iTARMERS INSTITUTES. 513 



cheapest blessing one can enjoy, and to deny one's self so necessary an 

 element of good health is the sheerest folly, if not criminal, yet thousands 

 who build at much expense to protect their health and that of their 

 families, as they allege and sometimes suppose, by neglecting the simplest 

 principles of ventilation, invite disease and infirmity from the very means 

 they take to avoid them. Air-tight stoves in the various rooms, and no 

 means provided by which to carry off the bad air invite disease, the 

 doctor and death. With a furnace, and notice, properly and intelligently 

 installed, every room can be heated and every room can be ventilated. 

 Health and comfort depend upon proper heating and ventilation. 



Again, every dwelling should have a bath-room with all the necessary 

 appliances. I am not advocating a luxury in this, but another element of 

 health and comfort. There is no reason whatever for the omission of so 

 necessary an element. The objection of expense is sometimes urged, but 

 in a house properly planned the expense is not great, and an intelligent 

 designer can so plan that it will be economy. Even were the expense a 

 large item, which it is not necessarily, the great ideas of health and com- 

 fort will more than compensate the owner for the outlay. The modern 

 bath-room is a necessity, not a luxury. 



Laundries, kitchen sinks and water-works should not be omitted. The 

 women workers upon whom fall a heavy burden in farm work should have 

 their labor made as light as possible. It is arduous enough at the best 

 and the lifting of heavy wash-tubs, and carrying in and out heavy pails 

 of water and the pumping of the same should be eliminated entirely 

 from their duties. No one can give any good or sufficient reason why 

 these appliances should not be found in the farm house. The town cottage 

 has them, and why not the country home? The expense is but a small 

 item, and the health and comfort greatly increased. I do not desire to 

 incite anyone to rebellion, but the farmer's wife should make a demand for 

 these things, and strenuously so when her liege lord finds it so necessai"y 

 to have the latest style of self-binder, or a riding plow or sulky hay-rake. 



But someone says: "Our fathers and mothers did not have these 

 things and they got along, and therefore we don't need them." Of course 

 they did not. Neither did they h'ave railroads, telegraphs, telephones, 

 electric railways, self-binders, gravel roads and rural free delivery. Do 

 you want to go back to those times? If not, then why not put in your 

 house the modern conveniences, even to gas lighting? It will pay. The 

 boys and girls will not desire to leave the farm. The home will be 

 pleasanter. It will then truly compass what a good dwelling should do- 

 provide for the health and comfort and happiness of its inmates. 



I have given' in the above some thoughts regarding the designing of 

 a country house with regard to its use. The other idea in design, that of 

 conformity to its surroundings is of no small importance. There is no 

 need of making a dwelling a blot on the landscape in order to conform to 



33— Board of A. 



