34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



cause there was a hole on the other side. So in almost every- 

 thing we do, there is a gap left on one side, and the true mode 

 is to leave as small a one as possible. It is hardly necessary to 

 urge the importance of a plenteous supply of pure water for 

 cows, to an assemblage of milk producers, for they have learnt 

 the necessity of that liquid both for the inside of the cows and 

 the cans ; and running spring water is becoming a requisite to 

 the cheese farmer as well as the milk seller, the milk in both 

 cases requiring sufficient cooling to destroy the animal heat and 

 flavor before transportation to the factory. But in ordinary 

 farming a great loss results in waste of manure, time and dry- 

 ing up of cows, by driving them to a distance from the yard. 

 The rain shed by the roofs will supply all the animals sheltered 

 under them, if preserved, and the simplest mode is to dig a well 

 in a spot near by, and yet so placed as to preclude the washings 

 of the yard dripping into it, and turn into it the leaders from 

 the roof troughs. You thus have water in your well from each 

 end, and of a much better quality than either rain or well water 

 alone. Tlie best eave troughs for a barn are those manufac- 

 tured by machinery of wood, scooped out of plank, without joint 

 or any place for leakage, and they are cheaper and more perma- 

 nent than tin. 



There is no doubt that our native cattle owe their deteriora- 

 tion greatly to want of proper nourishment. The late-cut hay 

 of our forefathers, with no succulent food, and no variety, left 

 its traces upon the stock as sensibly as did insufficient shelter, 

 and we owe to such treatment not alone the inferiority in size 

 but the malformations, excess of bones and the like, which dis- 

 tinguish the native cows. It is a part of the science of human 

 nature that all the nations that live miserably are ugly and ill- 

 formed. We know that the man who lives in a marshy district 

 undergoes a chronic poisonous influence which destroys his 

 healtli and produces hereditary deterioration. So insufficient 

 nourishment and the exclusive use of certain articles of diet, as 

 maize or potatoes, produce morbid results of an endemic charac- 

 ter in the human system. 



The Esquimaux, who live altogether on train oil and flesh, 

 are dwarfed in body and mind. The Irish, originally one of the 

 most beautiful of the Celtic races, by partaking almost exclu- 

 sively of the potato as food, have, among the poorer classes, lost 



