ms
can haul it all right."
"What do you suppose they will charge per ton on their platform?"
"From twenty-five to forty cents, I reckon."
"All right, make as good a bargain as you can, and attend to it at the
best time. When the teams are not hauling ice or wood, let them draw
gravel from French's pit. It will be hard to get it out in the winter,
but I guess it can be done, and we will need a lot of it on these roads.
Have it dumped at convenient places, and we will put it on the drives in
the spring.
"Another thing,--we must have a bridge across the brook on each lane.
You will find timbers and planks enough in the piles from the old barns
to make good bridges, and the men can do the work. Then there is all
that wire for the inside fences to stretch and staple; but mind, no
barbed wire is to be put on top of inside fences.
"These five jobs will keep you busy for the next two months, for
there'll be only four men besides yourself to do them. I am going to set
Sam at the chicken plant. I'll see you before long, and we'll go over
the cow and hog plans; but you have your work cut out for the next two
months. By the way, how much of an ice-house shall I need?"
"How many cows are you going to milk?"
"About forty when we run at full speed; perhaps half that number this
year."
"Well, then you'd better build a house for four hundred tons. That won't
be too big when you are on full time, and it's a mighty bad thing to run
short of ice."
I saw Nelson the same day and contracted with him for an ice-house
capable of holding four hundred tons, for $900. The walls of the house
to be of three thicknesses of lumber with two air spaces (one four
inches, the other two) without filling. As a result of the conference
with Thompson, I had, before the first of March, a wood-house full of
wood, which seemed a supply for two years at full steam; an ice-house
nearly full of ice; two serviceable bridges across the brook; the wire
fencing almost completed; and eighty loads of gravel,--about one-third
of what I needed. The whole cash outlay was,--
300 tons of ice at 30 cents per ton $90.00
80 tons of gravel at 25 cents per load 20.00
Fence staples 19.00
------
Total $129.00
The conference with Sam Jones, the hen man, was deferred until my next
visit, and my plans for the cow barn, dairy-house, and hog-h
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