320 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



the fatal results, but too late to prevent them, an examination of the house by 

 order of the physician disclosed in the cellar a barrel partly rilled with decayed 

 onions, the undoubted cause of the disease. If there is any obscure or slow 

 disease in the family of any reader of this article, and a cellar is attached to 

 the building, it is worth the experiment to secure the following " alterations" 

 as to the cellar : Let the cellar be emptied of every movable thing ; let the 

 walls and floor be thoroughly swept, and, if practicable, washed ; and aft^r 

 being allowed to "air" for a week or two, have the ceiling plastered. The 

 walls should be smoothly plastered, and the floor covered with a hard cement, 

 thick, smooth, and strong ; and both walls and ceiling should be well white- 

 washed once a year, and the old whitewash should be swept oflf before the new 

 is applied. The best, because the cheapest and most universally available 

 whitewash, is made as follows : Put unslacked lime, that which is in the form 

 of the original rock, in a vessel ; pour boiling water on it until it is covered ; 

 place a cloth over the vessel so as to confine the most minute particles of the 

 lime, they being the ones which most perfectly " penetrate" the surfaces to 

 which the wash is applied, and consequently remain the longest. Subsequently 

 dilute the wash to the consistence of thick cream, and apply it thoroughly 

 and thickly, thus accomplishing two objects, a white, light-giving surface, hav- 

 ing a '"body," as painters term it, which is capable of absorbing, and thus ren- 

 dering harmless the "bad" airs or gases which may be formed in the cellar. 



Every partition and every shelf in a cellar should be made of smoothly 

 planed boards, well covered with good white paint, thus preventing the accu- 

 mulation of dust, and aiding in making the cellar light, cheerful, and clean ; for 

 the more light you can have the better. Every cellar should be so contrived 

 that either by its grating or windows or doors it may be easily and thoroughly 

 ventilated an hour or two at least every day in the year ; this is often very 

 perfectly done by a flue running into the chimney. 



It is scarcely necessary to remark that if a cellar is liable at any time of 

 the year, even for a few days, to have water rise and stand on the floor, or 

 even to have the floor a little wet, draining tiles should be put under it before 

 the floor is "cemented." All shelves in a cellar should be so arranged that 

 you can go all around them ; it is not ad^dsable to put any shelving against 

 a cellar wall ; and if all the shelves are suspended from the ceiling, so much 

 the better on several accounts, not the least of which is that more "floor room" 

 is thus obtained. 



When a house is to be erected in a new locality, and it has been wisely de 

 termint-d to have the cellar off from the family building, but yet to be easily 

 accessible from the kitchen without having to go "out of doors" — say under 

 the kitchen itself, or under the wood-house, or simply under the ground, its 

 roof being a part of the front yard or garden, if you please, but so covered over 

 with soil and grass, bushes, &c., that it would not be known to be there — the 

 next point is to aiTange that the foundation of the house should be laid on 

 Btone, at least three feet deep, and on a spot descending, if possible, in every 

 direction. The walls of the house should be at least two feet above the sur- 

 face of the earth, crevices having been left at intervals on each side, so as to 

 admit a free circulation of air, but not large enough to admit mice. There 

 should be an open ditch all around the inside of the wall, as a drain to any 

 dampness, with a sufficient descent, at least at one point, to insure the drain 

 to be passed off. 



It is well to plaster a foundation wall inside and out, and to have every 

 stone well laid in a good mortar, not being sparing of lime or sand in its prep- 

 aration. Too much "loam" or common dirt is generally used, so that the 

 mortar crumbles to powder, has no tenacity, no binding power, instead of 

 hardening and becoming a part of the wall itself. 



