the metal to 

 be damascened were hard, its surface was wrought into fine lines cross- 

 ing each other, and the designs were afterwards traced upon it ; the 

 design marks were filled in with the metal inlay, which was fixed by a 

 strong pressure or by hammering ; and the entire work was then bur- 

 nished, by which the lines uncovered by the incrustation were erased, 

 and a fine polish given to the surface. Another method was that of 

 hatching the incised lines only, and of fixing the incrustation as before. 

 In a third method, when the iucrusting metal was of a ductile nature, 

 the pattern was first incised in outline, and the body of the design left 

 on the same level as the rest of the surface ; a thin strip of metal was 

 then laid down vertically, and fixed by the insertion of its edges into 

 the exterior incisions ; the incrustation was thus in relief, and was 

 afterwards occasionally engraved. A fourth kind of damascene work 

 partook of the nature of pirijnf, or a design formed by small pins or 

 ituds, much in vogue in England in the 17th century. 



Various European cities had artists who practised damascening ; but 

 Venice and Milan were the chief, and the art attained its greatest 

 perfection in the 16th century. 



At the Mediaeval Exhibition of 1850, and the Manchester Exhibition 

 of 1857, several beautiful specimens of damascene work were collected, 

 including candlesticks, tankards, ink-stands, shields, etuis, swords, &c. ; 

 but the most exquisite was Cellini's far-famed shield, presented by 

 Francis I. to Henry VIII., and now the property of her Majesty. It i 

 made of embossed steel, damascened with gold and silver. It has 

 represented upon it, in compartments, scenes from the history of Julius 

 Caesar, each consisting of numerous figures in relief of the most highly 

 finished execution. 



Damascene work is not now much practised in any part of Europe. 



DAMASK, a kind of woven cloth, composed both of flax and of 

 silk, which is believed to have been originally brought from Damascus. 

 Linen damask is used for table-cloths and napkins. Until within the 

 last half century, the cloths of this kind used in England were imported 

 from Germany ; but the manufacture has since that time been success- 

 fully carried on both in Scotland and in Ireland. Damask cloths are 

 of thick texture but fine in quality, and the weaving of them puts into 

 requisition all the skill of the weaver for the production of the rlal.o- 

 rate patterns which they bear. Some of these patterns require upwards 

 of twelve hundred changes of the draw-loom for their completion, the 

 method of performing which could not be explained without going 

 into the detail of the art of weaving ; it will however be briefly treated 

 in a later article. [WEAVING.] The weaving of silk damask was intro- 

 duced into England by the Flemish weavers, who fled hither from the 

 persecutions of the Duke of Alva in 1567. For a long time silk damask 

 dresses were used on all occasions of ceremony by ladies of rank and by 

 wealthy commoners ; but they were never commonly worn. They were 

 wrought with a great variety of colours, and if the patterns did not 

 exhibit much taste they were sufficiently showy ; from the quantity of 

 silk which they contained, they were also very costly. The damask 

 employed at the present day for curtains and the like articles of house- 

 hold furniture is made of a mixture of silk with flax, cotton, or woul ; 

 the warp, or long threads, being of the more costly material. 



DAMMARA. A resin commonly known as cowdie-gum. 

 Aim] 



