Sec. 1(1.] THE BARN AXD ITS APPURTENANCES. 307 



sfables has been liow to make the feed-trouglis. "We can solve tliat difBculty. 

 "Wc liave learned how to make a horse feed-trough. Or, rather, we have 

 learned how to purchase a very good and very cheap one. We learned it 

 of a ])rogrcs3ivc young farmer. T!io farm of Josiah Mut-y, a Westchester 

 County farmer of the old school, is conducted by his grandson, who lias 

 gained knowledge from books, and goes ahead with imjtrovements, one of 

 whicli is a new feed-trough. It is simply an iron pot — just such a one as our 

 dinner used to be boiled in before the age of cooking-stoves. One of about 

 four gallons is a good size, and it is set in the corner of the maiiicer in a 

 casing of boards that inclose the rim, just up even with the top. It is supe- 

 rior to any wooden, iron, or stone feed-box we ever saw ; is not expensive, 

 and, barring accidents, it will last forever, and be a good pot afterward. 



330. Earlhrn Stable Floors.— One of the best substances that can be found 

 for flooring for horses is clean sand. It is superior to wood, as it does not 

 heat and injure hoofs. Some English veterinary surgeons use notbinf else 

 for bedding but sand. We have always found stables with dirt floors prefer- 

 able to plank OIK'S. 



331. The Stable Yard.— Tlic stable, or barn-yard, is one of the most im- 

 portant appurtenances of the farmery. Two grand objects must be kept in 

 view in its construction — the comfort of the animals and the preservation of 

 the manure. If it is on soft soil, and tolerably level, as such yards are upon 

 nine out of every ten of the Western prairie farms, tiiey are most unconi- 

 fortalile places for stock, although good for preservation of manure, but that 

 is little or no object where it is of so little value. The only help that we can 

 see for a barn-yard upon such soil, where the tramping of cattle makes it 

 into a quagmire, is thorough nnderdrainage, and scraping the earth from 

 around into a low mound, and covering the most of that with sheds. It may 

 be so constructed that all the drainage of the manure will concentrate in one 

 spor, to be absorbed by straw or other manure-making substance. We have 

 found paving a yard with common fence-rails, where stones could not be 

 procured, paid the cost every year, and such a pavenieut will last half a 

 dozen years. 



In a rocky country, like eastern New York, Pennsylvania, and the New 

 England States, if care and sound judgment are used in the location of a 

 farmery, the yard can be fixed on the southerly side of the barn and shed.*, 

 where it will always be dry, and very comfortable for stock, and yet not 

 wasteful of manure. Our own is located upon a rock, sloping southeast. 

 Just outside tlie fence, at the lowest corner, an excavation is nuule, to bo 

 kept full of n)uck, sods, or other absorbents, so that while the yard is con- 

 stantly drained, the drainage is not lost. Some very good yards we have 

 seen constructed with a deep basin in the center. The great objection to 

 this form in a small yard is that the basin sometimes gets so full that there 

 is not dry space enough around the edges for the cattle. Sometimes, too, it 

 freezes over (piite full, and strong cattle push the weaker ones upon the ice 

 to their injury. We preler the absorbing basin outsiile of the yard. 



