CHAP. I. DAIRY BUILDINGS OF HOMESTEAD. 655 



course be movable along with the outer window-frame, which should be 

 hung door fashion, so that the two halves shall open right and left ; 

 and the fresh air be admitted accordingly. The inner window should be 

 double-hung, the upper leaf hinged at its lower edge, so that it can be 

 placed and set at any angle, by pulling chain and weights or by 

 quadrant and thumb-screw to throw the air up towards the ceiling ; 

 while the lower leaf should be made in two and like the outside, 

 window-door fashion, throwing the air right and left. The walls should 

 be built double or with a cavity or hollow in the centre ; and the roof 

 should also be double, the ceiling being coved, or higher in the centre 

 than at the sides. These structural arrangements all have in view the 

 object of keeping the air in the interior of the milk -room as uniform 

 in temperature as possible throughout the year, a matter of paramount 

 importance. To remove the used air, or to keep a current in action, 

 ventilating shafts should be provided in the ceiling, with valves easily 

 worked by cords and pulleys so as to regulate the velocity of the 

 currents. In winter, the best means of keeping up the temperature is 

 to have hot-water pipes. 



The next object to be secured in the milk-house is perfect freedom 

 from damp, than which nothing is more prejudicial. The site or soil of 

 the house should therefore be as dry as possible, and in order to put 

 the matter beyond risk, the site for some distance round the milk-house 

 should be well and deepty drained. The floor should be dug out for 

 a depth of at least two feet, and filled in with dry cinders, or smithy 

 clinkers, and above this a layer of cement, in which, if a tile-floor be 

 used, the tiles forming it should be carefully embedded. The best 

 tiles are the Staffordshire. The great point as regards the floor is, 

 to have its surface impervious to damp, and all its joints waterproof 

 and quite flush with the general surface, so that there are no hollows 

 in which water, or other liquid, can lodge. Some prefer cellar milk- 

 rooms as giving a more uniform temperature, but there are two objections 

 to these : first, the time lost in descending and ascending the steps, in 

 taking down and bringing up the milk ; and secondly, the difficulty of 

 keeping the rooms dry. The first objection can be dispensed with by 

 having an inclined gangway down which the milk-cans can be shot, and 

 a " lift " by which they can be raised to the churning-room ; the 

 second, by careful construction but, upon the whole, we believe the 

 best plan is to have the milk-room on the same level as the other 

 apartments. The shelves in both rooms will be best and most easily 

 kept clean if of perforated cast iron, so that the air may obtain free 

 access to the milk vessels. 



The churning-room and cheese-press-room may be provided with a 

 marble slab upon which to work the butter in cases where a portable 

 butter- worker is not employed. An excellent and highly useful addition 

 to the dairy apartments is a small ice-room for storing the butter in 

 hot weather, and for affording ice for occasional use in the milk-room 

 to reduce its temperature, and in the churning-room when making and 

 working up the butter. The ice-room should be next the churning- 

 room, and separated from the washing-room ; or a separate washing- 



