No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 497 



Further, we must remember that barns are usually warm ; 

 this warmth causes a current of air upwards, so that this 

 damp, chilly air is drawn up into the barn above, where it 

 does the most harm. In referring further to damp sur- 

 roundings, Professor Kedzie again forcibly remarks : — 



The evaporation of so much water renders the air over such a 

 soil damp and chilly. The result is a physical necessity. This 

 damp and chilly atmosphere has a more serious result than the 

 simple feeling of discomfort. It has a most depressing influence 

 on the human system, lowering its tone, enfeebling the vital pow- 

 ers, and acting as the predisposing cause of a long list of diseases, 

 some of them the most destructive and incurable known to the 

 medical profession. The depressing influence of the dampness 

 and chilliness of a water-soaked soil is not to be compared to the 

 effect of an occasional wetting, as when we are caught in a shower. 

 The chilly dampness of the undrained soil is persistent and unre- 

 mitting, dragging us down with its cold fingers at all hours, at 

 " noon of day and noon of night," as if we toiled and rested, 

 waked and slept in a perpetual drizzle of cold rain. It may seem 

 a small force at first, but its pei-sistent, untiring and relentless 

 pull tells upon the strongest at last, like the invisible fingers of 

 gravity which finally drag down all to a common level. This 

 depressing influence is not developed suddenly and distinctly, but 

 silently and secretly the sapping and mining go on, till the explo- 

 sion comes in sickness, suffering and the sleep that is eternal. 



If it is necessary to have cellars, then it is necessary that 

 the floor of the stable should be water-tight ; that the cellar 

 should be well lighted and ventilated ; that both cellar and 

 subsoil should be well drained ; that the manure, instead of 

 being dumped into the cellar, should be taken some distance 

 from the barn, and the liquid taken up by absorbents or 

 carried to a cesspool, where it can be made use of, instead 

 of going to waste by soaking into the subsoil below the barn. 



Light is another essential in the thorough disinfection of 

 barns that is too often neglected. The majority of barns 

 have only one or two small windows, rarely larger than say 

 eighteen or twenty-four inches square, usually thick with 

 dust, and giving a "dim, religious light," or none at all. 

 Only very few barns have windows sufficiently large to give 

 free admittance to the sunlight. Owners of cattle do not 



