310 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



sandy material, which the first touch of the harrow will 

 spread, intermingling and refreshing the old worn bed. 

 Especially is this to be seen in the coarse conglomerate 

 of sandstone and lime-kernels, which form a layer of 

 our old red formation. 



Being excessively attached to the famous Black Dia- 

 mond pigs, one is glad to have one's approach to their 

 habitation made endurable if not pleasant. The clean- 

 ing out produces an unpleasant atmosphere, for which, 

 however, there is a certain cure. Get the cook to store 

 for you the wood ashes from the brick oven in which 

 the bread is baked, and therewith have the damp flags 

 dusted. It deodorises at once, and were your eyes 

 shut you would never be cognisant of the proximity of 

 your pets' abode. As unhappily the sty, however pala- 

 tially built, is not redolent of heliotrope or wood violet, 

 this infallible specific is worth adopting. I wish the 

 authorities of the Royal Show-yard would take a hint 

 therefrom. I have mentioned it, but vainly, to some of 

 them. If they would but have a layer a foot thick of 

 burnt clay or wood ashes beneath the sod on which the 

 pig-pens are erected, the visitors would be no more 

 repelled, as they are under existing circumstances, by 

 an unsavoury odour, from the delightful contemplation 

 of a beautiful animal. 



Just reminded — I must go and look at my pet quick- 

 set hedge, which was planted so carefully two years 

 since in a trench half filled with fine mould on a deep 

 bed of rich rotted muck. It has begun to find the full 

 benefit of this comfort at foot, and the shoots spring 

 amain. But the surface is choked with tangled gi-ass, 

 which has to be carefully cleared away soon now. One 

 of my neighbours persists in allowing his young quick 



