979 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
KEEP THE STABLE FLOORS 
CLEAN. 
We know divers people who take some pride 
m their horses and cattle, but who are inveterate 
slovens in their stables. Their racks, or mangers 
are so made that half the hay they give 
their stock is wasted and drawn under their 
feet. They don’t clean their stables once a 
week, or a fortnight. We have, indeed, seen sta¬ 
bles where valuable animals were kept, not clean¬ 
ed out for an entire Winter, and the heels of the 
poor beasts stood a foot higher than their fore 
feet in the latter part of the season. We once 
hired a barn—a nice, newly built barn, too—of a 
man for the Winter ; and when we went to put 
our stock into it, found that the horse stable sill 
was more than two feet above the ground, and 
the poor beasts had to leap that high to get into 
it, and fall down or make a leap every time they 
went out of it; and also, that full eighteen inches 
of solid horse dung had to be thrown out, taking 
a man half a day to do it before we could use it, 
besides repairing the entrance by a bridge that 
they could walk in and out upon. We scolded 
the owner soundly for his laziness—it was 
nothing else—and he only answered that “he 
hadn’t time to clean it, and didn’t see what harm 
it did the horses !” And yet, when we came to 
settle with him in the Spring, he wanted us to 
pay some dollars extra because we used a part of 
his barn floor to mix our cut feed upon, on the 
plea that in wetting our feed for mixing, it rotted 
his floor during the Winter His half a dozen 
loads of horse dung seething, and fermenting 
through a long hot Summer, didn’t rot the stable 
floor ! Oh, no. Just so some folks are constituted. 
A stable where stock is kept, should be clean¬ 
ed out once a day, at least, and twice is none too 
much. In all our stable practice we clean the 
stables twice a day, and shake up the bedding, let 
the weather be as it will. On the floors of our 
calf and sheep stables we scatter dry litter. When 
that gets thoroughly soiled and saturated, we 
clean it out and supply its place with fresh. The 
ammonia arising from the stale of stock in the 
stables becomes, in a short time, very offensive 
to them, as it is to ourselves. It penetrates their 
lungs and gives them disease. Its pungency af¬ 
fects their eyes, making them sore and irritable, 
and is a positive injury, to say nothing about the 
slovenness of leaving the stables unclean. Clean¬ 
liness, indeed, is as necessary to beast as to man. 
No creature can thrive when fouled and besmear¬ 
ed with ordure. 
When horses (not mares) and oxen stand regu¬ 
larly, holes should be bored through the floor to 
let their stale run through on to muck below, or 
into a trench by which it may pass off and be 
saved. Otherwise, it remains under them to 
make them uncomfortable when they lie down, 
unless they have bedding enough to fully absorb 
it, which is not always convenient. Our own 
plan of stable flooring is to raise that part on 
which the animals stand two inches—the thick¬ 
ness of the plank—above the passage behind, and 
sloping from the foot of the manger back, to give 
a fall of one to two inches in the distance of six or 
seven feet of floor on which they stand, to admit 
the stale to pass off readily, as well as to let the 
droppings on to the lower level behind them. 
Best Things to Give. —T.ie best thing to give 
to your enemy is forgiveness ; to your opponent, 
tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, 
a good example ; to a father, deference ; to your 
mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; 
to yourself, respect • to all men, charity. 
Calves should have loose stables, or stalls, to 
run in during the Winter, with a little yard or 
paddock for exercise out of doors in fair weath¬ 
er, and plenty of air always. Good soft hay, a 
few oats, say a pint a day for each, or an equal 
quantity of corn, oats, or barley meal, and in mild 
weather a quart of sliced roots is their best food. 
In very cold weather, roots do calves—such is 
our experience—more hurt than good. They are 
cold and watery, and scour them. In mild weath¬ 
er, roots supply the place of green food, and 
we consider them good for that' only, in our 
Northern climate. 
If calves get lousy, rub a little soft grease, mix¬ 
ed with a sprinkling of Scotch snuff, on the affect¬ 
ed parts, thoroughly to the skin, and the lice will 
leave at once. If you have not the snuff, grease 
alone will do. This is effectual, and the only 
remedy we have applied for years. Tobacco wa¬ 
ter we do not like. It often sickens the calves, 
and is not so certain a cure as the grease. Keep 
the calves warm, dry and clean, and they will 
come out in the Spring as bright as larks. 
WINTERING LAMBS. 
The same food and treatment applied to calves 
will succeed equally with Iambs. If they get ticks 
upon them, Scotch snuff distributed along the 
back, by opening the wool and rubbing it well in, 
will destroy the ticks. Do not crowd too many 
lambs together, and separate the strong from the 
weak. All animals are selfish, and have no sym¬ 
pathy for their inferiors. The larger, of whatev¬ 
er kind, will overrun the smaller, drive them from 
their food, and starve them out altogether. 
Old, or weakly sheep, may be wintered in the 
same stables or sheds with lambs ; for, if the old 
sheep be larger and stronger, the lambs are spry- 
er, and can better dodge about them for their 
food. They all require fresh air, and plenty of it. 
Dry cold never hurts a sheep, but rains in Winter 
are frequently injurious, particularly if of open- 
wooled varieties, as they soak to the skin and give 
them severe colds. A severe snow storm, if dry, 
is le’ss hurtful than a warm rain, and a sleet is 
worse than both together. 
WINTERING COLTS. 
A snug shed, or stable, is best for Wintering 
colts, provided they be halter-broke, which they 
should be before Winter sets in. They will eat 
all sorts of coarse food, but should have a little 
grain or meal, say a pint to a quart a day, accord¬ 
ing to their size and age. They should, if con¬ 
venient, run out a part of the day. They love to 
forage on a cattle dung heap, and pick out the 
waste litter. Let them have all they want of it, 
as it is a healthy variety for them. A dry pas- 
| ture, when snow is off the ground, is a good 
change for them also. We have Wintered many 
colts in our farming, and found that nothing got 
through the season easier than they. Their hair 
gets long and sometimes rough. No matter, 
there is a close fur under it, and it keeps them dry 
and warm, and they are all the better in the 
Spring. Enough to eat, with good shelter, is all 
they want to keep them healthy and growing. 
But they should not run out with the cattle, as 
they are liable to get hooked, while they, in turn, 
drive the cattle from their food. Every one to 
his own kind in the farm-yard, as in other appro¬ 
priate places. 
HOW TO GET UP A FARMERS’ 
CLUB. 
A farmers’ Club, or Agricultural Society, in any 
neighborhood, is a good thing. We have seen 
abundant evidence of their utility—their profit. 
We venture to say that any thickly settled neigh¬ 
borhood, so fortunate or so wise as to get up and 
keep up a spirited Farmers’ Club for two or three 
years, will add at least ten per cent, to the aggre¬ 
gate production of the farms. This is a large 
statement, but it is not an unfounded one. 
We can, perhaps, best illustrate the advanta- 
tages of such an association by describing how to 
form one, and to do this we will give the history 
of one organized in Ohio, two years ago. As our 
information is from a private letter, without liber¬ 
ty of publication, we will substitute assumed 
names for the real ones. 
Mr. Williams having read much of Farmers’ 
Clubs, elsewhere, proposed to Mr. Johnson that 
they should try what they could do in their own 
neighborhood. They talked the matter over with 
Mr. Smith, Mr. Clark, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Morris, 
and two or three others, and before much stir was 
made, or any opposition created, the scholars were 
startled by the following announcement, read by 
the teacher, at the close of the school on Satur¬ 
day: 
“ Special Notice. —There will be a general meeting o. 
farmers in this room, at half-past seven o’clock next Tues 
day evening, to attend to some important business of in 
terest to all.” 
The teacher remarked that he did not know 
the author of the notice, but that he was assured 
by a private note that the meeting was to be an 
important one. The scholars carried home the 
report, and it soon became noised abroad through 
the whole neighborhood. The authors of the af¬ 
fair seemed to be quite as ignorant as any one of 
the whole matter, but they took care to talk a 
good deal about the Notice, and to make as many 
inquiries about it as possible, and advise everybody 
to be on hand. 
Well, on Tuesday almost everybody came over 
to the brilliantly lighted school-house, to see what 
was going on. When the room was pretty well 
filled, Mr. Johnson rose and moved that Esquire 
Saunders should be Chairman, which was carried 
unanimously. Esq. S. took the Chair, thanked 
the audience for the honor, and requested that 
some gentleman would state the object of the 
meeting ; as for his part he had dropped in out 
of curiosity, and did not know what' they had 
come together for. Mr. Clark rose and stated 
that a few farmers had been talking over the mat¬ 
ter, and they had come to the conclusion that it 
would be a fine thing for the farmers of the neigh¬ 
borhood to meet together and have a friendly talk 
about things that pertained to their mutual inter¬ 
ests. They had often met to discuss politics and 
other topics, and no doubt each one had carried 
home some new ideas. Now he did not see why 
they could not just as well talk about feeding ani- 
