230 
COVERED YARDS AND BOX FEEDING. 
fore allowed the 4 pudding 5 or solid manure to accumulate, 
scattering by hand very thinly merely as much straw as 
would make a pasty mortar bed of thick doughy consistence, 
the result being the exclusion of air and perfect coolness. It 
would be better to run the risk of the animals being somewhat 
dirty than that there should be an active fermenting mass.” 
This explanation of Mr. Cooke’s I consider so valuable 
that I think it an agricultural duty to make it known. By 
only applying as much straw as will tread into and amalga- 
mate with the manure, it is preserved in that condition 
in which it may be ploughed in for roots, without the 
process of dung heaping. We all know practically that if 
pigs are permitted to lie on fermenting or hot manure, they 
will have the ' £ heaves,” a lung disease as fatal as the pleuro- 
pneumonia in cattle. The whole question of under-cover 
feeding thus resolves itself into one of so proportioning the 
straw to the manure that the mass shall be sufficiently pasty 
to remain cool. I have known pig-feeders (not farmers) 
who, having no straw, successfully fatted their hogs, although 
wallowing in and bedaubed with cool manure, whilst others 
who permitted too free a use of straw got heat and disease. 
The natural tendency of a farm-yard labourer is to litter 
abundantly, nor can we wonder at it, when we know the 
thorough washing which farm-yards receive by heavy rains 
and water from untroughed buildings. There is no fear of 
too much heating here. Still, in a warm dry spring I have 
known cattle attacked with “ lung disease” by lying on dense 
masses of manure in open yards, the internal heat of which 
was fatal to their health. We must never forget that the 
liquid manure is thirteen times more in weight than the solid. 
If so, how great must be its loss in sloping open yards. 
Thinking this matter a very important one, l have sent a 
copy of this letter to several agricultural periodicals. — J. J. 
Mechi , Tiptree Hall , Kelvedon , Essex, Jan. 31. 
P. S.— Mr. Lawrence, of Cirencester, keeps his farm horses 
in boxes, removing the manure once in six or eight weeks. 
He cuts his straw into 4-inch lengths. In our eastern coun- 
ties straw is generally more glassy and reedy than in moister 
districts. Mr. Randall, in the vale of Evesham, manages his 
sheep in winter under cover by placing them upon burned 
clay, or brick-dust, in fact. He has been for many years a 
great clay-burner, and wheels daily (I believe) one barrowful, 
morning and evening, to every six large sheep. The result 
is perfect health and appetite, and a most valuable compost, 
producing great crops of roots. I can, from my own experience, 
strongly recommend burned clay for this purpose. I find a 
chalk floor has a greater tendency to heat than a bricked floor. 
