112 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



promote and increase the refinement, necessary to pro- 

 mote the happiness of the human family. 



For my own part, I am so far satisfied with the result, 

 that I fully believe we are doing good. We are trying a 

 great "experiment in feeding." Feeding the intellect of 

 a much-neglected mass; and we ought to be careful that 

 we do not surfeit it with indigestible food. On this ac- 

 count, I was much taken with Mr. McKinstry's^ article in 

 the August, 1847, number of the Agriculturist, upon the 

 necessity of experimenters being very careful in making 

 experiments, and still more careful when they publish an 

 account of them. 



Nothing but the clearest and most comprehensible re- 

 sult and plain benefit to the man himself, will ever induce 

 one who has all his life long carried a stone in one end of 

 the bag, to balance the bushel of corn in the other, to 

 adopt the improved system of discarding the stone, and 

 dividing the corn into equal parts. SOLON. 



Crown Point, la., July, 1848. 



Ventilation Essential to Health. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 7:335; Nov., 1848'] 



[September, 1848] 



The bad state of the atmosphere of stove-heated rooms 

 cannot be cured by any amount of steaming water. Venti- 

 lation is what is wanted, and what is always found want- 

 ing, and what renders the atmosphere of our churches 

 and other public rooms so often so unfit for human res- 

 piration. 



Rooms should not be "frequently ventilated," h\xi always 

 so. Every tight room should have a ventilator constructed 

 in the ceiling, to answer the purpose of the good old- 



'J. McKinstry, Greenport, Columbia County, New York. Corre- 

 spondent of the American Agriculturist, 1847-1850, and the Culti- 

 vator, 1849. Wrote an interesting series of articles on agricultural 

 chemistry in the American Agriculturist, 1848-1849. Robinson re- 

 fers to "Experiments among Farmers," in ibid., 6:250-51. 



'Reprinted in part in Michigan Farmer, Detroit, 6:356 (Decem- 

 ber 1, 1848). 



