102 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



This iron grating must be credited also with : 1st, pre- 

 venting all rotting of the wood-work of the stables, as all 

 urine passes at once through the bars, and cannot wet the 

 joists and sills of the barn. 2d. Its durability must be very 

 great, or that of a dozen wooden stables. 3d. Its cost is very 

 moderate the latter form costing only $6 per cow. 



Dry earth or muck should be kept in the basement near 

 this platform, and a little thrown each day on the grating, 

 falling through upon the manure, and thus preventing all 

 smell and fixing the ammonia, rendering manure and dry 

 muck equally valuable. Any dry earth, such as cleaning 

 of ditches or headlands, will answer every purpose, when 

 dry and pulverized. This will double the amount of 

 manure, and all be more valuable than manure kept in the 

 common way. 



Fig. 10 also illustrates a new mode of fastening and 

 watering cattle in stable, which will be explained in a 

 future chapter. 



THE OCTAGON ADAPTED TO ALL SIZED FARMS. 



A little examination of this form of barn will not only 

 show its adaptation to large farms, but to farms of all 

 sizes from the smallest to the largest. A farmer has but 

 to calculate how much room he wants for cattle, how 

 much for horses, how much for sheep, how much for 

 hay and grain, how much for carriages, wagons, tools, or 

 any other purpose, and he can inclose just the number of 

 square feet needed, and with the shortest outside wall. He 

 may be liberal in his allowance of room, for it costs less, in 

 proportion, as the size is increased. Suppose he requires 

 for a fifty-acre farm 2,090 square feet of room; this would 

 require a fifty-foot octagon or a 40 x 52 rectangle. Now he 

 would require timber forty feet long for the latter, while he 

 could build the octagon with timber for the sills and plates 

 only twenty-two feet long, and this would be the longest 



