Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 231 



is good, that is, unless the air we are breathing is constantly being 

 replaced by fresh air from outside, we will not get the greatest 

 amount of good. You all know how stuffy and close the air in the 

 schoolroom feels when you come ir^ from the outside. There are 

 two reasons for this — we keep the air too hot and we do not let in 

 enough air from the outside. As a result the air becomes, as we 

 say, close, and the children are drowsy and stupid. Try letting in 

 a certain amount of fresh air and keep a thermometer hanging in 

 the schoolroom. Watch it carefully and see that the temperature 

 does not go above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Try this a few days 

 and notice how much fresher each one of you feels. Another com- 

 mon practice in schoolrooms is that of keeping a can of water con- 

 stantly on the stove to supply moisture to the atmosphere. This 

 is not necessary and may be harmful. You all know how much 

 more oppressive high temperature is when the air is full of 

 moisture. Each of you is constantly breathing out moisture. You 

 can see your breath oh, a cool morning, because this moisture con- 

 denses. When you add to this moisture a constant supply of 

 steam from the vessel on the stove it contributes to the general 

 oppressiveness of the room. 



The Drinking Cup. — One more point — and that is the question 

 of the common drinking cup. A familiar sight in every country 

 schoolroom used to be the water bucket in, which always two or 

 three dippers reposed. Each child who drank from the dipper and 

 then returned it to the bucket ran the risk of transferring to it 

 any bacteria which may have been present in his own mouth. By 

 the time one bucketful of water is used in this way there is oppor- 

 tunity for the pollution of the water by quite a mixture of bacteria. 

 In the schools we are substituting the individual drinking cup, but 

 in many of our homes is not the bucket with the common dipper 

 still a part of the kitchen equipment? Are the bacteria any less 

 dangerous because they come from a member of your own family? 

 The feeling that one is willing to drink after a member of his or 

 her own family, when not after strangers, is probably responsible 

 for the spread of infectious diseases through families and in part 

 for the old theory that tuberculosis is hereditary. 



COMMERCIAL GARDENING. 



(Mrs. J. B. Rich, Fayette, Mo.) 



A few days ago I was asked to write briefly on "Commercial 

 Gardening." I fear my remarks will be of little value to any one, 



