84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



spread over a large area on a cool, dry day, thus giving the 

 grass-roots a chance to transmute the fever-poisons into life- 

 giving vegetation. 



Col. Waring has proposed and carried into execution a 

 method of disposing of house and town sewage, which de- 

 serves a most worthy mention. This consists of a long 

 series and network of porous drain tile laid a few inches 

 beneath a grass-lot, lawn, or home-lot, and all connected with 

 the main sewer or waste-pipe, so that the sewage is continu- 

 ally brought to the rootlets of the turf-land, which thus are 

 able to act as faithful scavengers — and perpetual ones too — 

 of this most undesirable material. This system has worked 

 successfully as the means of disposing of the drainage of 

 the town of Lenox, Mass. 



There are other and valuable methods for disposing of 

 house and town sewage ; but there is neither time nor space 

 here to enter upon them. Many of them, however, are well 

 illustrated and discussed in the reports of the Massachusetts 

 Board of Health, and, if any one can get hold of this report 

 for 1874, let him not fail to read a most admirable and well- 

 timed paper in that number, on the " Health of the Farmers 

 of Massachusetts," by Dr. J. F. Adams of Pittsfield, supple- 

 mented by a valuable paper on a kindred topic by Mrs. 

 Thomas F. Plunkett of the same place. 



In close companionship with the subject of filth waste is 

 the inclement exposure in the common country privy. At 

 an average farm house and yard we all know of one promi- 

 nent building, not large in comparison with the barn, but 

 often more conspicuous. Its location very often, too, is 

 coolly conspicuous, suggestive of dangerous exposure to chill 

 and cold during about eight months of the year. 



"With proper and not very burdensome care, this impor- 

 tant adjunct may be incorporated with the house, and be 

 comfortable and healthful during the dangerously cold 

 months and the dangerously hot months of the year. But 

 it will require some work, and some little constant expense 

 after the proper establishment of it. The water-closet sys- 

 tem is, of course, the most complete and safe; but, where 

 this is not practicable, the dry-earth pail, or vault, must be 

 used, and this part of household health be daily attended 

 to as much as is the preparation of the food, the ventilation, 



