ON AGRICULTURE T<> CANADA 



151 



lowest storey is slightly sunken and has various uses. It may be a 

 pigsty, a place for stock, a store-room or a combination of all these. 

 The floor above is only a little higher than ground level 30 that 

 loaded carts can be driven right in through an opening in the middle 

 of one of the Bides. On the right and lefl of this doorway extending 

 the whole length of the building are the byre and I he stable. Above 

 them are great lofts where hay, oat sheaves, etc., are stored for 

 winter food. The byres are in some districts wooden throughout, 

 concrete floors being very rare though concrete gutters are fairly 



FARMER S HOUSE. NEAR BRANDON 



common. In the most important dairy districts, on the other hand, 

 we are informed a good proportion of the byres have concrete floors, 

 and practically all new byres in these districts are now being floored 

 with concrete. Ventilation does not receive so much attention in 

 Canada as in Scotland, but there is less necessity. Drainage 

 arrangements too are sometimes primitive, but that is inevitable in a 

 newly settled country. Where the pigs or other stock live below the 

 byres the litter is deposited among them through a trap door in the 

 floor. In other cases the dung heap is contiguous to the byre, while 

 not many yards away, as like as not, may be found the farm well. 

 It must be carefully noted, however, that we saw some byres where 

 the accommodation and arrangements were excellent — but these 

 were exceptional. The sanitation of new houses in a new countrv 

 whether they be for man or beast must of necessity be open to criti- 

 cism. In the case of Canada such criticism may be easily overdone. 

 When we remember the extreme cold in winter, the abundance of 

 ice in summer, and the fact that cows are often milked in the fields 



