Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1880 — Cleanliness of Stables. [ARTICLE]

Cleanliness of Stables.

We frequently come across remonstrances against keeping harness in stables, the reason given Deing that the ammonia prevalent there rots the leather and soon destroys the harness. Now this is beginning at the wrong end to remedy an ovil. .We may talk and advise “ year in and year out,” about this matter, but harness will be kept in the stable in spite of aIL Where else can the majority of people who keep horses hang these trappings ? A rich man may have a closet m which the harness may hang safely from fear of ammonia and all other dangers; but the average horse owner will have his peg behind the team, because he can have no other way of disposing of the harness. But the trouble would end if the production of ammonia was prevented. Enter an ordinary stable at any period, but especially in the winter, when every cranny through which the wind can come in is carefully stopped, and what an offensive odor offends the nostrils and irritates the eyes. Is this odor of ammonia, strongly alkaline and irritant, injurious only to the harness? What of the horses, and the tender membranes of the eye, the throat and the nasal passages? Do you think they are less sensitive than oak-tanned harness leather, well greased and preserved as it is? By no means. If the prevalent odors injuriously affect the leather, you may be sure the eyes suffer, the throat and lungs are irritated and the nasal passages become inflamed. Then occurs the frequent moon blindness, opthalmia, weeping of the eyes, followed by inflammation, white specks, clouded cornea, and, finally, loss of sight; then follow coughs, bronchitis, pneumonia, heaves, catarrh, nasal fleet; and by-and-by, when the blood as become poisoned by the absorption of diseased matter from inflamed and suppurated membranes, farcy and glanders—dreadful and fatal to man and beast, too—result. And while we think of saving the harness and removing it to a purer place, the beast, which is worth a dozen sets of it, is left to rot from these pungent gases without any help. Clean the stables, and the harness may hang in them safely; and be sure, if the stable is not a fit place for the harness, it is no place for the horse. A barrel of plaster can be procured for about one dollar. It is worth that as a fertilizer. It is worth ten dollars as au absorbent of ammonia, and a hundred as a health preserver to the horses, not counting the saving to the harness. Sprinkle it everywhere, and be liberal with it. —Rural New Yorker.

—Lebanon (Me.) is proud of possessing the stupidest man in the United States. He is a farm hand, and was engaged to plow a ten-acre lot. Wishing him to draw a straight furrow, his employer directed his attention to a cow grazing right opposite, telling him to drive directly toward that cow. He started his horses, and his employer’s attention was drawn to something else; but in a short time, looking round, he found that the cow had left her place, while the sagacious plowman was following her, drawing a zigzag furrow all over the field. < —A little Oil City girl observed her mother measuring cloth by holding it up to her nose with one hand and reaching out to arm’s length with the other. She assumed a thoughtful aspect, and, after cogitating a few moments, asked: “How can you measure cloth that wayP Can you smell a yardP” —Oil City Derrick. —A finished lie may he called an accomplished fact.