314 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



every young farmer. It has' been the experience of tens of thousands who 

 began life hopefully, and who went to work with willing and brave hearts to 

 "clear" a farm, and make it a home for life for themselves and families, that 

 they did well until sickness came, under which their strength and energy 

 wilted away like a flower without water : they fell behindhand, lost their 

 energy, ran in debt, and, finally, settled down in the poor ambition of only 

 meeting their expenses from month to month, their idea of getting ahead 

 haviug been abandoned forever. 



It is demonstrably true that the difference of a few hundred yards — of a 

 dozen rode sometimes — in locating a dwelling for a family, is precisely the dif- 

 ference between its extinction in a few years by disease, and its prosperity, its 

 health, and a large family of industrious, manly sons, and of refined, educated, 

 and notable daughters. A citizen of New York purchased a beautiful building 

 site for a country residence, and, after spending two years and a large amount 

 of money in preparing it for the reception of his wife, children, and servants, 

 he moved into it. Everybody was delighted with the " prospect" which it 

 afforded of river, and field, and woodlands, and distant mountains. With autumn 

 came chills and fevers among his servants. lie abandoned it, and never occu- 

 pied it afterward, being wholly unwilling that his family should live where 

 such a disease was possible. 



A publishing house in this city erected a private residence in the country at 

 an expense of over thirty thousand dollars. It could be seen for many miles 

 aroimd ; while its spacious piazzas afforded near and distant views, which de- 

 lighted every visitor. During the very first year such a deadly pestilence 

 broke out among the inmates that it was at once abandoned, and was even- 

 tually " sold for a song." It is now known by residents on the banks of the 

 Iludson as " Blank's Folly." 



A wealthy and retired citizen of New York built for himself a splendid 

 mansion up town, about four years ago, anticipating that it would be his home 

 for life. He had occupied it but a short time, when one by one the members 

 of his family were taken sick. A strict examination discovered the fact that 

 the house had been erected over a "filling," the emanations from which, con- 

 stantly ascending, impregnated every room in the building with deleterious 

 gases. It was at once abandoned for another home. 



The hospitals and barracks in and near Bengal are now almost useless, 

 having been built in a locality utterly unfitted for human habitations, as far as 

 health was concerned. Their erection cost the British government sixty-five 

 millions of dollars. This great waste of money might have been altogether 

 avoided by the application of a very limited knowledge of the causes of disease. 



From official papers presented to the British government, it is shown that 

 of each hundred British soldiers in India, ninety-four disappear from the ranks 

 before the age of thirty-five years, when, from military returns, it is known that 

 " the average standard of health for Europeans in India v/ould compare with 

 that existing anywhere else in the civilized world, if the known sources of dis- 

 ease were dried up." It is admitted that in forty years one hundred thousand 

 men might have been saved, "if proper localities had been chosen for their 

 dwellings." 



It is undoubtedly true that the difference of a few feet in the locality of two 

 buildings is the difference sometimes between life and death. These things 

 being so, it is a matter of personal happiness and pecuniary interest to every 

 farmer who contemplates building a house, which is to be a home for himself 

 and fiimily probably as long as he lives, to possess himself of such information 

 as to enable him to ascertain certainly why are certain localities so prt^judicial 

 to the health of families residing therein ; or, in other words, what is the agent 

 which causes disease in this mysterious manner 1 It may seem discouraging 

 at first view to state that this destmctive agency is as invisible as the viewless 



