262 BEDDING. 



COMPARATIVE POWERS OF ABSORPTION OF WATER AND 



AMMONIA BY DIFFERENT KINDS OF BEDDING. 

 Miintz and Girard give the following table to show how 

 much water certain kinds of bedding can absorb : 



Times its own weight 

 of water. 



Sand 0.25 



Vegetable mould . . . . . . . 0.50 



Fir needles ........ 2.00 



Dead leaves . . . . . . . . 2.00 



Ferns ......... 2. 12 



Wheat straw . . . . . . . . 2.20 



Oat straw 2.28 



Earley straw . . . . . . . . 2.85 



Moss 2.75 



Sawdust of fir . . . . . . . . 4.20 



Tan 5.00 



Peat moss ........ 6.00 



The sample of peat moss experimented upon for the above 

 table, must have been an indifferent one ; because good speci- 

 mens of this bedding can absorb from 8 to 10 times their 

 own weight of water. 



Miintz and Girard have shown by experiment that powdered 

 peat, when moistened with a fluid giving off ammonia (in the 

 same manner as urine does in a stable), absorbs 6^ times as 

 much ammonia as wheat straw would do under similar 

 circumstances, and 24 times as much as pine sawdust. 



REQUIREMENTS IN A BEDDING. 



To fulfil all the conditions of comfort, health, cleanliness, 

 and economy, a bedding should be dry, soft, elastic, absorbent 

 of watery fluids and gases, clean in use, easily procurable, 

 fairly cheap, and free from decomposing matters, disagreeable 

 and unhealthy odours, and corrosive and astringent properties. 

 It should be a bad conductor of heat, and should not be 

 hurtful to the health, if it tempts horses to eat it. For 

 appearance sake it is well to have it of a light colour, so 



