

VENTILATION. 93 



The pallid cheek or hectic flush, the angular form and 

 distorted spine, the enfeebled appearance of so large a por- 

 tion of our women, who, to use the language of the 

 lamented Downing, " in the signs of physical health, com- 

 pare most unfavorably with all but the absolutely starving 

 classes in Europe;" ah 1 these indications of debility, to 

 say nothing of their care-worn faces and premature 

 wrinkles, proclaim our violation of God's physical laws, 

 and the dreadful penalty with which He is visiting our 

 transgressions. 



The man who shall convince the masses of the impor- 

 tance of ventilation, and whose inventive mind shall 

 devise some simple, cheap, and efficacious way of furnish- 

 ing a copious supply of pure air for our private dwellings, 

 public buildings, and travelling conveyances, will be a 

 greater benefactor than a Jenner or a Watt, a Fulton or 

 a Morse. 



In the ventilation of my hive, I have endeavored, as far 

 as possible, to meet the necessities of the bees, under all 

 the varying circumstances to which they are exposed in 

 our uncertain climate, whose severe extremes of tempera- 

 ture forcibly impress upon the bee-keeper, the maxim of 

 Virgil, 



" Utraque vis pariter apibus metuenda." 



" Extremes of heat or cold, alike are hurtful to the bees." 



To be useful to the majority of bee-keepers, artificial 

 ventilation must be simple, and not as in Nutt's hive, and 

 other labored contrivances, so complicated as to require 

 almost as close supervision as a hot-bed or green- 

 house. 



By furnishing ventilation independent of the entrance, 

 we may improve upon the method which bees, in a state of 

 nature, are often compelled to adopt, when the openings 

 into their hollow trees are so small, that they must employ, 



