136 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



regarding the cellar, and oh, farmer, if you are not guilty of the 

 other omissions that I have pointed out, I am afraid that you are 

 here, for it does seem to me that the accumulations of the produce 

 of the farm that are stored therein must make miniature Wash- 

 ington markets of them all, and you know that the odors of that 

 have gone reeking towards heaven for years past. 



Cellars as a rule are not well drained, and are consequently 

 damp, are all more or less dark, thus precluding cleanliness, giv- 

 ing rise to the very conditions best adapted to the propagation of 

 disease germs. If one will have a cellar under the house, have it 

 thoroughly drained, and its walls and floors cemented; with an 

 outside drain around the house to prevent the saturation of the 

 soil, it may in that way be kept dry. The cellar should be partly 

 above ground to allow of windows to admit of air and light. To 

 one who contemplates building a new house, I should say have no 

 cellar at all, but drain the spot selected, which should be, if possi- 

 ble, on a rise of land. Sink the trenches for the foundation, 

 throwing the earth to the interior; carry the foundation well up; 

 ventilate the space between the ground and the floor, and arrange 

 the store room in some convenient extension or ell of the build- 

 ing, where, with double walls and windows, as much warmth can 

 be secured as in a cellar, and a saving of fifty per cent, of the 

 construction bill, to say nothing of the ease of storing productions 

 in such a place. 



The most important room in a house is not, as the first thought 

 might suggest, the parlor, the kitchen, or the sitting-room, where 

 the leisure time of the family is spent, but it is the room occupied 

 for sleeping, where at least one-third of the twenty-four hours 

 should be passed in the non-resistant condition of sleep, the time 

 the system is most prone to receive disease; for we know that 

 when awake every function is on the alert against it and labors to 

 throw it off.- A healthy sleeping-room is an airy one, where sun- 

 light can be admitted during the day, lending its healthful influen- 

 ces in purifying its walls and furniture, which become contaminated 

 by the breath and exhalations of the occupants. It should be a 

 room free from noxious exhalations from the ground, and that 

 can be well ventilated with pure external air. For these reasons 

 it should be located on an upper floor of the house, where the 

 necessities are more easily realized. This is a teaching of sanitary 

 science that is much more honored in the breach than in the ob- 



