or brick.[2] Two barley lofts, the whole
length of the malt house, will be found highly convenient, as affording
sufficient room to different large parcels of barley, and screening the
same from loft to loft as it descends into the steep over wire screens;
a contrivance I have found of great advantage in the malting operation,
as finishing the cleaning of the barley before getting into the steep,
a precaution that should never be omitted. The bottom of the screen
should be cased with wood, communicating from loft to loft with a sack
fastened to hooks at the lower end to receive all the dirt and
screenings that may pass through the screens. The Dutch and German
maltsters generally prefer having their lower or working floor under
ground; but this I take to be a bad plan, unless in elevated
situations, or where the soil is dry and gravelly; for if any spring of
water or damp arises in the malt-house floor, or walls so placed, the
injury to the malt is very great, and should be carefully guarded
against. It is also very important to lay a solid foundation for your
lower floor with stones, brick bats, or coarse gravel, which should be
solidly compacted by ramming for the whole length, then levelled off by
stakes, with a ten-foot level, to the thickness you would wish to give
your floor--say three or four inches: the former thickness, say three
inches, will be found sufficient. Lay your first coat on two inches
thick with hair mortar; when this coat becomes sufficiently stiff,
which will happen within twenty-four hours, you are to begin to lay
your second or last coat of one inch thick over the first, to be
prepared as follows: Take Roche, or unslaked lime, one part, by
measure; fine pit sand, one part; clinker, or forge dust, finely
powdered, two parts; clay or lome, by measure also, one part: let these
different ingredients (taking the precaution of first slaking the Roche
lime) be well mixed together, and then screened by a wire screen,
carefully keeping out of the mixture all lumps and stones; the whole
may be then worked up with a due proportion of water, observing that
this kind of mortar cannot be too much worked or mixed together, nor
too little wetted, just sufficient to work freely with the plastering
trowel; the whole floor should, if possible, be laid in one day, and
for this purpose several hands should be employed; in which case it
will dry more equally and firmly. As soon as the floor begins to set,
and that it