68 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



by small logs, or poles, cut from the woods. The stock had 

 good shelter under these platforms in the winter, feeding on the 

 straw overhead through the cracks between the logs. Plenty 

 of straw was always thrown down for bedding. My grandfather 

 claimed that each kind of straw added valuable elements of fer- 

 tility to his compost, and he alternated the strawstacks so that 

 the wheat and oat straw would be evenly mixed. 



In the center of the barnyard was the compost pit, which, in 

 the light of my present knowledge, I now know to have* been 

 the most perfect and scientific fertilizer production unit I have 

 ever known. This pit was fifty feet wide and one hundred feet 

 long and had been excavated to a depth of about two feet. At 

 each end, evenly spaced from side to side and about twenty 

 feet from the end, a heavy log post was deeply anchored. These 

 posts were probably twelve to fifteen feet high, with an over- 

 head cable anchored to the top of each post and running to the 

 barn. On these cables were large traveling dump baskets, in 

 which the manure from the barn was transported to the compost 

 pit and dumped each morning, to be evenly spread in a uniform 

 layer. By means of the posts in each end, the manure could be 

 dumped at a spot most convenient for proper handling. With 

 this arrangement of overhead trolley from barn to compost pit, 

 it was possible to clear the barn quickly each morning of the 

 night's droppings and spread the material in the pit without any 

 loss of the valuable elements of fresh manure. This is an im- 

 portant point in the utilization of earthworms for general farming. 



Just outside the barnyard ran the creek, which found its 

 source in a big spring in the park. From this creek an abundance 

 of water was piped by gravity into the watering troughs for the 

 stock in barn and yard. Also a flume, with a controlled intake, 

 led to the compost pit, so that when necessary the compost could 

 be well soaked in a few minutes. The homestead occupied 

 ground on a higher level than the barnyard, so that drainage 

 was always away from the house and there was no chance of 

 pollution from the teeming life of the barnyard. 



