CATTLE 



191 



Wilson Fox reports " that the buildings are of a rough and ready 

 description — many of the tenants having been farm servants require 

 nothing in the way of accommodation for themselves or their animals, 

 except actual necessities." 



On the better class farms the buildings have in many cases been 

 remodelled, but even here light, air, and ventilation necessary for 

 healthy animals is very deficient. When new buildings were erected 

 40 or 50 years ago the general practice was still to keep the byre under 

 the hay loft, which made it almost impossible to obtain the necessary 

 sanitary conditions. At a later period drag shippons have become 

 general with a gang way, in the majority of cases, between the head 

 of the cows and the wall, but here again light, air and ventilation, 

 although possible, are in many instances absent. 



A picture of a farmstead is given by H. J. Little in his report 

 in 1880 to the Royal Agricultural Society in the Prize Farm Com- 

 petition : " A stone-built dwelling covered with white- wash and roofed 

 with grey slates, . . . with the midden-stead or dung heap 

 crowding itself almost upon the door step, . . . the poor animals 

 stand on bare boards or a stone floor, with a gutter behind their heels. 

 The sheds are in the majority of cases very low, singularly ill- ventilated, 

 and withall badly drained." Since that date some improvement 

 has taken place in the buildings, but the above description is correct 

 to-day in the majority of cases, although thirty years have intervened. 



" I believe I am safe in saying," wrote A. B. Taylor in 1878, 

 " that there is not one farm in twenty in the county with buildings 

 sufficient in number and size, and so arranged that the stock of the 

 farm can be accommodated in comfort ; within 30 years rents are in 

 many cases doubled, and the capacity of the land for carrying stock 

 has increased in almost the same proportion, so that buildings which 

 might at that time be quite sufficient, are now altogether inadequate." 



