466 
J. M. PARKER. 
a puddle outside,” he answered. The puddle was a marshy 
place where the water lodged in wet weather. It was situated 
about twenty yards from the barn and formed part of the yard. 
The manure pile was on sloping ground at the side and drained 
into the puddle. 
At No. 12 there are twelve cows, each having 233 c. f. with 
no ventilation whatever, the farmer taking special pains to have 
a heavy canvas curtain in front of the cows. This is a fearful 
hole in winter time, and it has the reputation of being the hot¬ 
test barn in the district. This farmer is said to lose three or 
four cows every year. 
No. 3 is a small shanty in the city with neither window nor 
ventilation. The water is carried to the cow, and she is in the 
barn winter and summer. Inside the barn is terribly filthy. 
At another farm (The State Experiment Station of a neigh¬ 
boring state,) the barn is so close and hot in winter that a friend 
of mine, who was visiting there, had to leave and go into the 
open air because the hot, foul air in the barn made him sick and 
inclined to vomit. 
These, gentlemen, are common examples of the average 
New England farm. Farmers have been taught to do these 
very things that are injurious to their stock. They have been 
taught to keep the manure in the cellar. What is the result ? 
You have a damp, chilly atmosphere, full of foul odors and or¬ 
ganic impurities. They have been taught to keep the barn 
close and warm, and the only heat it gets is from the animal 
body. The hotter, they think, the better it is. 
In the great majority of dairy farms there is not even a pre¬ 
tence of ventilation, while the cattle are packed in as close 
as they can conveniently be put. A cow has about four 
or five times the lung capacity of a man, yet, in many of the 
farms, each cow has only a tithe of the space required by a child 
under seven years of age, and that without any ventilation. 
Fresh outside air contains only a trace of co 2 , about four 
parts in 10,000. The air of a room would be only fairly good 
with eight or nine parts in 10,000, yet some barns have as much 
