152 Our Farming. 



within is covered with enough absorbent, always, to make it dry 

 and decent. Thank God that I am out of the mud around my 

 home. No more wading in filthy barnyards. Slippers can go 

 now where once rubber boots w r ere needed. 



Some have built a roof over yard and enclosed it entirely. 

 For example, Hon. J. C. Thornton, near Erie, Pa., has a large 

 yard thus enclosed which I have visited. He has large sliding 

 windows on the sides that can be opened in pleasant weather and 

 give plenty of light, and then when it storms he can have a tight 

 shed. He spreads manure from cattle in the yard, and keeps his 

 sheep in there all the time, feeding in racks right on the manure. 

 He has also a large skylight to make yard more pleasant, but it is 

 perhaps four times as large as mine. I am often asked whether 

 snow and rain do not come into ours. They do not so as to 

 bother particularly. If we kept much stock we might enclose 

 with large windows and leave them in the yard more. As it is, it 

 is very satisfactory. The total cost of our yard was about $300, 

 all material and labor counted. The tin roof is the great cost. 

 I would not think of taking $1,000 for it, and agreeing to not 

 build another, it is so convenient in many ways. One great 

 advantage I will speak of in another chapter under the head of Care 

 of Farm Tools. Briefly , this is a capital place to run tools, wagons, 

 etc., under temporarily when we are using them and when' 

 no stock are in the yard, as there are not in the summer with us. 

 Now it seems to me this roof over a small yard is the best pos- 

 sible way for me to keep my manure over until proper time to put 

 it on my land. Some advise a pit out in the yard. It would 

 save the manure if built of cement, but there would be more 

 water to draw out (what fell from the clouds) ;.it is not so handy 

 to draw manure from as from this yard, and it cannot be used for 

 any other purpose, while the yard has many uses and shelters 

 man and beast and prevents all mud, and work can go right on 

 when it rains. For the same reasons I prefer the yard with a 

 roof over it to a manure cellar under the stable. Of the many 

 visitors who have been in my yard, every one has been 

 delighted and said it was just perfect. A description does not do 

 it justice (see other pictures in Chapter XXIX). I can certainly 

 point you to farms in this section where manure is kept over for 

 wheat, where the waste around the barn in a wet season, as it is 

 kept, would be more than 20 per cent, interest on the cost of my 

 yard, and it would save all this loss, besides being worth as much 

 more in various ways during the year. 



Just at this point I stopped to read my mail and found one 

 letter from Chas.' Hakes, of Oakwood, Ohio, asking all about ma- 

 nure spreaders, and particularly about how many loads of manure 

 one must have in order to make one pay. I get a letter of this 

 kind about once a week, and often the writer wants to know 

 whether he had better run in debt for one. This latter I never 



