36 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



Let them go to work in earnest, and form their compost heaps ; 

 first cover a space, sixteen by twenty feet, with meadow sods, 

 one foot high ; leave this to the action of the sun for a month or 

 two ; then saturate it with a hogshead or two of lye, spread six 

 inches of stable manure on the top of this, and cover it with 

 potato vines, chip manure, weeds, or meadow mud; saturate 

 this as before with lye, next a layer of stable manure, and so on, 

 till the heap is seven or eight feet high. Let it remain a year, 

 and upon opening it at the end of that period, my word for it, 

 the compost heap will not be neglected the next year. 



Woodland, near Newburyport, Sept. 23, 1845. 



Domestic Manufactures. 



The committee, A. M. Farley, Chairman, say, that "the arti- 

 cles entered for exhibition were more varied than in former 

 years ; and they are pleased to see that the mechanics of our 

 county are making exertions for, and taking more advantage 

 of, the exhibitions of the Society than formerly." 



A gratuity of five dollars Avas awarded to George D. Varney, 

 of Newburyport, for an important improvement in the Survey- 

 ing Compass. 



It has a vertical circle so attached to the compass, that verti- 

 cal angles can be taken by it with perfect ease and precision. 

 It has a level attached, and the usual apparatus for adjusting, 

 and when your survey has been all made, and you wish to plot, 

 by placing the instrument on the paper upon your table, it will 

 measure off the angles of the survey with great ease, and with 

 the same accuracy as the survey itself, because you use the 

 same instrument. It may be used for a level for surveying land, 

 taking heights and distances, and plotting. It is made by 

 the inventor, Mr. Yarney, in the neatest and most accurate man- 

 ner ; and it is difficult to say which most to admire, the ingenu- 

 ity of the invention, or the skill with which it is manufactured. 



