34 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
and to this day they have received no further 
attention. | 
The trenches for the pipes were opened by a 
party of five Italians whom a railroad friend 
found for me. These men boarded themselves, 
slept in the barn, and did the work for seventy- 
five cents a rod, the job costing me $169. 
Opening the sewer trenches cost a little more, 
for they were as deep as those for the water, and 
a little wider. Eight hundred feet of main sewer, 
a three-hundred-foot branch to the house, and 
short branches from barns, pens, and farm-houses, 
made in all about fourteen hundred feet, which 
cost $83 to open. The sewer ended in the stable 
yard back of the horse barn, in a ten-foot catch- 
basin near the manure pit. A few feet from this 
catch-basin was a second, and beyond this a third, 
all of the same size, with drain-pipes connecting 
them about two feet below the ground. These 
basins were closely covered at all times, and in 
winter they were protected from frost by a 
thick layer of coarse manure. They were placed 
near the site of the manure pit for convenience 
in cleaning, which had to be done every three 
months for the first one, once in six months for 
the second and rarely for the third; indeed, the 
water flowing from the third was always clear. 
This waste water was run through a drain-pipe 
diagonally across the northwest corner of the big 
orchard to an open ditch in the north lane. 
Opening this drain of forty rods cost $30. Later 
eS 
