e square in the centre contains a brick
walled pit into which the refuse of the stables and houses is thrown.
One corner of this midden is bricked off to form a drainage pit. Of
all the smells! Enough said.

One of the most interesting features of the farm is the dairy. Each
farm boasts of one, and sometimes as many as three dogs. These dogs
are never allowed to roam at will as in England or Canada. They are a
fine robust breed, like small mastiffs with pointed wolfish ears. On
the outside of each farmhouse one of the most prominent features is a
big upright wheel like a water wheel, fully fourteen feet in
diameter. All day long the dogs run in this wheel driving the
machinery for the dairy. After one dog gets tired he is taken out, and
if the farm is a large one another dog is put in. The Flemish dogs
certainly have to work for their living and make up for the lazy life
of their brethren elsewhere. Many of these dogs have long bodies and
run to what we would call the daschhund type. I can quite understand
how in trying to catch his tail while working the wheel the process of
evolution has brought about the long body of the daschhund.

[Illustration: THE TRENCHES IN WINTER]

According to my recollections of Caesar they had hedges and ditches,
beautifully cultivated fields and beer and wine in Flanders two
thousand years old. No doubt they had those dog wheels then also. But
that does not end the ditch question. Around each group of farm
buildings there is what we would call a moat, the biggest ditch on the
farm. This moat will be from five to twenty feet deep and fully twenty
feet wide. There will be a bridge at the front and back. When the
front and back gates are closed no one can get at the Flemish
chickens. Now what use are these high-smelling pits and ditches. The
Flemings have a use for them. They pump out the contents into great
big puncheons on their three-wheeled carts, and they spread this
liquid, rich in nitrates, potash and other fertilizing materials over
their growing crops. That is why if a man or a horse gets cut in
Flanders he has to go and be inoculated against lock-jaw. Wounds do
not heal readily here, the soil and air are too rich in bacteria. If a
wound is not sterilized at once with iodine a man generally gets
gangrene and dies of it.

The farmers in Canada will no doubt be interested in the kind of stock
on these farms. Well, first the horses. They have a magnificent breed
of heavy horses