Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1857-12-18
From the American Asriculturi.,.
KEEP THE STABLE FLOORS CLEAN

KEEP THE STABLE FLOORS CLEAN.
We know divers people who take some
pride in their horses and cattle, but who are
inveterate Stevens in their stables Their
racks or managers are so made that half the
hay that they give their stock is wasted and
drawn under their feet. They don't clean
their stables once week. or fortnight
We have, indeed, seen stables, where valuable
animals are kept. not cleaned 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
nice, newly built barn, too-of 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 Il, and fall down or make a leap ev-
cry 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 day to
do IL before we could use it, besides repairing
the entrance by 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
tho horses y And yet when we came to set
x
pay some dollars extra because we used 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 ginter 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
stable where stock are kept should be
"a "a Il nj a.
none too much. In all our stable practice
we clean the stables twice 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 thor
oughly soied and saturated we clean it out
and supply its place with fresh. The ammo
MIA arising from the stale of the stock in the
stables becomes. in short time, very often
sive to them, as it is to ourselves. 1t pene-
trates their lungs and gives them disease Its
pungoncy affects their eyes, making them sore
aud irritable, and it is a positive injury, to
say nothing about the slovenliness of leaving
the stables unclean. Cleanliness, indeed, is
as necessary to beast as to man. No creature
can thrive while fouled and besmeared with
ordure.
When horses mot mares and oxen stand
regularly. holes should be bored through the
floor to let their stale run through on to
muck before, or into trench by which it
may pass off and be saved. Otherwise it re-
mains under them to make them uncomforta-
bic 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 thickness
of the plank-abovo the passage behind, and
sloping from the foot of the mangor back to
give 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 of readily, as /
well as to let the droppings on the lower lev
ell behind them.