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Eighty cows are kept in the shippons, ranged in rows, facing the paths by which they are all fed at the head. They are fed on turnips, mangels, or potatoes, with cut chaff of hay and straw, everything suitable being cut and steamed, in the winter on green clover, Italian ray-grass, and a little linseed-cake, in the summer.
The visitor did not go to the front door, whither a narrow path, flanked with handsome masses of "Cornish diamonds," or quartz crystals, directly led from the wicket, but entered at a larger gate which led into the farmyard. Here cattle-byres and shippons ranged snugly on three sides of an open space, their venerable slates yellow with lichens, their thatches green with moss.
They are curry-combed twice a day, and the dung is removed constantly as it falls. The ventilation and the drainage has been better managed than in most houses, so that the shippons have always a sweet atmosphere and even temperature.
"They'n shifted the horse-block, an' thrown the two shippons into one, an' tiled the wash-house roof." Mrs. Rigby clacked her tongue, and her daughter stared. "How did ye know about the horse-block?" she inquired, "an' how did ye guess the shippons was throwed into one? Did our Will tell you about the place?" He paused a moment, and then laughed. "Often and often.
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