SANITATION 71 



The drainage of a cow byre is not so simple as that of a stable. 

 This is due to the difference in the character of the faeces, the large 

 quantity of both the semi-solid and liquid excreta, and to the fact 

 that during the winter the animals are commonly kept in the house 

 day and night. The dimensions and configuration of the surface 

 channel will be described later. As the semi-solid dung and dirty 

 straw collect in the channel it is removed from time to time and 

 conveyed to the manure pit in barrows or manure-carriers. The 

 quantity of fluid and semi-solid that passes on to the channel-exit 

 is considerable, and in addition a large quantity of water is, or 

 should be, used to flush down the byre to keep it clean and free from 

 dust. The nature and quantity of the material that passes down the 

 channel and is not removed by hand is such that an ordinary retain- 

 ing or gully trap is quite inadequate to deal with it. On the majority 

 of dairy farms this difficulty is got over by placing a sump or catch- 

 pit just outside the byre in the place of the gully trap used for 

 stables. This catch-pit, or enlarged gully trap, holds back the solids 

 and lets the liquids pass on through a pipe to the liquid manure tank. 

 Owing to the large volume of water that is used to wash down a 

 byre, a good plan that is sometimes adopted is to have two outlets 

 at the end of the channel controlled by valves. One outlet allows 

 the urine and first wash-water to pass to the manure tank, and the 

 second, which when opened automatically closes the other, lets the 

 wash-water, which has practically no manurial value, pass to the 

 waste drain. 



The drainage of piggeries and all other animal houses should 

 be as simple as possible. Only shallow surface drains should be 

 used and no traps of any kind allowed inside the buildings. 



DISPOSAL OF MANURE. On farms every effort should be made 

 to conserve as much as possible of the liquid and solid manure, as 

 both have a considerable financial value, and it is possible to do this 

 without creating a nuisance. A system of collection and storage 

 naturally falls under three heads. The initial collection of the more 

 solid manure and its removal from the stable, byre, &c. The con- 

 veyance from the building of the liquid manure and such semi- 

 solids as pass with it into a settling chamber for the separation of 

 the liquid from the solids, and the conveyance from the settling 

 chamber of the real liquid manure to a suitably constructed storage 

 chamber from which it can be removed when required for disposal 

 on the land. 



The removal of the solids from the animal house should be done 

 as frequently as possible, from stables and byres at least twice a day 

 and from piggeries at least once. The manure or dung pit should 



