On  the  Farming  of  Somerset. 
717 
which  may  be  put  up,  with  a turnip-house  included,  for  ]/. 
sterling  per  bullock  (as  I saw  at  Mr.  Reals’  on  Brendon  Hill), 
and  would  last  very  well  for  ten  or  twenty  years  while  more  per- 
manent buildings  are  gradually  in  progress — the  possibility  of 
a regular  payment  of  rent,  the  while,  being  almost  contingent  on 
what  is  done  at  the  present  time  and  done  speedily. 
It  may  be  well  to  specify  one  or  two  practical  details  which 
may  be  generally  useful.  One  of  them  is  a contrivance  which  I 
met  with  on  Mr.  Hannam's  farm  on  the  top  of  Exmoor;  it  well 
deserves  the  attention  of  dairy  farmers.  He  has  an  ordinary 
steaming-apparatus  for  preparing  food  for  pigs,  scalding  milk 
and  whey,  See.,  so  arranged  that  all  the  waste  steam  is  turned 
through  a common  stove-funnel,  which  passes  up  into  the  cheese- 
room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  and  traverses  the  whole  length  of  it, 
at  a moderate  height  from  the  floor.  It  has  the  best  effect  in 
ripening  the  cheese  at  no  expense  except  the  original  cost  of  the 
pipe,  which  is  trifling.  Mr.  Hannam  tried  zinc  first,  but  it  did 
not  answer  so  well. 
Mr.  Yeoman  has  all  his  milk 
poured  from  the  pails  through  a 
hole  in  the  wall  of  the  dairy,  by 
means  of  a tin  vessel  shaped  so  that 
it  can  be  removed  and  washed.  The 
men  discharge  the  milk  at  the  near- 
est point  to  the  sheds,  and  no  time 
is  lost  by  gossiping  in  the  dairy.  The  whey  is  conveyed  under- 
ground to  the  reservoir  near  the  pigs. 
Two  arrangements  for  saving  pig-manure  seem  worthy  of  no- 
tice. One  is  that  devised  by  Mr.  Raines  of  Mells.  A large  hovel 
or  outhouse  is  enclosed  at  the  sides,  so  as  to  be  at  once  warm 
and  airy;  the  floor  is  paved  and  sprinkled  over  three- fourths  of  its 
length  with  burnt  clay  and  ashes  of  weeds;  on  this  part  of  the 
floor  the  pigs  are  fed,  and  they  have  a clean  bed  of  straw  railed 
off  at  the  other  end.  A great  quantity  of  excellent  manure  ready 
for  the  drill  is  thus  made,  and  the  pigs  are  always  clean,  warm, 
and  comfortable.  The  other  may  be  seen  at  Messrs.  Fox’s, 
the  clothiers,  at  Wellington,  who  have  lately  taken  to  farm- 
ing. They  have  a covered  pit,  into  which  all  the  litter  of  the 
beasts  and  horses  is  thrown,  and  all  the  liquid  from  the  stalls  and 
stables  conducted  underground.  The  principle  of  box-feeding  is 
then  ingeniously  applied  by  a large  number  of  pigs  being  kept 
in  the  pit : they  enjoy  themselves  greatly,  and  thrive  well,  tread- 
ing down  and  improving  the  dung.  I have  since  heard  from 
Sir  Thos.  Tancred  that  this  plan  has  been  adopted  by  a practical 
farmer  in  Hertfordshire,  who  says  that  his  pigs  have  given  him  a 
profit  by  their  meat,  and  left  the  dung  as  good  as  guano  for  nothin^. 
