124 Barn Construction. 



edge up) the upper edge rounding, and the bars re- 

 duced to one-fourth inch at the under edge, as shown. 



Some recommend flat one-inch steel bars set on 

 edge, the bars three-eighths of an inch thick, and 

 running lengthwise of the drop instead of crossways, 

 as shown. Prof. E. W. Stewart, of Lake View, Erie 

 County, N. Y. (author of a very valuable work on 

 feeding animals), first introduced these "self-clean- 

 ing stables." He (Mr. Stewart) recommends grat- 

 ing of T-shaped steel bars, made in sections for the 

 width of two or three cows ; as to size of trench, he 

 says, in a circular describing these grates, usually 

 sixteen to twenty-four inches deep, three feet wide. 

 If built thus, this will hold droppings of a large cow 

 for about four weeks. He adds, in substance, that 

 stables thus provided are kept sweet, or much freer 

 from disagreeable odors, than where the stalls are 

 cleaned every day. He also recommends these 

 stalls for pig-pens. There is, Mr. Stewart informs 

 me, no patent on this appliance. Mr. James 

 Forsyth, of Owego, has cast-iron grates behind his 

 cows, with a trench large enough to hold droppings 

 for a week, and I was never in a barn so free from 

 the smell of manure. Mr. Forsyth speaks in very 

 high terms of this system of handling manure as a 

 labor-saving device ; especially when the manure is 

 to be carted to the field in a manure-spreader, it has 

 very much to recommend it. 



The trench itself had better be either of brick or 

 cement, or cast iron, or, if built of wood, should be 

 carefully put together with red-lead joints, or in 



