Norwich bulletin., 1917-11-09
WHAT FARMERS CELLAR REVEALED

(Wriften Specially for The Bulletin.)
 The other day I had occasion to spend a couple of hours in a farm house cellar. partly working and part " waiting for the team outside to bring the potatoes we were binning. The waiting intervals gave me plenty of opportunity to look around the spacious cave and take a sort of in vsntory in my mind of it's contents.
 The house was enc fairly typical of many New England farm houses on rernots hill farms. It was not large as city mansions go, but decidedly biz as compared with most city tene- ments-perhaps twenty-four by forty feet, with an @ell' and a back wood shed The cellar was the same size se the house. just deep enough so that a six-foot man could walk around in it without hitting his head. The huge chimney foundations. of rough field stone laid without mortar but in solid plars. rested on the cellar bottom and took up some space But the chinks 1een availed of to insert quaint wooden brackets. mostly natural cr1oas" found in the woods during fuel cutting times From them hung EuHpended many small articles-a1- most as many as could have been kept in the same space had the piers been built with more economy of space.
 | hsnging on them were crooknecks: braided strings of onions: a net with several dozen lemons. bought last cheap season and still just as hard small baskets with garden gieanings not enough in quantity to warrant most people 'sbothering" with, but worth saving in the growers estima- in the cellar when some hurried call foe measuring uD a small lot of roots. etc. came. . lot of baE-strings. saved from old ba<s and ready to tie up new rnes whenever wanted: quite a col lection Of miscellaneous tools. wanted as often in the cellar as elsewhere and Of a character not to be injured by eampness. And so on and on-
 A my left as came in the "out- siss cellar dooT were two casks filled with cider not to be used as a drink but to replenish the big vinegar bar rel az its contents were depleted by family use or sale to some neighbor. Right over them hung fibre two quart measure and a fibre funnel. both Immune to rust or to the action of ordinary acids. Each barrel was pro- rf6ed, not with a cider-wasting "plug" hut with A tight wooden faucet.
 Al my right was a row of empty bnrreis kegs ard tubs or frkins kept in the cellar because it's moist air prevented the slaves from drying out sud causing leaks
 Beyond them was the potato bin, rafsad three feet from the bottom, so an. to be out of reach of the water wAfc4 sometimes seeps into the eel nr aeser spring thaws. It was capa- ole of holding hundred bushels or rnore-and was filled.
 The cellar was divided midway of its length by a stout plank partition. JuHf opposite the potato bin and reaching to this partition was another bin filled with beets and mangels, some for domestic use but mostly for the cows- This was raised but a few inches above the bottom as it was likely to be practically emptied be- fore any spring thaw brought water, ana nfrthermore. because all the space from hocr 10 ceiling was wanted for storage of the large supply
 In the sort of alcove made at the aide Of one of the huge chimney piers were sets Of shelves on which stccd Aunnn two hundred and fifty cans of preserved fruits. vegetables, etc, with s few bottles of specially made crab apple riG1-s as clear as Rudesheiner. rn nHervesceut as champagne and as 'rfruEfv+' as old port: also a dozen or more bottles of home made blzckber-