state Dairy Association, 107 



that no surface water gets into the wells and that flies do not carry- 

 to food germs from the fecal matter in which they breed. 



Diarrhoea has the fourth place as the cause of deaths in Mis- 

 souri, and here, again, it is chieflly the home that is responsible. 

 Spoiled food, especially spoiled milk, is the common cause. The dis- 

 ease is more common in the southern part of the State than in the 

 northern. Evidently it is due to food standing in too warm places. 

 Is it not possible to have an ice supply? 



From every standpoint we will all be thankful when the State 

 has done something to use the limestone that it has in abundance, 

 to make such good roads that communication with the market will 

 be easy, not only to take produce to market but to get there the food, 

 clothes, and tools that it takes too much labor to produce at home. 

 And good roads mean more than material blessings. They mean 

 better education, more regular church attendance, more social life. 



The isolated home needs not only to use special care to make its 

 numerous duties easily done, and to be most careful of all health 

 conditions, because the doctor is far off; but it has also, especial 

 problems in educative recreation. There are any number of games 

 that are possible in the farm home, no matter how isolated, but 

 there are fewer friends to suggest them. Books are hard to get. 

 I understand that Missouri is still without traveling libraries. Each 

 home must be well supplied with its own choice literature. Art 

 galleries are not near, but it is possible to get very good cheap 

 copies of the best masterpieces of art. The Perry pictures at one 

 cent apiece are a great means of education. After the family have 

 collected a large number of these and studied them for some time, 

 it is able to intelligently decide what two or three large pictures it 

 wants for the walls. Concerts are hard to reach. Good music 

 teachers are at a distance. But the farm home, as well as the city 

 home, can have a Cecilian or some other of the modern piano play- 

 ers. In this way the family may hear a concert of the best music 

 at any time. It is a splendid means of education and certainly a 

 most restful means of recreation when one is tired of an evening. 



Is all your money spent? Have you spent it before your chick- 

 ens are hatched or your cows grown? I hope you have properly 

 proportioned it, so that all the sanitary conditions of your home are 

 satisfactory, that you have a variety in your foods, that you have 

 every possible labor-saving device, that you have a good library, 

 that on your walls hang masterpieces of art, and that your soul is 

 being elevated by listening to the best of music. 



