1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



473 



his home beautiful, so that it will give him inward 

 pleasure whenever he comes in sight of it. If there 

 is a man in the world that enjoys life, that is Inily 

 happy, it is the nature-loving, honest, industrious, 

 laboring farmer ; he it is, if it is anybody, that is 

 preparing for eternity ; if his soul has not descend- 

 ed to a level with the brute, the influences that sur- 

 round him will lead his mind up to the great Au- 

 thor of all the works and wonders of nature. 



In the above mentioned article it is asserted that 

 only a very few farmers can afford to have books 

 and newspapers. Now, I should think that books 

 and papers were as necessary to good and profita- 

 ble farming, as good plows and shovels ; and the 

 man that does without them, cannot farm it as he 

 should, he will be slack and shiftless, always behind 

 time, and in consequence, takes all things to disad- 

 vantage, and never does a thing as it ought to be 

 done. The motto, "a penny saved, is two-pence 

 clear," applied to the buying of books and papers, 

 would in truth and reality be "a penny saved is 

 two-pence lost." "First," he says, "because we 

 have no time to spare." Now, sir, the farmer that 

 does everything at the right time, tcill find time to 

 spare in the perusal of an agricultural paper or 

 book ; if he has so much land that it takes him all 

 the time to get over the ground, without doing jus- 

 tice to one single acre, then he is certainly farm- 

 ing in a shiftless and unprofitable manner ; for it is 

 more profitable to have o??e acre well tilled, than to 

 have Jive that are merely "gone over." 



Yours respectfully. Sixteen. 



OUT-DOOR AIR. 



Many talk quite learnedly and eloquently on the 

 importance of fresh air to permanent good health, 

 but the rationale of the matter is not often ex- 

 plained so well as in the following article, which we 

 find in an exchange. It is well worth a careful 

 reading, for fresh air, in some places, and at some 

 seasons, may prove pernicious instead of healthful. 



Night air and damp weather are held in great 

 horror by multitudes of persons who are sickly, or 

 of weak constitutions ; consequently, by avoiding 

 the night air and damp weather, and changeable 

 weather, that is considered too hot or too cold, they 

 are kept within doors the much largest portion of 

 their time, and, as a matter of course, continue in- 

 valids, more and more ripening for the grave every 

 hour ; the reason is, they are breathing an impure 

 atmosphere nineteen-twentieths of their whole ex- 

 istence. 



As nothing can wash us clean but pure water, so 

 nothing can cleanse the blood, nothing can make 

 health-giving blood, but the agency of pure air. So 

 great is the tendency of the blood to become im- 

 pure in consequence of waste and useless matter 

 mixing with it as it passes through the body, that 

 it requires a hogshead of air every hour of our lives 

 to unload it of these impurities ; but in proportion 

 as this air is vitiated, in such proportion does it in- 

 fallibly fail to relieve the blood of these impurities, 

 and impure blood is the foundation of all disease. 

 The great facts that those who are out of doors 

 most, summer and winter, day and night, rain and 

 shine, have the best health the world over, does of 

 itself falsify the general impression that night air, 

 or any other out-door air, is unhealthy as compared 

 with in-door air at the same time. 



Air is the great necessity of life ; so much so, 



that if deprived of it for a moment, we perish, and 

 so constant is the necessity of the blood for contact 

 with the atmosphere, that every drop in the bod_^ 

 is exposed to the air through the medium of th^ 

 lungs every two mmutes and a half of our existence. 

 Whatever may be the impurity of the out-door 

 air of any locality, the in-door air of that locality is 

 still more impure, because of the dust, and decay- 

 ing and odoriferous matters which are found in all 

 dwellings. Besides, how can in-door air be more 

 healthy than the out-door air, other things being 

 equal, when the dwelling is supplied with air from 

 without ? 



To this very general law there is one exception, 

 which is of the highest importance to note. When 

 the days are hot and the nights cool, there are pe- 

 riods of time within each twenty-four hours, when 

 it is safest to be in-doors with windows closed ; that 

 is to say, for the hour or two, including sunrise and 

 sunset, because about sunset the air cools, and the 

 vapors which the heat of the day have caused to as- 

 cend far above us, condense and settle near the sur- 

 face of the earth, so as to be breathed by the inhab- 

 itants ; as the night grows colder, these vapors sink 

 lower, and are within a foot or two of the earth, so 

 they are not breathed. As the sun rises, these same 

 vapors are warmed, and begin to ascend, to be 

 breathed again, but as the air becomes warmer, 

 they are carried so far above our heads as to be in- 

 nocuous. Thus it is that the old citizens of Charles- 

 ton, South Carolina, remember, that while it was 

 considered important to live in the country during 

 the summer, the common observation of the peo- 

 ple originated the custom of riding into town, not 

 in the cool of the evening or of the morning, but 

 in the middle of the day. They did not understand 

 the philosophy, but they observed the fact, that 

 those who came to the city at mid-day remained 

 well, while those who did so early or late suffered 

 from it. 



All strangers at Rome are cautioned not to cross 

 the Pontine marshes after the heat of the day is 

 over. Sixteen of a ship's crew touching at one of 

 the AVest India Islands, slept on shore several 

 nights, and thirteen of them died of yellow fever in 

 a few days, while of two hundred and eighty who 

 were freely ashore during the day, not a single case 

 of illness occurred. The mai'sbes above named are 

 crossed in six or eight hours, and many travellers 

 who do it in the night are attacked with mortal fe- 

 vers. This does, at first sight, seem to indicate 

 that night air is unwholesome, at least in the local- 

 ity of virulent malarias, but there is no direct proof 

 that the air about sunrise and sunset is not that 

 which is productive of the mischief. 



For the sake of eliciting the observations of in- 

 telligent men, we present our theory on this subject. 

 A person might cross these marshes with impu- 

 nity, who would set out on his journey an hour or 

 two after sundown, an'' finish it an hoyr or two be- 

 fore the sun is up, especially if he began that jour- 

 ney on a hearty meal, because, in this way, he would 

 be travelling in the cool of the night, which cool- 

 ness keeps the malaria so near the surface of the 

 earth as to prevent its being breathed to a hurtful 

 extent. 



But if it is deadly to sleep out of doors all night 

 in a malarial locality, would it not be necessarily 

 fatal to sleep in the house, especially if the windows 

 and doors were closed ? The reason is, that the 

 house has been warmed during the day, and if kept 



