CATTLE HUSBANDRY. 33 



keeping them up in stables night and day, even in the winter, 

 and expect health in themselves or offspring. You may by such 

 a course for a brief season increase the production of milk, but 

 it will be at the expense of the constitution, and in a short time 

 the animals and the race will run out. 



The two most common modes of stabling cows in practice with 

 us, are in stalls and stanchions. The former method is best for 

 large animals, and if the stalls are about seven feet six inches 

 wide for two cows, the mangers not lower than twenty inches 

 from the floor, the platform on which they stand raised six inches 

 above the walk in the rear, the cows can be secured with chains 

 and be kept clean and comfortable. But the most usual way 

 among dairymen is putting in stanchions, as it insures cleanli- 

 ness in all cases, and if the platform is of the proper length, 

 and if the animals are turned out a sufficient time daily, and 

 sawdust or other material put well forward, so that they can 

 get up and down easily, they seem to suffer but little inconveni- 

 ence. In laying the plank when such stables are constructed, 

 they should run across, and not up and down, as in the latter 

 case they become sooner smooth, and, when insufficient bedding 

 is under the cow, she slips and strains in getting up. It is com- 

 plained that under the restriction of stanchions the cow cannot 

 scratch herself. A well-bred cow don't want to scratch at im- 

 proper seasons, — she learns like flea-bitten denizens of warm 

 climates to bear her itchings until a fair opportunity offers, and 

 then like them she goes in for " a good time." Sydney Smith, 

 the celebrated English divine and humorist, had in his farm- 

 yard a scratching board for every animal, so that the ox and 

 the pig could be accommodated ; and if our cows are kept 

 cleanly, washed occasionally with soft soap and water or with 

 carbolic acid soap, curried, bedded and turned out daily, with 

 opportunity for rubbing, they will not complain of the confine- 

 ment of the stanchions. 



This of course is not the most humane way of keeping ani- 

 mals, but taking the economy of the farm into consideration, 

 the costliness and quality of hired labor, and our own tendency 

 to slovenliness about our barns and yards, it is the most likely 

 way, with the least injury to the cows, to insure them and their 

 production cleanliness. A person asked an Irishman why he 

 wore his stockings the wrong side outwards. He answered, be- 



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