ESSEX SOCIETY. 59 



the cows. These two buildings, with the barn, enclose three 

 sides of the yard, leaving it open to the southeast only, thus 

 making a yard, with the cellar, about ninety feet square, well 

 protected from the cold winds and storms. 



I have laid two hundred and ninety feet of lead pipe to "arry 

 the water for the use of the cattle, into a brick trough laid m 

 cement, and situated in a basement room or cellar, which I have 

 built of stone and brick, under the northeast end of the L part 

 of the house, twenty feet square. In this room I have a sink 

 and copper boiler, set for scalding cans and milk vessels, into 

 both of which the water is drawn by a faucet. Water is kept 

 continually running into the brick trough atone end and out of 

 the other, and the cans when filled with milk, are set into this 

 trough of water, to preserve an equal temperature, and this 

 keeps the milk sweet a longer time than any other way with 

 which I am acquainted. The water which supplies the milk 

 cellar is taken from a well dug in the pasture opposite my house, 

 and from which there is about ten feet fall. I have laid seven- 

 ty-four rods of under-drains with stone, for the purpose of con- 

 ducting off the surplus water from a portion of my orchard, gar- 

 den, yards, and troughs afore mentioned. 



When I purchased the farm, Oct. 9, 1849, I bought all the 

 hay in the barns, except two thousand and fifty pounds. It was 

 estimated by measure, allowing five hundred and twenty-five 

 cubic feet for a ton, amounting to nearly thirty-three tons. The 

 men employed on the farm were of the opinion that not more than 

 six tons had been consumed on the farm of that year's produce, 

 so that the amount of hay cut did not exceed forty tons. Four 

 oxen and one horse were put on the farm Feb. 1, 1850, and 

 twelve cows and another horse, March 11, and this stock con- 

 sumed all the hay, except four tons, before July 1, the oxen and 

 horse being kept up to hay all the time. 



I have bought the manure made at the Eagle House stable, 

 in Haverhill, for the two years past, and paid two hundred and 

 twenty dollars per year, and the quantity has averaged about 

 seventy-five cords a year. Twenty-five cords of this manure 

 I spread upon the mowing land in the spring of 1850, and I be- 

 lieve it increased the quantity of hay that season more than one 



