CHAPTER XIV. 

 EMERGENCIES 



A WORKING farm is full of little puzzles, each with 

 its own solution, and often original. We had to 

 boil a quantity of potatoes the only food we ever 

 cook for cattle. There was a boiler in the yard to 

 hold 8 cwt., but it was too big to set up for the 

 amount of work we had just then in view, and our 

 only other vessel was a three-legged pot, for which 

 there was no accommodation in the kitchen fire- 

 place. What were we to do ? The mouth of the 

 pot was narrower than the belly. I laid it mouth 

 under on the grass, cut the earth round close to it, 

 and dug out the round hole 18 inches deep, 

 widening to the bottom. It was two feet from 

 the face of a little bank, and I cut a narrow way 

 between for air to the fire in the hole. The pot 

 sat tight, an exact fit, in the mouth of the hole, 

 with another little opening in the grass behind it, 

 on the side opposite to the first airway, so that the 

 combustion could be oxidised by a through 

 current. Once my novel furnace had been well 

 fired up, with its earth surfaces an ash non- 

 conductor, I found that the potatoes could be 

 boiled in a much shorter time and at much less 

 cost in fuel than on the kitchen fire, not to mention 

 the disturbance avoided there. With the pot 



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