ON FARM-BUILDINGS AND LABOURERS' COTTAGES. 243 



fortable accommodation, it is impossible for the tenants to prosecute the 

 various departments of their business to such an extent, or so profitably, 

 as they would otherwise do ; and where the compartments are- badly 

 arranged, much more expenditure has to be incurred by the tenant than 

 would be required in a different state of things. It is therefore to the 

 profit of the proprietors, as well as of the tenants, to have their farm- 

 steadings of the very best description, suited to the extent of the subjects 

 they are intended to accommodate; for if the tenants have inferior stead- 

 ings, they can only work their farms in such a way as to enable them to 

 pay low rents. 



A farm-steading should never be erected on a low-lying site, nor on a 

 high-lying one, but on one of moderate elevation, according to the char- 

 acter of the locality on which the farm is situated. If built on a low- 

 lying part, it is liable to be flooded by water at times, and to have its 

 drainage deranged from want of sufficient outfall ; and besides, on such 

 a site, early autumn and late spring frosts affect the health of the animals 

 much more than is generally supposed, and may be said to be the cause 

 of much disease among them. When a steading is built on a high-lying 

 site, compared with the general elevation of the farm, there is always 

 a difficulty experienced in taking home the produce of the field, all 

 this being up-hill work, and therefore expensive ; and a still greater 

 objection to such a site is, that in winter and early spring the cattle can 

 only with great difficulty and expense be kept at all in a comfortable 

 condition in fact, in such a case as this, they consume very much 

 more food to keep them in tolerable condition than is found necessary 

 on a site of better exposure. 



A farm-steading should always have ample accommodation for the 

 wants of the farm it is designed to serve, as I have very often observed 

 that the housing which was considered enough at the beginning of a 

 lease of nineteen years, was found not nearly sufficient for the accom- 

 modation of the farm in ten years after, or before the lease was much 

 more than half run. This arises from improvements having taken place 

 on the farms, which enabled the tenants to grow more abundant crops 

 and rear more stock on them than they had anticipated. A few good 

 steadings have been erected of late years in the country. These, when 

 they were built, were considered ample for the wants of the farms on 

 which they stood ; but now, after the lapse of only a few years, some 

 of them are found short of the necessary accommodation, and this from 

 the farms having been so much improved that the produce has over- 

 grown the space at first allotted to it. This, then, is a point which 

 should be kept in view by all parties concerned in the building of farm- 

 steadings, and, in fact, neglect of it accounts* for the deficiency of farm- 



