324 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



about sixteen hogslieads during; tbe eight hours of sleep : that is, if a man ■were 

 put into a room uhieh -would hold sixteen hogsheadr^ of air,, lie would, during 

 eight hours of sleep, extract from it every atom of life-nutriment, and would 

 die at the end of the eight hours, even if each breath could be kept to itself, 

 provided no air came into the room from without. But when it is remembered 

 that however pure the air of the whole room was at first, it becomes contaminated 

 by the first expiration, hence only the first inspiration is pure, and each one 

 thereafter becomes more and more impure unless there is some ventilating 

 process going on. 



Every individual has, in his own experience, demonstrative proof of the im- 

 purity of the air of a room in which a person has slept all night by the "close- 

 ness " he has observed on entering a sleeping apartment after a morning's 

 Avalk, and this, even when more or less fresh air has been coming in through 

 the crevices about the doors and windows during the whole night. The most 

 eminent physiologists, at home and abroad, have estimated that no sleeping apart- 

 ment, even for a single person, should have a floor surface of less than what 

 Avould equal twelve feet long and twelve feet broad, or one hundred and forty- 

 four square feet, and eight or ten feet high, or about twelve or fifteen hundred 

 cubic feet to each sleeper. But the slee2:)ing apartments of hotels, the state- 

 rooms of ships, steamboats, and steamships, do not average one-third of that 

 cubic space to each sleeper. The state-room of a steamer is ordinarily eight 

 feet long, seven broad and seven high, and even these are adapted for two 

 sleepers. As, therefore, each out-breathing vitiates the whole air of a room, as 

 a drop of milk will discolor the whole bulk of water in a tumbler, the chambers 

 for the members of farmers' families should not only be large and commodious, 

 but should be so arranged that a system of ventilation, at least to a small 

 extent, shall be going on all the time, not only in spite of inattention, but a 

 system which cannot be easily prevented, which is accomplished by the simple 

 expedient of having a fireplace in each room which cannot be closed with 

 screens or "summer blowers;" for by this means a draft will be made by the 

 cold air coming in at the bottom of the doors and from other places, passing 

 over the floor towards the open fireplace, driving the heavy carbonic acid gas 

 before it up the chimney. 



For the purpose of more perfect ventilation of each apartment, especially 

 those which are to be occupied as chambers, the sashes should be so arranged 

 that they can be let down from above as well as raised from beloAV, for the 

 reason that the foul air of a room rises to the ceiling in warm weather because 

 it is lighter than cold air. This makes room for the cold air from without to 

 rush in at the lower part of the window; thus a "circuit" or draught of air is 

 soon formed, admitting pure air from belovr and driving the foul air out of the 

 room above. But every chamber should be so constructed that a window can be 

 kept open or raised, more or less, without having the draught come right in upon 

 the sleeper, and it is safer that whatever draught there is should pass the foot 

 of the bed rather than the head, because the feet are always covered. Hence 

 it is not so easy to take cold nor so dangerous. The air blowing in upon a 

 sleeper's head, for even half an hour, has often caused quinsy, or other form of 

 sore throat, to prove fatal in the course of a very few days. 



AVhere windows are already constructed so that they cannot be let down 

 from the top, there is an admirable contrivance by which a draught is less danger- 

 ous than in from the window recommended above. Have a planed board made 

 the breadth of the window in length and five or ten or more inches broad, raise 

 the window, then close the space made, Avitli this board, allowing the lower 

 part of the window sash to rest on this board so as to hold it in its place. 

 This allows an open space between the glass of the upper and lower sash, 

 through which the cold air will come with considerable force, with the current 

 directed upward, toward the ceiling, thus making it quite safe as to the 



