138 [Senate 



depth, and as long as may be required ; with a double roof, with pur- 

 loin plates to sustain it ; the posts twelve feet long and the beams al ' 

 seven feet from the ground, leaving a large space above for the gene- 

 ral store of hay for winter feeding, with a strong feed rack on the 

 back side, and a long sloping brace every five feet, to protect and give 

 confidence to the underlines, against the master cattle, and yet not sd 

 to confine them, that they cannot see them and change places when 

 they move ; there should be sliding doors every twenty feet in front, 

 to take in the hay, and a row of studs on the back side of the upper 

 story, to cecure a passage of four feet, and an openijig over the rack, 

 to feed through. 



By having this great depth and small height, snows and storms do 

 not beat in on the open side ; there is space for the whole stock to 

 stand or lie down. How often do we see one or two of the master 

 cattle stand or lie down at their ease, in the common shallow sheds, 

 in such a position as to keep out all the others — when there is room 

 enough, if they could all agree. By this method, you only feed in 

 the sheds, and litter them freely j whereby you insure the greatest 

 part of the manure and urine under cover, by the time spent in eating 

 and sleeping under them, and during storms and excessive cold. At 

 least three-quarters of the whole winter's droppings will be under the 

 sheds — and that three-quarters will be worth more than double the 

 amount of the leached and bleached material which lays five or six 

 months exposed to the elements. 



You also by this method nave the trouble of stabling and tying up 

 the cattle, and the manipulations of cleaning them and the stables, so 

 objectionable to many persons not educated in that system. 



If, as Liehig, the great agricultural chemist, asserts, — and proves it 

 too, — that the liquids of absorption contained in the dung of cattle, 

 are worth thirteen times as much as the vegetable matter constituting 

 its bulk, — and there can be no doubt but almost the entire active vir- 

 tues of barn-yard manure reside in the urine and liquid absorption of 

 the solids, — all the salts and ammonia are due to it, the rest is mere 

 vegetable fibre, and constitutes mold when decomposed. Under this 

 state of the case, the system of making and keeping manures under 

 cover, is too palpable to be neglected. 



In those localities where hay is worth any thing in market, and 

 can be sold at a profit, the great saving in the quantity required to win- 



