No. 1. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 167 



have yourself and the members of your family awaken refreshed 

 in the morning, see to it that your bed-rooms are well aired by day 

 and well ventilated by night. 



Another room that should be in every house, but which I am sorry 

 to say is lacking in too many country homes, is a bath-room. You 

 may not be able to have a modern bath-room with a fine tub, with its 

 hot and cold water spigots, but every one of you can fix up a room, 

 or at least a corner in some room that can be warmed in winter, to 

 which yourself and the members of your family and the stranger 

 within your gates may retire and take at least a good wash. If there 

 is any one thing more than another which we should keep perfectly 

 clean, it i^ these bodies of ours, so "fearfully and wonderfully made." 

 Cleanliness is absolutely necessary in order that their manifold me- 

 chanism may not become clogged with the poisons generated within 

 them and which emanates through the pores of the skin. We care 

 for all the other machinery on the farm, but how little care many of 

 us bestow upon that most intricate and most important piece of all 

 machinery, our own body. Cleanliness is a mark of civilization and 

 there is no reason why farm folks should not be the cleanest of peo- 

 ple, yet (and I am ashamed to say it), I know farm men and women 

 too, who very rarely indulge in a bath, while I could name others, 

 who I doubt very much, if they ever take even a good annual scrub- 

 bing. 



That "a clean people is a better people" is recognized in our larger 

 cities where public bath houses have been established for the poorer 

 classes, and which are well patronized. When the time comes that 

 there will be a bath-room in every country home, when every farmer 

 will dignify his vocation by a clean and neat appearance in his dress, 

 and when no one will be seen on the public highway or streets of 

 the town looking like a tramp, then will the caricatures of "old hay- 

 seed" and "Rube" disappear from the public prints forever. 



CONVENIENCE OF THE HOME. 



Well, as I have already said, some of these old homes seem to 

 have been built without any regard to convenience, in fact, some of 

 them are just as inconvenient as they could well have been made. 

 Sometimes we see the ceHar door as far removed from the kitchen 

 as possible, sometimes the well is away off in one corner of the yard, 

 where, perhaps, some fellow^ with a forked peach tree limb located it, 

 Then again we see houses built on hillsides where one must climb 

 anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen steps to reach the front door, 

 with perhaps as many up to the side porch or kitchen door, and an 

 equal number down into the cellar. Just imagine, friends, what 

 tired, weary limbs and backaches, and perhaps permanent physical 



