CATCH-ALL SHED 59 



growing and thick headed, makes an effective screen, and has at 

 present no fungus enemy. The alder-leafed trailing chestnut was also 

 successfully grown. 



Hardy English Walnut. 



A farmer sold us half a dozen walnut trees that he had raised 

 from the nut of a hardy English walnut, and these gave after fifteen 

 years' slow growth that rare product in our climate, a thin-shelled 

 walnut of large size. 



Rabbit Hutches and Squirrel Cages. 



In a corner of the barnyard were the rabbit hutches against the 

 fence barrier, with underground corridors boxed in wood, covered 

 with galvanized wire netting to prevent their digging out. Near 

 the w r ire squirrel-house containing half a dozen tame flying squirrels, 

 and built large enough to give them ample freedom, was a small pool 

 made by the overflow of a cattle watering trough, which, by the 

 way, was a slightly damaged solid porcelain bathtub with square ends, 

 priced at $500 but bought for $20. It weighed eight hundred pounds, 

 and made an ideal year round trough for the cattle, its white interior 

 showing the slightest befoulment and easily hosed. A fir tank fastened 

 together with iron rods cost nearly as much, soon began to leak under 

 the July sun and in a few years completely rotted, and a brick cement 

 lined affair never looked as spotless as our bathtub trough. 



A portion of this little pool in the barnyard, protected from 

 cattle intrusion by a wire fence, was generally alive with turtles, 

 the largest of which were tethered. They were taken from the 

 duck ponds, from the big snapper, with his horny, shingled hide, 

 guilty of many a duckling or gosling murder, to the daintily painted 

 little black and yellow spotted lady-bird-crawler no larger than a half 

 dollar. I recall one old moss-back snapper on whose shell was 

 scratched the date 1849, proof by inference not only of turtle longevity 

 but that someone hunted turtles on or near our farm sixty or more 

 years ago. 



Catch-All Shed. 



We built what was labeled a catch-all shed, with a driveway 

 through its centre to accommodate cumbersome implements. In this 

 way ploughs, harrows, ponderous scrapers, etc., could be tumbled off 

 the stone boat or sled and dragged out of sight. Here were stored 

 several more or less useless experiments; for example, the iron stump 

 grubber for uprooting grass tufts that dotted the lowlands, and 

 that proved a failure, even when drawn by a double yoke of cattle, 

 who were unable to budge the tiny rootlets, so that final resort was 

 had to Patrick and a spade. It wasn't a total loss as it made a fine 

 subsoil upheaver. 



