368 WISCONSIN AGRICULTURE. 



Another very important consideration in favor of cisterns over 

 wells — of cloud-water over earth-water— is heallhfulness ; it being 

 a fact, established beyond controversy, by high medical author- 

 ity, together with many other facts, that the stomach and bowels 

 of persons and animals, are much less liable to derangement 

 and disease, under the use of cistern or filtered water, than of 

 well or spring water. During the cholera season, a few years 

 acfo the writer of this article had an opportunity of seeing this 

 principle admirably proved; he spent the summer and fall in 

 one of the cities on the Mississippi river, where one part of the 

 town lies on a very high bluff, and where the elevation and 

 rocks almost precluded the possibility of wells, so that the com- 

 munity were confined almost exclusively to cistern-water, both 

 for drinking and cooking purposes ; the consequence was, there 

 was not five per cent, as much sickness, of any kind, among the 

 residents on the bluffs, as among those below, who used well 

 and river water altogether; and among whom the cholera and 

 diarrhcea made frightful ravages. And within a few years past 

 we have read several well-accredited statements, connected ivith 

 the history of cholera, showing that at localities where it pre- 

 vailed both in Europe and America, where filtered rain-water 

 was exclusively used for all purposes of drinking, bathing and 

 culinary operations, few or no flital cases of cholera or other dis- 

 eases occured, although it was wi lely destructive in the same 

 vicinities among those who used the earth- water generally. 



Cisterns and filtering apparatus are now obtained at so little 

 cost that there is very little need or excuse for a destitution of 

 healthy water in any locality, even upon our high prairies ; and 

 it is a subject worthy the serious consideration of all families on 

 account of its convenience, economy and healthfulness — even 

 where the supply of earth- water is abundant. . Then cheap and 

 suitable under-drains, leading from parts of the farm to proper 

 reservoirs at others, will prove of great advantage in many 

 localities, by collecting the excess of showers at points where it 

 may be needed, and by improving the lands by freely carrying 

 off" the surplus water that would keep portions of the soil too 

 wet and cold. Thus, the very operations which will benefit 



