14 



FARM HOMES, IX-DOORS AND OUT-DOORS. 



THE FOUR ESSENTIALS. 



In planning a house, let four essential points be kept 

 in view Drainage, Sunlight, Ventilation, and a Bath- 

 room. These features can be compassed even in the 

 smallest cottage, and yet thousands of farm-houses are 

 being completed to-day without a thought of them. It is 

 cheering to reflect, however, that other thousands of 

 farm-houses are going up wherein these vital considera- 

 tions have been kept first and foremost. Progress in 

 building-reform is unnecessarily slow, especially in the 

 new Western States, and wives and daughters should set 

 themselves to thinking and studying about these things, 

 and so hasten on the millenium of right living. 



SUNLIGHT. 



The sun, if you will only open your house to him, is a 



faithful physician, who 

 will be pretty constant in 

 attendance, and who will 

 eend in no bills. Many 

 years ago glass was some- 

 thing of a luxury, but 

 now we can all have good- 

 sized windows, and plen- 

 ty of them, at moderate 

 cost, and there is no ex- 

 |pt! cuse for making mere 

 loop-holes, through 

 V V which the sun can cast 



Fig. 1. A " DESIBABLE SUBSTITUTE." 



but half an eye, and from 

 which one can gain only 

 narrow glimpses of the beautiful outer world. 



I am sufficiently acquainted with the conservative 

 character of many country people to know that expres- 

 sions of disdain will come from some quarters when I 



