144 Our Farming. 



was, of course, a temporary affair in our old barn. It was 

 effective for about eight years. It was built right on ground in 

 basement. Would last much longer up from the ground. Some 

 such plan may be best to-day for a stable above ground. 



This floor cost me about $2 per cow for material and labor, 

 about the same that a cement floor would cost now. But lumber 

 would cost much less in some sections, and cement more, or 

 gravel be hard to get. This made a real good floor, I can assure 

 you, while it lasted, and paid for itself several times over. As we 

 built it, A A were two-inch white oak planks, 1 2 inches wide ; 

 B B, 2 x 2 -inch oak strips, spiked on planks and bedded in lead 

 and oil ; C C, 4 x 4-inch scantlings bedded into ground to nail 

 boards to for the floor. The cross -boards in the gutter were of 

 one-inch pine 26 inches long, which made gutter when finished 

 about 8 inches by 24. For these cross -boards and for the floor 

 I used pine barn boards, all 12 inches wide, which saved trouble in 

 breaking joints. The boards running lengthwise, shown at E, 

 were put in for convenience in shoveling. We put a coat of hot 

 coal tar between each course of boards in the bottom and side of 

 gutter, and between the two courses of floor, filling every crack 



Section of Stable Floor and Gutter. 



full, and this, together with care in breaking joints, made a water 

 tight: job. This floor and gutter was used with stanchions for fas- 

 tenings. I preferred a deep gutter, as cows are not as apt to stand 

 in it, and one can keep them cleaner, and in case of a bad storm 

 we were not obliged to clean out stables every day. In fact, to 

 save money, I did not often clean them every day, anyway. I found 

 a man would be nearly as long wheeling out one day's manure as 

 two, that is, getting at it and over it and all. It cost me about as 

 much. I had to make labor count in those days and figured 

 close. A little dry muck or land plaster used often will keep the 

 manure from fouling the air. Mr. Gilbert, President of New 

 York Dairyman's Association, who keeps many cows, told me 

 last winter that he used a deep gutter, about three times as deep 

 as this, and had an iron grate over it for cows to stand on. They 

 work manure through the grate with their hind feet, and he only 

 cleans this out when full. Now he makes fancy butter and gets 

 high prices, and his stable must be sweet and clean. He uses 

 land plaster on the floors and grate and in this gutter by the ton. 

 This is the secret. . There is no need whatever of cleaning a stable 

 daily, or oftener, if one does not wish to, if he manages rightly. 



