660 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



thick pine boards, and coated it with tar about half way up to the stanchions, and then laid 

 the other course, breaking joints. Always use the tar hot, and use it freely, and you will 

 find it easy to make a tight job. How long it will last I cannot say, but that it will last 

 long enough to pay many times over, I know from experience. Being built on the ground, 

 separate from the rest of the building, it can easily be replaced when it rots out. It takes 

 about one barrel of tar to 75 feet of stable. Get all the cross-boards and floor-boards sawed 

 at the mill, of the right lengths. 



The manure from this gutter is wheeled out once in three or four days. By this plan a 

 man wheels out three days manure from 50 cows in half a day. If it was wheeled out every 

 day, it would spoil three half -days. The stables are divided so that only 10 or 15 cows are 

 let out at once, and while they are drinking in the yard I wheel out the manure, then put 

 them back and let out another lot. I am keeping 1 5 three-year old steers on such a floor as 

 I have described.&quot; 



A farmer in Syracuse, N. Y., describes, in the same journal, a manure-gutter of very 

 different construction, it being covered with a heavy iron grating, which permits the manure 

 to fall through into the gutter beneath. It is as follows: 



&quot; The joists are framed into the sill to hold it in its place. The floor is of 1 or 1^-inch 

 hemlock lumber, laid lengthwise of the stable in two thicknesses, and so as to break 

 joints, to make it tight. The top of the floor is even with the top of the sill. The iron floor 

 is an invention of E. W. Stewart of Lake View, Erie county, N. Y., and costs $6 for each 

 cow. This is hung to the sill, so as to be conveniently raised up to allow the pit to be 

 cleaned. I purchased aud put in the floor about the middle of December, having some doubts 

 as to its utility on account of the cows having to stand upon it with their hind feet. I have 

 used it ever since, and 1 have never tried any experiment which has given me as full satis 

 faction (except the silo, and that no better) as this. I have not had one-half pound of 

 manure adhering to eight cows in the whole three months, nor has it required one pound of 

 straw or other bedding, and I do not think that I could keep the cows clean with bedding, 

 as it would prevent the droppings from going through into the pit, and the cows would lie 

 down in it. 



I use the pit by putting into it about two or three inches deep of swamp muck (not pond 

 mud), and once or twice each day add a little to this by throwing from a pile of muck in the 

 stable a shovelful or two behind each cow on the top of this iron grating, and let it sift down 

 through and mix with the droppings and the urine, and I use also daily a little plaster in the 

 same way. If the cows do not tread all the droppings through, we brush over the top of 

 the grating with a common stable broom (or fork), to break up the droppings and let them 

 go through. Once or twice in a week we drive (or back in) the wagon behind the cows and 

 load into the wagon the contents of the pit (all fine, without straw), carting it directly to the 

 field, and spreading it where it is wanted. I am satisfied, from the little experience which I 

 have had, that besides having something which will last a lifetime, I shall save in labor more 

 than the extra expense every two years, and that the cows will stand or lie down upon it 

 more comfortably than upon a common stable floor, which is not too wide to allow the drop 

 pings to fall into the gutter. Another advantage is, that I have no wood coming in contact 

 with the urine to be saturated with it and give off a bad odor. This, and the clean condition 

 of the cows, I consider no small advantage to a cow stable. If I had neither swamp muck 

 nor thoroughly decomposed straw, chaff, weeds, or other vegetable matter for an absorbent, 

 I believe I should use dry road dust. This, however, has little to do with the arrangement 

 of a stable.&quot; 



The gutter above described is 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide, the sides and bottom being of 

 concrete. The stable floor, from the base of manger to the iron grating, measures 3 feet and 

 4 inches. By the use of such gutters, as above described, the objections urged against barn 



