THE FARM-HOUSE. 289 



If properly cared for, it may be made a source of great 

 profit : if neglected, it will become an eyesore to every be- 

 holder, and become a source of discomfort, annoyance, and 

 contagion to all its surroundings. The same principles will 

 apply to the hog-pen, which may become a source of profit, 

 a promoter of good husbandry, or a source, from its villa- 

 nous compounds not neutralized, of contagion, disease, and 

 death to the swine, the cattle, and even the family and the 

 neighborhood. 



Having disposed of the farmer's barns, let us turn our 

 attention to the farm-house and its surroundings. One 

 prime reason why the boys are so prone to desert the farm, 

 and the girls are so unwilling to follow the occupation of 

 their mothers, is, that the home, with its buildings and sur- 

 roundings, is not made more pleasant and attractive. The 

 difference between the odors of the pig-pen and a bed of 

 roses, of the cesspool and a plat of geraniums, is perceptible, 

 in a marked degree, to the olfactories of every one whose 

 sense of smell has not always been abused and blunted, till 

 it has become insensible to any odor that has not attained to 

 the rankest smell. These waste not their fragrance on the 

 desert air, but offend the senses of the inmates doomed to 

 inhale them, till the perfume of the pen and pool is preferred 

 to that of the sweetest fragrance that may or should be 

 around every farmer's home. 



The pen, the pool, and the privy are the necessary con- 

 comitants of every well-regulated family ; but it is the man- 

 ner in which they are regulated that makes them tolerable 

 or unendurable. How shall these unseemly parts of the 

 farm-house be made comely, and turned to profit, convert- 

 ing by natural processes the noxious effluvia into elements 

 from which spring vegetables, fruits, and flowers in their 

 varied plant-forms ? Let these be surrounded with shrubbery, 

 evergreens, or vines, substituting the beauty of nature for de- 

 formity of art. Nothing generated in Nature's laboratory is 

 more thoroughly disinfectant, a better absorbent, more free or 

 accessible, than dry earth. Let sufficient quantities of this 

 be secured, — gathered from the Avashings of the roadside, 

 from the mounds around the walls, and from every available 

 source, — freely used each day, and a double purpose will be 

 achieved, — a nuisance abated, a fertilizer created. 



37 



