196 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE VENTILATION OF DAIRY STABLES. 



(Prof. F. H. King, Madison, Wis.) 



The necessity of a sufficient supply of air for the maintenance of 

 life activities, both in our own case and in our domestic animals, is well 

 recognized and sufficiently appreciated; but we do not understand in 

 how many ways and on how many occasions the amounts of pure air 

 are cut down far below the requirements of health and vigorous nor- 

 mal bodily functions. It is a lamentable fact that, even in our own 

 case, to say nothing regarding our domestic animals, wherever we con- 

 gregate in considerable numbers in warm compartments, in the great 

 majority of cases entirely inadequate provision is made to change the 

 air as rapidly as it should be changed. This general lack of adequate 

 ventilation results partly from an insufficient knowledge of the amount 

 of air which is daily required for respiration, of the degree of purity at 

 which it should be maintained, and of the bad effects which result from 

 the long-continued breathing of air too impure. It results partly from 

 not sufficiently realizing to what extent warm, close compartments and 

 stables interfere with a rapid interchange of the air in them. And 

 partly, also, from not knowing what remedy to apply when the diffi- 

 culty is recognized. 



AMOUNT OF AIR BREATHED DURING TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. 



To burn one ton of hard coal requires something like 11 tons of 

 air ; and to burn a ton of wood there must be passed over it 5 full tons 

 of air, supposing that the entire amount of oxygen carried by the 5 

 tons of air could be appropriated by the wood. This, of course, cannot 

 be done, and hence there must be supplied, to maintain rapid and com- 

 plete combustion, larger amounts than these. But the consumption in 

 the stable, by the dairy cow, of a ton of hay or a ton of grain, re- 

 quires that there must pass into her body through her lungs, for each 

 and every ton, something like 5 tons of air. But to contain a single 

 ton of air at ordinary temperature and pressure requires a stable 50X50X 

 10 feet. 



We breathe in 24 hours 34 pounds of air ; a cow breathes 224 

 pounds ; a horse 272 pounds, a pig 89 pounds, a sheep 58 pounds, and a 

 hen two pounds. In the case of the cow, the amount of air she must 

 breathe daily is more than double the weight of the water and dr> 

 food she uses. Let me put these quantities before you in another way : 



