1883.] THE VENTILATION OF FARM BUILDINGS. -205 



on dangerous ground, and may arouse feelings of resentment, 

 therefore I hasten to assure you that it is not your homes that I 

 speak of, but those of your neighbors, who Hve down the road 

 a-ways or over the hill. These odors from their cellars will help 

 to explain why they make such wretchedly poor butter — as you 

 know they do — for they permeate not only their living-rooms but 

 the dairy-rooms, and are absorbed by the milk before it is churned, 

 and by the butter after it is made. 



If you should ask me how to ventilate your cellars, I should say, 

 have none at all to ventilate. A properly-constructed building 

 above ground, with partition for dead air, and secured from the 

 cold wind by close hedges, would be far less costly, more convenient 

 in using, and above all, more healthful. But you say that you 

 have cellars already. Then put as many windows in them as you 

 can, all around, and let the free winds have full play. 



It is not necessary for me to dwell upon the need of a free 

 ventilation for the dairy-room ; every practical farmer knows how 

 quickly milk, cream, and butter receive the odors from the air. 

 As has been stated, milk will receive it before it is drawn from 

 the animal. Butter and cheese generally sell according to its 

 quality, its rank, if we might so express it. Think what a deficit 

 it makes in the yearly income of a dairy, if the price is reduced 

 even one-half cent per pound by reason of bad condition. But I 

 notice that the receiving merchant seldom divides a cent for any 

 reason, but drops a whole one. 



In order to have a wholesome, pure air for our buildings, we 

 must look somewhat to their surroundings. How often we find 

 in the neighborhood open cess-pools, stagnant ponds, filled with 

 drainage from barn-yards or manure-heaps, decaying wood and 

 rubbish, and not unfrequently dead animals thrown carelessly on 

 the compost pile, there to add their putrid odors to the already 

 tainted air. Better trust your stock to the kindly protection of a 

 rail-fence than to introduce such an atmosphere into their apart- 

 ment. 



One other suggestion. We farmers have had the reputation in 

 the past of being rather close and self-denying; for fear that any 

 of you may be inclined to shut out oxygen for fear of using up 

 the supply, I will state that nature has an abundance of it; it con- 

 stitutes a large part of the mass of the earth, and it has been cal- 



