424 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



feet of the door, is the spout of the kitchen sink, and an 

 open drain to carry all the dirty suds and slops slowly 

 winding along between overhanging weeds to feed the 

 duck pond first mentioned. The house itself, a one-story, 

 shingle-sided, gambrel-roofed, unpainted structure, with 

 stone chimneys, stands corner-ways to the road, and sep- 

 arated from it by a crooked rail fence, and rickety gate, 

 without a single shade tree to hide its hideous nakedness, 

 nor a flower to charm away the offence offered to the 

 sense of smell by all the horrid things surrounding this 

 farmer's home. 



Can the inmates of such a house be pure in heart? 

 Does not the mind of man grow upon the food it feeds 

 upon? Can the sense of smell be blunted and save the 

 moral faculties free of contamination? Is it to be won- 

 dered at that children, who have such a home as this, 

 whenever their minds become elevated by visits to more 

 pleasing scenes, lose their love for the old birthplace of 

 themselves and their ancestors and wander far away 

 from fatherland, in pursuit of enjoyments that might 

 have been procured at home, only that they have been 

 sickened with everything connected with it that calls up 

 a reminiscense of its offensive sights and smells? 



Shall we be told these things cannot be avoided on the 

 farm — that manure must be made, and such objections 

 arise from ridiculous fastidiousness ? Truth will answer, 

 the more cleanly the premises, the more free from offense 

 to the sense of smell, the more are the fertilising proper- 

 ties of all offensive substances saved and locked up in 

 fresh mold, charcoal, peat, copperas, tanner's bark, or 

 better still, gypsum, which have been freely used, to keep 

 the air sweet and pure, and concentrate the escaping 

 ammonia in a solid form, to carry to the field, and in- 

 crease the growing crops to a value ten times greater 

 than all the cost of the substances that in the using have 

 added so much to the pleasures of the farmer's home. 

 Fastidious indeed! Pity it were not more fashionable. 

 If you would make your children coarse and unintellectual 



