THE HOME AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 393 



easy access to it. There should also be a shed, or large box 

 covered so as to exclude rain, in which a wagon load of dry 

 earth can be stored, and two or three times a week enough of 

 this should be shoveled into the box to absorb all moisture. 

 Managed in this way a privy can be kept odorless with no 

 danger of contamination of water or air, and a large amount of 

 valuable fertilizer made from it during the year. It will take 

 but a few hours' labor in a year to attend properly to this, 

 and by so doing, what is usually a most disgusting nuisance, 

 and often a cause of disease, will be rendered inoffensive. 



Other out-buildings such as piggeries, poultry house, carriage 

 house, etc., should be located so as to ollend neither eye nor 

 nose. On many farms the out-buildings have no order or 

 arrangement, but are dumped down here and there without 

 regard to appearance or convenience of access. It is easy to 

 save steps and avoid this helter-skelter arrangement by a little 

 planning. 



There is one point which concerns the health of the family 

 which can not be impressed too strongly, and that is the care 

 necessary to. insure pure drinking water. Disease is no longer 

 looked upon as a mysterious dispensation of Providence, but as 

 a penalty for the violation of nature's laws, and contaminated 

 water is a fruitful source of disease. A well located near the 

 house in a soil which fills it with water to the surface, can not 

 afford pure, safe drinking water. There are large sections of 

 country where the land is rich and every thing favorable except 

 the water supply, and the wells which are flooded to the surface 

 during wet seasons, get low during a drought, and cause fevers 

 and diseases of the stomach and bowels. It is often very diffi- 

 cult to construct cisterns in these soils, as the pressure of the 

 water from without breaks the cement and they become flooded 

 like the wells. An experienced cistern-builder tells me that one 

 can be made that will exclude the water in the most spouty 

 soils. A brick wall should be made an inch or two from the 

 sides of the cistern and plastered on the outside as it is laid up, 

 and then this space filled with a grout of cement, poured in so 

 that it will fill all the interstices. When this becomes solid and 



