ENTOMOLOGY

168 SANITARY ENTOMOLOGYdifficulty has been that stock are often kept in a single pen for feedingfor some time and during this time it has been the rule not to clean up thepen. The provision of ample room sp that stock may be removed from onepen to another to permit cleaning is important. This also applies tohorse and mule sales stables. The restrictions placed on the horse andmule dealers who handle stock for the army have tended to greatly improvefly breeding conditions in these stables and yards. I have frequentlyobserved these sales stables to be filled with tightly packed manure fromeighteen inches to three feet deep. In the case of an East St. Louismule sales stable where one' company has thirty-five acres under cover,the removal of all this manure was an enormous task. Yet it was accomplishedso that the company might continue handling stock for governmentuse. The manure was hauled several miles to a fertilizer plant wherethe well decayed part was piled and subsequently dried, ground and soldas sheep manure for lawn dressings, \.-hile the parts with considerablestraw were thrown from cars onto rail incinerators and burned, the ashbeing used in fertilizer mixtures. The entire barns and fences were thengone over with a sand blast machine which cleaned them of all accumulationof dust and saliva which had in some cases become quite thick andhighly glazed. An effort is being made by the authorities in charge tohave the manure fr!>m these stables throughout the country moved atweekly intervals.The drying of manure and its sale in powdered condition for lawndressings, etc., has attained rather large proportions as a commercialenterprise in some of the large cities. This is a satisfactory means ofdisposal of manure and there are good reasons 'why the practise shouldbe extended.It appears that where shavings are used for bedding less troublearises from fly breeding than where straw is utilized. This wouldundoubtedly favor reduction in the breeding of Stomoxys also.Returning to the question of handling manure in cow lots and smallbam lots, it is advisable when labor is at hand, especially in dairy yards,to J-ick up the droppings daily or even twice a day. This is greatlyfacilitated by having the yard where cattle congregate in greatest numbersconcreted. In large dairy lots it has been found feasible to bringthe manure together by means of an iron road drag ( see plate VII). Thisleaves the manure in windrows so it can be easily shoveled into a wagon.For the disposal of manure from dairies and even on the fann nomethod is better than the use of a manure spreader (see plate VI) andthe scattering of the material thinly on open fields. Of course in caseswhere all land is cropped it is not convenient to employ this method duringcertain parts of the year, although it is usually possible to have oneportion of the farm ~vJljlable for manurIng at all times.