No. 6. , DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 181 



of foliage, aud that is the place, if there is anything in environment, 

 to put these consumptives. That is the place where they are the 

 least trouble, and where they have the largest chance of recovery. 



There is still another reason to be considered in the establish 

 ment of these consumptive sanitariums. We find that the question 

 arises: What are we to do with those we have cured, or so nearly 

 cured that they can be trusted to send out? We can't send them 

 back into the cities, into the slums; because if we do, all this work 

 will have to be done over; it is wasted. Why can't we have farms 

 where these people can work out doors? Why can't they be put to 

 work? There is no reason why not, but there they would be again a 

 nuisance, an offense to the neighborhood. You have got to buy the 

 farms, first of all. Now the State has got this land and we need 

 people there to help fight forest fires in the spring, and to act as 

 watchmen. We can plant basket willows and grow the materials 

 to make baskets which can be sent out and sold. Millions of white 

 pine ought to be grown every year for gratuitous distribution over 

 the Commonwealth. These people can do that and earn their living 

 and be out of everybody's way. It seems to me that it is a plan that 

 would help everybody, hurt nobody and please God. 



Now, my friends, I very well remember the time when we had in 

 this country what we called the black plague. I do not mean the 

 black plague of slavery which was cursing the country North and 

 South, and continually acting as a bone of contention between the 

 different portions of this land. I remember how the loyal hearts 

 of the North arose, and ended the question forever, and we banished 

 the black plague. Now the white plague of consumption is a plague 

 which can be just as effectually bauished as the black plague of 

 slavery. Every time you go into your house off the street, you carry 

 in the germs of this disease. You have got the poor victims of this 

 disease scattered in communities and in hospitals; you can't get rid 

 of it; the poor you have always with you. Wouldn't it be better to 

 take hold of these cases in their early stage and restore them to the 

 ranks of usefulness, of honorable, healthful citizenship? It can be 

 done. Seventy per cent, of the cases of incipient tuberculosis should 

 be cured. Ordinary attention to the hygienic rules and the preven- 

 tion of spitting on the sidewalks, would tend to make the atmosphere 

 so healthful that no case of consumption would ever be started. 



I want to give you a little instance that came to my notice a short 

 time ago. I was on a train where there was a lady with several 

 children and one of them had a paroxysm of whooping-cough. The 

 mother sent one of the children up to the cooler to get a glass of 

 water, and that was brought down to the child with the whooping- 

 cough and it took a drink out of the tumbler; then everyone of the 

 others, three children, took a drink from this same tumbler, 



