168 SANITARY ENTOMOLOGY 



difficulty has been that stock are often kept in a single pen for feeding 

 for some time and during this time it has been the rule not to clean up the 

 pen. The provision of ample room so that stock may be removed from one 

 pen to another to permit cleaning is important. This also applies to 

 horse and mule sales stables. The restrictions placed on the horse and 

 mule dealers who handle stock for the army have tended to greatly improve 

 fly breeding conditions in these stables and yards. I have frequently 

 observed these sales stables to be filled with tightly packed manure from 

 eighteen inches to three feet deep. In the case of an East St. Louis 

 mule sales stable where one company has thirty-five acres under cover, 

 the removal of all this manure was an enormous task. Yet it was accom- 

 plished so that the company might continue handling stock for govern- 

 ment use. The manure was hauled several miles to a fertilizer plant where 

 the well decayed part was piled and subsequently dried, ground and sold 

 as sheep manure for lawn dressings, while the parts with considerable 

 straw were thrown from cars onto rail incinerators and burned, the ash 

 being, used in fertilizer mixtures. The entire bams and fences were then 

 gone over with a sand blast machine which cleaned them of all accumula- 

 tion of dust and saliva which had in some cases become quite thick and 

 highly glazed. An effort is being made by the authorities in charge to 

 have the manure from these stables throughout the country moved at 

 weekly intervals. 



The drying of manure and its sale in powdered condition for lawn 

 dressings, etc., has attained rather large proportions as a commercial 

 enterprise in some of the large cities. This is a satisfactory means of 

 disposal of manure and there are good reasons why the practise should 

 be extended. 



It appears that where shavings are used for bedding less trouble 

 arises from fly breeding than where straw is utilized. This would 

 undoubtedly favor reduction in the breeding of Stomoxys also. 



Returning to the question of handling manure in cow lots and small 

 bam lots, it is advisable when labor is at hand, especially in dairy yards, 

 to pick up the droppings daily or even twice a day. This is greatly 

 facilitated by having the yard where cattle congregate in greatest num- 

 bers concreted. In large dairy lots it has been found feasible to bring 

 the manure together by means of an iron road drag (see plate VII). This 

 leaves the manure in windrows so it can be easily shoveled into a wagon. 



For the disposal of manure from dairies and even on the farm no 

 method is better than the use of a manure spreader (see plate VI) and 

 the scattering of the material thinly on open fields. Of course in cases 

 where all land is cropped it is not convenient to employ this method during 

 certain parts of the year, although it is usually possible to have one 

 portion of the farm available for manuring at all times. 



