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Streeter, John Williams

"The Fat of the Land The Story of an American Farm"

The first, or south room,
ten feet by eighteen, was fitted for storing fruit, and afforded a
stairway to the rooms above, which were four in number besides the bath.
The larger room was of course the butter factory, and was equipped with
up-to-date appliances,--aerator, Pasteurizer, cooler, separator, Babcock
tester, swing churn, butter-worker, and so on. The house was to have
steep gables and projecting eaves, with a window in each gable, and two
dormer windows in each roof. The walls were to be plastered, and the
ground floor was to be cement. It cost $1375.
As motive power for the churn and separator, a two-sheep-power treadmill
has proved entirely satisfactory. It is worked by two sturdy wethers who
are harbored in a pleasant house and run, close to the power-house, and
who pay for their food by the sweat of their brows and the wool from
their backs. They do not appear to dislike the "demnition grind," which
lasts but an hour twice a day; they go without reluctance to the tramp
that leads nowhere, and the futile journey which would seem foolish to
anything wiser than a sheep.


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