FARMS. 51 



making them more productive, consequently more valuable. The 

 most tlioroujili piece of work we have witnessed on tlie farm is the 

 dam and In-idu^c across the stream before spoken of, tlie al)utmcnts 

 resting on fiat stones reaching entirely across the stream to wliicli 

 they were cemented, making them apparently secure for all time. 



April 3, 1869, the committee visited Dr. Fisher's place and 

 found his green house at summer heat, and cucumbers growing, and 

 being picked at the rate of seventy a day. Tliey were sent to 

 New York twice every week, and up to that time had averaged 

 40 cents each. He had then received |700, and thought before 

 their season closed he should receive $500 more, making $1200 

 for cucumbers alone. 



Adjoining the green house was a hand cider mill in use, and 

 several casks for making vinegar. The Doctor stated to the com- 

 mittee that if his fall and second quality of apples would not sell 

 for $3 a barrel he made them into cider for vinegar. 



A door opened from the cider department into the lienner}^ where 

 there were three coops of fowls, ten hens and one cock in each 

 coop. The thirty hens had averaged about twenty eggs a day 

 during the winter. The cider department and hennery were both 

 made warm from the green house. 



After examining these we went into the house where we wit- 

 nessed the hatching box in which about three hundred eggs were 

 in process of hatching. 



Here also, we saw his method of setting milk for butter in 

 deep pails rather than in shallow pans. The pails, as I remember 

 them, were live or six inches in diameter and about ten deep, 

 strained nearly full. He said the cream would rise equally as well 

 as when strained in common pans. 



In the autumn of this year, we again visited this place, it was 

 about two or three weeks before the vintage. We found the men 

 harvesting apples, they thought they should have about 50 barrels 

 but the main attraction was the vineyard where it was thought 

 there were two or three tons of grapes, the earliest sent to market 

 sold for 20 cents a pound ; how low the price would fall before 

 the last picking, would depend very much upon the weather. 



At the barn we saw the cows he purchased in the fall for the 

 purpose of consuming his hay and making butter, they were in 

 fine condition, and had been sold for fattenning, they were to be 

 taken away early in May. He thinks by the sale of his butter 

 and the increased value of his cows, from fall to spring, that he 

 realizes $20 a ton for his hav besides the manure. 



