DAIRY BriLDi:s-GS. Ill 



The cellar should be at least nine feet high in the 

 clear, to permit the men who work in it to load the 

 wagons. I have had my cellar four feet deep with 

 manure, and as it was fifty by twenty-four feet, this gave 

 4,800 cubic feet, or about sixty tons. Manure made of 

 swamp muck and leaves in large proportion, with the 

 cow's droppings and urine, is not so heavy as the clear 

 manure, and will weigh only about one and a half ton 

 to the cord, but a ton of it is worth at least $5, if esti- 

 mated in the way the value of artificial fertilizers is. I 

 have used many hundred dollars' worth of fertilizers in 

 addition to the large quantity of manure made in this 

 way, and have often used $25 worth to the acre ; but I 

 have found that five tons of the stable manure, made as 

 here described, from my high-fed cows, have shown more 

 effect upon my light soil than the fertilizer. Being quite 

 fine and pulverulent, it is spread from the manure- 

 spreader quite evenly, and as a top dressing upon rye in 

 the early spring, or grass or clover, it shows a conspicuous 

 effect after the first rain. This is to be attributed to the 

 fact that all the valuable urine is saved, and that plaster 

 so liberally used preserves every atom of fertilizing mat- 

 ter, besides adding something of its own. At least fifty 

 pounds of plaster are used to each ton of manure, as it is 

 scattered in the horse-stable and pig-pens, as well as in 

 the cow-stable and the cellar under it. 



The bottom should be cemented, unless the greatest care 

 IS exercised to use an abundance of absorbents. I have 

 never suspected any waste in my cellar, although the bot- 

 tom is of sand. During many cleanings out the cellar bot- 

 tom has become hollowed considerably, and any liquid 

 free in it would soak into the sand. But I have never 

 found the sand, even after some years' use, to be discolored 

 more than an inch in depth. I would advise every man 

 who makes a manure cellar to have it cemented; making 

 the floor dishing to the center. The 'floor should be 



