he gases are
constantly escaping from the manure, unless held by absorbents, which
are liable not only to affect the health of the stock, but also to
injure the quality of the hay. To prevent this, while securing the
important advantages of a manure-cellar, the barn may be furnished with
good-sized ventilators on the top, for every twenty-five feet of its
length, and with wooden tubes leading from the cellar to the top.

There should also be windows on different sides of the cellar to admit
the free circulation of air. With these precautions, together with the
use of absorbents in the shape of loam and muck, there will be no danger
of rotting the timbers of the barn, or of risking the health of the
cattle or the quality of the hay.

The temperature at which the cow-room should be kept is somewhere from
fifty to sixty degrees, Fahrenheit. The practice and the opinions of
successful dairymen differ somewhat on this point. Too great heat would
affect the health and appetite of the herd; while too low a temperature
is equally objectionable, for various reasons.

The most economical plan for room in tying cattle in their stalls, is to
fasten the rope or chain, whichever is used--the wooden stanchion, or
stanchel, as it is called, to open and shut, enclosing the animal by the
neck, being objectionable--into a ring, which is secured by a strong
staple into a post. This prevents the cattle from interfering with each
other, while a partition effectually prevents any contact from the
animals on each side of it, in the separate stalls.

There is no greater benefit for cattle, after coming into
winter-quarters, than a systematic regularity in every thing pertaining
to them. Every animal should have its own particular stall in the
stable, where it should always be kept. The cattle should be fed and
watered at certain fixed hours of the day, as near as may be. If let out
of the stables for water, unless the weather is very pleasant--when they
may be permitted to lie out for a short time--they should be immediately
put back, and not allowed to range about with the outside cattle. They
are more quiet and contented in their stables than elsewhere, and waste
less food than if permitted to run out; besides being in every way more
comfortable, if properly bedded and attended to, as every one will find
upon trial. The habit which many farmers have, of turning their cattle
out of the stables in the morning, in all weathers--letting them r