EVOLUTION OF TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
ABOUT PRIMITIVE HOUSES.
Nature seems, in any country, to provide the means of a shelter if
man only knows how to use it. The Eskimo makes a comfortable "igloo"
out of snow for instance. The prairie man in America was quite a long
time before he hit on the happy idea of making a house in a treeless
country out of the sod under his feet. When the west was settled the
"sod shanty" was a recognised institution on the other side of the line.
When well made these sod houses are very warm and comfortable. The
trouble is dust unless some means are takeu to prevent it. The log house
is tbo well known to need description, and the frame house can be dis-
missed with the same remark. A not unusual sight today is to see a
fine farm house, with a small log, or sod building near it, the latter being
the original dwelling. Nothing tells the story of success more dramatical-
ly at a single glance than these instances. It is "Look on this picture
an~ on that." While travelling we once saw a huge building looming up
for miles, and we wondered and wondered what sort of a public building
this could be, miles from the railroad. It was only a settler's house, built
by a man and his family, a German by the way. Within a stone's throw
stood a little log house which looked like a rabbit hutch beside its suc-
cessor. The big house was made of home-made concrete. There was a
thirteen-year-old boy there. "You got a big house, Hans," I said. "Yes,"
he snapped, "too big!" "Ah t" I said, "You cut the stove wood." "You
bet I do," he replied. And it must have taken a lot of wood to
warm thatbig house.
The most interesting houses are those of continental Europeans. Take
Russians who have lived on the steppes. They can make mud houses to
the queen's taste. I recall a particular instance in the Pheasant Hills. A
frequent feature is for the home to be in two houses. One is used as
the kitchen and living room, the other for sleeping accommodation. This
was one of those cases. My Russian friend was the leader of the settle-
ment, and a superior man. His living house was comfortable enough, but
the sleeping house was a dream when one considered it was built of
nothing but mud. The walls had been putty-coated with a fine wash of
prepared clay and were quite smooth and shiny. There was a neat
painted cornice running around the rooms, consisting of flowers and
figures. These were home-made and the paint or dye was home-made
from vegetables and ochres in the vicinity. He had a new stable with the
roof not yet on. The walls were two feet thick. My host said, "That
stable last for two hundred years." And it looked it. And the bed! I
slept between two of the softest, cleanest, most billowy and restful feather
beds I have ever struck.
I remember another beautiful bit of mud architecture. This time the
artist was a Hungarian. The floor of the good room was made of poles
plastered over. That floor gave under one's feet as if it were rubber; yet
it was shiny and solid, and without the slightest indication of a crack in
its surface. But these results are not produced by any hap-hazard meth
ods. These folk have been sheltered by the mud of Mother Earth for Un-
told generations, long before America was dreamed of. They prepare
this mud according to formula. Occasionally one might catch a woman
not too extravagantly draped, treading mud in a barrel. Oxen might do
the rough treading in a prepared slough. The Finns are as handy with
the axe as the typical Canadian and they build some excellent log houses.
But the ambition of the European is often to have a modern frame house,
so as time goes on you see the mud building discarded, and a neat, com-
modious frame go up. This is shown on a pretty large scale in the Bal-
gonie Russo-German colonies. The settlers started many years ago with
mud houses, and they lived on the village plan, going out from their vil-
lages to till their farms. All had their farm yards in the villages and in
most cases with the stables reached by a door from the house. The result
was when hay and grain were stacked in the village to give it, from a
way off, the appearance of a populous place. We should say that the
Lutheran Russians were exceptions to this plan. Now the mud houses
have disappeared; and also the village plan.
It must not be supposed that all Europeans have good houses. There
are shacky and dirty Europeans although my experience is that they are
more the exception than the rule. I have before me a Galician's house
in the bluff, the frame work of poles, plastered over so carelessly with
mud that the mud was dropping off. But this man might have been a
city dweller in his own country and therefore like any other novice at
country life. Whatever kind of house is built it needs to be built right,
and to be air-tight to withstand our winter, and many people have suf-
fered much from the cold of hastily and imperfectly constructed houses.
Bibliography follows:
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