342 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



the bouse, it is for a piano, a picture, a new front door, 

 or some extra parlor furniture, too often instead of for some 

 substantial improvement in tbe kitchen, like self-lilling hot- 

 water tanks, from which hot water may be drawn at the 

 sink or in other parts of the house, a modern water-closet 

 or bath room, a convenient cooking table, or a practical 

 furnace or steam heater. How the inhabitant of the city 

 dreads the country farm-house in winter, — particularly the 

 cold, death-damp of the spare room and spare bed, — and 

 well indeed he may, for these houses are responsible for 

 many a sickness and death both of city and country people. 

 Then, too, the unevenly heated house, associated with which 

 are the cold, damp cellars, cold floors, here a cold room, 

 there a warm one, sleeping rooms so cold that water will 

 freeze in the pitchers at nights ; privies, relics of the age of 

 barbarism, — sick and well alike, to occupy them, passing 

 from the atmosphere of a room heated by an air-tight stove 

 to the cold chill of Greenland's snowy mountains and a 

 block of ice. 



Are such things healthful? The rugged may stand them, 

 but how about the sickly and the weak? Can't afford any- 

 thing different? Added to a little house planning and 

 personal labor, the price of a silk dress or of one year's 

 cigars will put a modern water-closet into any farm-house 

 in this State. A similar expenditure will put in a wood 

 furnace, and a like amount an improved copper boiler, 

 with running hot water at the kitchen sink. The reason 

 these are not added is because of dreaded expense. The 

 fact is, they need not be expensive unless they are made 

 so. Once in, these comforts would never be parted with 

 for money, and our boys and girls would see just so 

 much less of difference and attraction in city life. There 

 is no reason to-day why city people should be comfort- 

 able and farmers' families miserable. Cost does not stand 

 in the way. Action is all that is wanted. It is needless 

 for me to caution against over-eating, over-drinking (es- 

 pecially ice water) or overwork. We all know better 

 than to do such things, and yet we persist in doing them 

 to a greater or less extent. Late hours are detrimental 

 to health, yet how many people dissipate in this way. 



