106 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



i 



BASEMENT WALLS FOB STABLES. 



The stable is, perhaps, the most important single feature 

 about the barn, as upon the merits of this will largely 

 depend the profits of feeding animals ; and as more crops 

 are grown for feeding animals than for feeding man, every- 

 thing in the construction of a stable bearing upon the com- 

 fort and growth of animals should be carefully considered. 



The season of greatest growth in our domesticated ani- 

 mals is when the temperature of the air is 60 and upwards. 

 If, therefore, we would try to imitate Nature at its best, we 

 must build our stables in which the winter temperature 

 shall approximate 60. This may be done by building our 

 basement walls of material having very little conducting 

 power. Double walls, having a space of dead air between 

 them, effect this purpose the best ; but as such walls are 

 most expensive, we may adopt a concrete wall, which has 

 an infinite number of minute air spaces, rendering it com- 

 paratively non-conducting. A thick stone wall, in which 

 some stones reach across the wall, will be found covered 

 with frost on the inside in winter, and often with moisture 

 in summer. But the concrete wall is never penetrated with 

 frost, and is never damp, when properly constructed. This 

 wall has another important advantage besides its minimum 

 of conducting power, rendering the stable cool in summer 

 and warm in winter it is the cheapest substantial wall 

 where sand, gravel and rough stone, or sand and gravel, or 

 sand and rough stone, are not too far off. It can be built 

 in most parts of the country at 10 cents per cubic foot of 

 wall. And as this wall does not require to be as thick as 

 an ordinary stone wall, because a water-lime concrete is much 

 firmer and stronger than quick-lime, as used by masons, for 

 every stone is bedded in water-lime cement, which soon be- 

 comes as hard as stone. The writer has a wall 8^ feet 

 high, under a large barn, which has stood the heaviest wind 



