648 Reading-Course for Farmers' Wives. 



upon. Older grown, there is a repugnance for having the same family 

 cough medicine bottle, from which each takes direct from the bottle, 

 or for the testing of soup and other eatables and putting the spoon back 

 into the dish. Germs are easily transferred from person to person by 

 such thoughtless habits. 



Care of the animals. 



It is a great thing to be a producer of clean products. The farmer 

 and his wife hold the key to the health not only of their own family, 

 but to that of those who consume the produce of the farm. Some 

 advertising firm says, " Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what 

 you are." We may to some degree say this of the hen or pig. A hen 

 fed on good wholesome food has better meat and lays better eggs than 

 those that pick in the compost-heap; and a pig that is kept clean as to 

 surroundings and is given wholesome food is better eating than if it is 

 allowed to wallow in the dirt to eat only refuse. Really, a pig would 

 be a clean animal if given a chance. 



Although the horse is notably clean in its habits and feeds on grains, 

 we eschew horse flesh; but we eat pork, which, if not grown in a clean 

 place and given clean food, should not be appetizing. The limit of dirty 

 food is expressed by the saying, " It is not fit for hogs." Pork is unob- 

 jectionable when the flesh is produced by clean feeding, but even then 

 it should be used under proper limitations of quantity and season. 



The cow needs not only wholesome food, but to be kept clean. From 

 the time the milk leaves the udder there is danger of contamination. 



Look first on this picture. — A milkman dressed in clothes brushed clean, 

 his hands w^ashed in soap and water, not simply rinsed at the trough, 

 finger nails short and clean, the cow curried, the udder w^ashed, the pail 

 covered until necessary to milk, the stable clear of all dirt. And tlien 

 on this picture: — The cow lying in her own dirt over night, udder soiled, 

 milkman dressed as he has been while doing all sorts of work, the cow's 

 tail switching and the dirt flying, flies bothering the cow until she kicks, — 

 if not into the pail, it is only by careful management that she is pre- 

 vented from doing so. 



Milk produced in this latter way is hardly worth buying, while 

 for that of the first milkman we can afford to pay a good price, — enough 

 to encourage a man to keep clean and to have clean stables and cows. 

 Pay enough to allow the farmer to secure cement floors, tight ceilings, 

 good ventilating devices, and general cleanliness. Then he will scrub 

 his floors and hang up his milking suit to use only for th.at jHU-pose. 



" We always strain our milk, and the dirt and hairs are removed,"- 

 say some. Yes, but we do not like to cat bread that the mouse ran in, 



