STABLE. The proper site for stables is as necessary as care in construction and ventilation. They need not necessarily be hidden entirely from view from the house, even in suburban places of the more pretentious order. Neither on the farm, need they be necessarily posted in the same yard with the house; or, if so, they should be at such distance as to be somewhat hidden by planting, and a separate entrance to them from the road is especially essential where they are intimately connected with the storage of grain and forage. Every quarter-section farm should have the horse stable a separate building from the barn. The cattle stable may occupy the basement of the barn when a side hill basement is practicable. In the article Farm Buildings, we have treated of the subject of stables in general. In this article it will not be necessary to do more than indicate what is necessary in the economy of space to be con sidered, leaving the details of construction to the architect, and the good sense of the builder and the owner. The cost of a stable will of course be indicated by the taste and wealth of the master. Nevertheless no stable can be economically complete if it be not comfortably warm, and well ventilated, and this can be measurably well secured in a comparatively cheap structure, if not quite as well as in the most costly one. To illustrate as to the value of warmth and ventilation in the case of cattle, (and with horses the rule will apply with greater force), the following frona a German experi ment will give a good idea of our meaning C'ows were placed in a stable that could be artifically heated, and fed on hay. The tem perature of the stable was changed at intervals of ten days, the changes ranging from 41° Fahr. (nine degrees above freezing point) to 65.75' During the ten days at the lower temperature the hair became rough and without gloss ; the skin was drawn close and occasional shiverings were observable, and there was a loss of twenty two pounds in the total weight of the two cows. At 54.5° to 59° the hair became smooth and the hide attained its former luster, softness, and looseness. The effects of unfavorable tempera tures were also visible in diminished appetite and in variations of the milk product. The heat of the animal system is thrown off princi pally from the body, and not as many suppose from the breath expired from the lungs. The heat thrown off from the body- does not neces sarily injure the anitnal unless the ventilation of the stable is so bad that the vapor given off from the lungs can not be passed away. The ventila tion therefore, must have reference to the animals kept, horses requiring more air than cattle. It must also become a question whether fuel or increased grain feed may be cheapest, in cold countries. This being settled, the question of the height of the stable walls must be con sidered. Less than eight feet for horses is not admissible; ten feet is better, since in a low stable the vitiation of the atmosphere is more than counterbalanced by the increase of heat from the animal's body. A cool, still air is better than a warm, close, moist atmosphere. It should be dry enough to readily pass off the insensible perspiration, and warm enough to dry a horse easily when sweated, and under the hands of the person who is rubbing the animal. There should also be abundant light by means of windows. These, if tolerably high, may be a part of the system of the ventilation employed. The floor of the stable of whatever material it be made should uot soak up the urine. A floor composed of small broken limestone, say of One inch diameter, filled with cement, and covered with the fine mateiial left in breaking, forms an excellent floor. A hard dry earth floor is alto gether better than plank or cobble stone, since on the farm there is an abundance of straw for bedding by which the animals may be kept dry-.
This understood, the following will give a most excellent arrangement for farm or draft horses. The stable should not be less than eighteen feet wide, the stalls of such length as will allow six feet standing for each horse, and five feet in width. The walls should be eight feet high. The horses stand in a single row, and the har ness is hung on pegs in the wall behind them. This width admits of thorough ventilation to the stable without subjecting the horses to drafts. Each standing should be parted off by an upright post reaching from the ground to the ceiling rafter, placed three feet from the wall at the horse's head. The partitions should be closely boarded up three feet above the manger and hay-crib to prevent the horses quarrelling about the food aud biting each other. To each of the posts a bale, eight feet long and twenty inches wide, should be hung by a strong chain to divide the standings and suspended by another strong chain at the hinder end from the ceiling rafter. Each chain should have a hook aud eye within reach that may be readily unfastened. This arrangement will leave the whole space oppo site the head of each horse available for feeding purposes. The manger for grain and chaff (cut feed) may be two and a half feet long. It should be two feet wide at the top, one foot two inches at the bottom. The hay and straw, need a larger receptacle, which _should be three feet six inches long, two teet wide at its upper part and half that width below. It should be so con structed that while it is even with the manger above, it should reach to the ground, two feet above which should be fixed to the wall a bottom, sloping to one foot above the ground in front, where some upright opening should be cut to allow the escape of seeds and dirt. At the top of this hay and straw crib, an iron rack with bars six inches apart, should be so hung as to open up and fall back against the wall to let the fodder be put in, and then be put down upon it for the horse to eat through. It should be so. much smaller than the opening that it can fall down with tbe fodder as it is consumed, by which means not a particle is -wasted. The manger may be constructed of yellow pine one and a half inches thick for the front, back, and_ ends; the bottom of iron, or if of wood, two. inches thick. The top of the front and ends. should be covered with half round iron, two and a half inches wide, screwed on to project Over the front, a quarter of an inch outside and three-quarters of an inch inside tbe manger. This prevents the food being tossed out and the manger being gnawed. A short post must be. put up as near the centre of the standing as pos sible to support the manger, into which a large screw ring must be put to let the chain or rope of the headstall pass freely up and down without constant friction. The manger may be three and a half feet from ground to top; the hay-crib of course the same height. The paving of the standings to three and a half feet from the head, should be fiat, then with a fall from both sides to the centre, where an angle iron drain of four inches wide from end to end, with a removable flat iron cover fitted to the inside of it, should be placed straight down the standing, with a fall into another larger cross main drain ten feet six inches from the head, so placed as to carry away the urine from all the smaller drains into a tank outside the stable. This main drain so placed, takes the urine from the mares, and has a loose cover also fitted to it. easily removed for sweep ing out when necessary. In the article Barns, the subject of stable economy is quite fully treated, and if the reader will refer thereto, excellent illustrations will be found showing both horse and cow stables, simple and of mod ern construction,