54 AMERICAN ACKICULTCTIE. 



sarily left in the pastures, or about the slacks where they are 

 fed; though it is better, for variou.s reasons, that they should 

 never receive their food from the stack. The manure thus 

 left in the fields, should be beaten up and scattered with light 

 long-handled mallets, immediately after the grass starts in 

 the spring, and again before the rains commence in the 

 autumn. With these exceptions, and the slight waste which 

 may occur in driving cattle to and from the pasture, all the 

 manure should be dropped either in the stables or yards. 

 These should be so arranged that cattle may pass from one 

 directly into the other; and the yard should if possible, be 

 furnished with running water. There is twice the value of 

 manure wasted annually on some farms in sending the cattle 

 abroad to water, that would be required to provide it for them 

 in the yard for 50 years. 



The premises where the manure is dropped, should be kept 

 as dry as possible ; and the eaves should project several feet 

 beyond the side of the building so as to protect the manure 

 thrown out of the stables, from the wash of rains. The barns 

 and all the sheds should have eave-troughs to carry off the 

 water, which if saved in a sufficiently capacious cistern, 

 would furnish a supply for the cattle. The form of the yard 

 ought to be dishing towards the centre, and if on sandy or 

 gravelly soil, it should be puddled or covered with clay to 

 prevent the leaking and escape of the liquid manure. The 

 floors of the stables may be so made, as to permit the urine 

 to fall on a properly prepared bed of turf under them, where it 

 would be retained till removed ; or it should be led off by 

 troughs into the yard or to a muck heap. 



It is better to feed the straw and coarse fodder, which can 

 always be advantageously done by cutting and mixing it with 

 meal or roots. When it is not thus consumed, it may first 

 be used as litter for the cattle, and as it becomes saturated 

 with the droppings, it should be thrown into the yard. If the 

 cattle are fed under sheds, the whole surface ought to be 

 covered with such straw, refuse forage, &c. as can be col- 

 lected ; and if there is a deficiency of these, peat or any turf 

 well filled with the roots of grass, and especially the rich 

 wash from the road side may be substituted. The manure 

 may be allowed to accumulate through the winter, unless it 

 be more convenient to carry it on to the fields. When the 

 warm weather approaches, a close attention to the manure is 

 necessary. The escape of the frost permits circulation of the 



