THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



19 



matic witli volatiU: nouiisamont for crops. The loss in 

 wet weather was worse ; for the courts, beside lying 

 open to receive all the raius and snows descending upon 

 an area of 1,200 square yards, were drenched by 

 the additional fall from 60t) s(iuare yards of roof. 

 And only think of the immense quantity of rich, ferti- 

 lizing salts, and soluble food for vegetation, that must 

 have been dissolved and soaked and washed out from 

 the three or four-feet thickness of manure deposited and 

 trodden down by the stock ! Where did the drainage 

 flow ? One yard was dished or hollowed toward the 

 middle ; and the bottom, being a sandy soil, impreg- 

 nated with vegetable matter, &c., from the manure, 

 and wetted and trampled with great and repeated 

 pressure, had become so' hard and impenetrable, 

 that little waste could percolate downward ; hence, 

 a complete pool or spongy mass of litter occu- 

 pied that yard in sliowery weather, necessitating con- 

 tinual supplies of fresh bedding for the poor cattle or 

 young horses, which, you may be sure, kept finely 

 healtliy, lying night after night for weeks upon straw, 

 through which their wt ight forced up the wet from the 

 reservoir underneath ! The other part of the court, being 

 lowest on one side, had a vent through the wall there 

 for the escape of surplus liquor from its saturated straw ; 

 and month after month you might have seen the dark- 

 coloured pungently-odoriferous stream triciiling down 

 into the semi-putrid water of a pond, hideous with 

 prismatic and nauseous colours mantling its surface, 

 disgusting even to filthy ducks, a residue also forming a 

 stagnant nettle-shroud cd ditch in another direction. To 

 get into my bullock hovel across the yard, you v/ere 

 over your shoe-tops in manure-water ; the feeding- 

 sheds and stables were dry and comfortable, btit the 

 solid manure was all thrown out from day to day, to 

 undergo the exposure and air-and-rain-deterioration of 

 the open yard ; and the only drain-gutter-and-graling 

 on the premises was that in my nag-stable, whore the 

 ammoniacal valuable liquid is allowed to dribble into a 

 "dry well," and so hopelessly got rid of, without any 

 attempt at saving or utilizing it. What a place to 

 manufacture manure infer improving the farm, to collect 

 every scrap and oddment of animal or vegetable matter 

 not strictly marketable, to be conserved and prepared 

 by decomposition and fermentation, and developed into 

 all sorts of invaluable chemical salts and gases for forc- 

 ing crops of roots, corn, and grasses ! What a place to 

 consign my weekly five pounds' worth of dear oilcake 

 to (indispensable food, in spite of the mahogany sawdust 

 that is so largely produced in certain great linseed sea- 

 ports, and is believed to form a portion of the " vege- 

 table matter" of well- husked and essence-flavoured 

 cakes) ! What a place to consume my far-greater 

 allowance of corn, barley-meal, scalded wheat, ground 

 peas, and beans in ! What a place in which to have 

 my splendid juicy roots devoured with wholesome 

 barley-straw and pea-straw, and sweet expensive hay, 

 and also pulped and partly fermented with bright wheat- 

 straw chaff ! What a place for milch cows to yield rich 

 milk in ; for hardy steers to contract catarrh and pleuro- 

 paeumoaia ia ; for young calves to get their coats set 



wrong way ; for pigs, that should conserve all crumbs 

 and litterings, and be the healthy living save-alls of the 

 farmery, to grow lank on their sodden layer, and pro- 

 duce ulcered pork ! No wonder that I vowed to get 

 wet-footed no more on my cattle-bedding, even though 

 I could neither have a costly roofing, a systematic 

 drainage by pipes and gratings, or an excavated tank, 

 with pumps and paraphernalia, with water-carts and plots 

 for irrigation. Eave-spouting promptly put up did not 

 cost me a very heavy figure ; but some neighbours said, 

 " Our manure is often too dry, even when all the build- 

 ings drip into the yard;" to which I replied, that I 

 could do what I pleased with the rain-water when once 

 in my shoots, and when the straw was full dry, I could 

 pour my downf,^l outside the water-tubs as well as into 

 them, or might conduct it in V spouts over any part of 

 the yard. But, in fact, I have not yet found any dis- 

 advantage from keeping roof-droppings off the necks 

 and loins of miserable horses and bullocks. How do I 

 lay dry the yards and sheds without wasting the rich 

 drainings, without costly arrangement, and with little 

 expense in labour ? 



Well, the only two of my houses which were at all 

 conveniently situated for being drained to one point 

 were soon cured. And I may say here, that the hap- 

 hazard arrangement of my building — having been 

 erected bit-by-bit in a hand-to-mouth fashion—was so 

 incommodious and inconsiderate, that the labour lost in 

 carrying and reconvcjing chaff and pulped-roots, mixed 

 meal, and cake, and milk, &c.,from one angle to another, 

 is something serious ; and the relative situation of places 

 for different kinds and ages of stock is somewhat con- 

 fusing and bewildering to a visitor. I put a grating in 

 the working-horse stable, and another in the cow-house, 

 to draw-off the drainings into a short pipe-tile drain, 

 emptying outside the wall of the straw-yard — not to 

 run away, but to be caught by a device to be presently 

 described. The hard bottom of the large yard or court 

 was lowest in two places — one spot being near a side 

 wall, and the other near a division fence of rails and 

 tall thorn-fuggots. In each place I dug a semicircular 

 hole,, of 4 yards diameter, the flat side being next the 

 wall or fence. These holes are only about 2 feet deep, 

 thus requiring no bricking, cementing, &c., and they 

 are fenced off from the straw-yard by a "wattled" or 

 braided fence of stakes and willows — si ill further pro- 

 tected by a few stout posts-and-rails. The object is 

 simply to preserve these spots from being covered with 

 straw and manure, and to keep out the cattle and pigs. 

 The eft'ect is, that as the drainage of the yard fills these 

 holes or low places, I can get at the liquid with pump 

 or bucket or scoop, just when 1 please, instead of having 

 it saturating the yard and being incapable of removal 

 unless the litter be taken away with it. Several times 

 my yard-man had been caught in the act of picking a 

 hole through the yard wall, to let out the water which 

 floated and "swum" the lower parts ; but he had been 

 promptly forbidden to let go the fertile liquor ; and at 

 last these miniature tanks opened up a means of relief. 

 By means of portable lengths of spouting laid upon the 

 Straw when necessary, I distribute the manure-water 



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