CHAPTER XVIII. 



MANURE (CONTINUED). 



we kept ca ttle now we could turn out, say, ten 

 head at once in our covered yard to drink and stir 

 around a little. In any ordinary weather, I would 

 prefer this to watering in the barn. A covered 

 yard large enough to turn out forty or fifty head at. 

 once would be rather expensive. One can change 

 his practices a little to fit new conditions. I did this way years 

 ago, so as to have a small open yard and better save manure. It 

 is quite a job to get out this manure after it has been tramped 

 over so much, where long straw is used. It comes up harder 

 than out of a pile. It would be worse yet if we fed long corn 

 fodder. But all good things want to go together. With the 

 covered yard I would put the corn in the silo, if I kept stock, or 

 cut the fodder, at least. Then there would be no trouble with the 

 manure, and it could be made to pay otherwise. The way I man- 

 age to get manure out is to have my man shake it up with a fork 

 while I am gone out to spread a load with the manure spreader. 

 He can just about do this, and then it is in shape to handle faster. 

 Two of us can load the spreader quickly. If taken up in tough, 

 large flakes, the spreader could not handle it. Shook up fine in 

 this way it spreads this strawy manu/e very well, well enough to 

 not smother young clover. If stock are let out to run and exer- 

 cise on the manure from day to day, it helps about the spreading. 

 They break it up a good deal by tramping. I have noticed that 

 a load taken fresh from the stable did not spread nearly as well. 

 There is a good deal in loading just right, too, as one will learn 

 by experience. We have used a spreader ever since they first 

 came around, some ten years, and could no more think of doing 

 without now than we could rake hay by hand. It is just like 

 this : The team can spread a load in about two minutes, while I 

 am resting. I like that better than working hard myself for a 

 much longer time. I would like to sit still and drive while the 

 horses did the loading, too. But the machine spreads better than 

 it is practicable to do by hand. It pays me in this line alone, and 

 it spreads a load on just the same ground every time. If I set it 

 for fifteen loads to acre, I get just that, no more or less. Again, 

 it will spread a very light coat, even five or ten loads per acre. 

 Who can do that practically by hand ? In top dressing I some- 

 times want to make a little manure go a good ways. There is 

 much in the spreading of manure very finely. Before I got a 



