356 



THE ILLIIN^OIS FA.RMER. 



details, is an Agricultural University. 

 Comparatively few of the thousands 

 engaged in the various departments of 

 terra— culture could reap, directly, the 

 advantage of such a school, but every 

 one who did would go forth as an en- 

 thusiastic teacher, who would every- 

 where find apt and willing pupils, ready 

 to seize on every new idea which would 

 enhance the value of their land, the 

 proddctiveiiess of their soil and the ex- 

 cellence of their stock. Other pens 

 can treat of this subject better than 

 ours. 



May we soon witness its consumma- 

 tion! 



Health and Wbat Promotes It. 

 Dr. Frank Hamilton, in an address 

 00 hygiene, to the graduates of the Buf- 

 falo Medical College, discusses the sub- 

 ject of health and the causes which pro- 

 mote or injure it. We make a few ex 



tracts: 



STOVES AND FURNACES. 



Within a few years the air-tight stove 

 has been substituted for the iron dogs, 

 and for the first time since men have 

 began to live in houses we have no "fire- 

 places." The shrine of the Lares has 

 been removed, and our houses have been 

 literally pillaged — robbed of the domes- 

 tic hearth, toward which so many asso- 

 ciations has been poured, and which in 

 all ages have been regarded as the sym- 

 bol of home with all its social comforts. 



Not content with this, these enemies 

 to our race have still more lately taken 

 away the stoves, which, destitute of the 

 essence, still occupied the places, and 

 served to remind us at least of the anci- 

 ent fireplaces; and instead they have 

 built for us iron furnaces — ^tnas — un- 

 der ground, so that now what of the 

 oxygen we are not able to consume and 

 convert into carbonic acid, is vitiated by 

 impure gas escaping from its hidden 

 chambers, by invisible particles of coal 

 dust, and by other impurities which clog 

 up the air cells, and close the avenues of 

 .life, or stick along the parched fauces as 

 if reluctant to convey their poisons to 

 the lungs. 



Stoves have no doubt abridged the 

 sum of human life, but by these subter- 

 ranean iron furnaces we are cut short in 

 the middle. It is an error to suppose 

 that hot-air furnaces can ever be so con- 

 structed or managed, at least in private 

 houses, as not in any degree to prove 

 detrimental to health. We wish we 

 could persuade ourselves that this is not 

 so, for it is certainly very agreeable in a 

 climate like ours to enjoy throughout all 

 the rooms and passages of the house 

 warm and uniform temperature; but it 

 is just this even warmth which is one of 



the sources of mischief. The inmates 

 are so little acoujstomed to the cold 



within doors, and become so morbidly 

 sensitive, that they shudder at the idea 

 of going out, and if they ever do ven- 

 ture into the air, the frost enters into 

 their open pores, and they hasten back 

 to their shelter, chilled, exhausted and 

 discouraged. They are no better able 

 to endure the storms of winter than a 

 plant reared in a hot-house. It was the 

 venerable Bede, I think, who said: 

 "VVhen men lived in houses of willow, 

 they were of oak, but when they lived 

 in houses of oak thcv were of willow.'' 

 HORSEBACK EXERCISE. 



My friend, a well known and very dis- 

 tinguished doctor of divinity, believes 

 that I also ride a hobby, since I will pre- 

 scribe no medicine for him but a horse; 

 and I frankly confess that he has good 

 reason for his belief. It is part of the 

 speaker's creed that all religious congre- 

 gations should build a barn, and buy a 

 horse with a sa<ldle and bridle; all which 

 should be sufficiently endowed so as to 

 cover expenses; and that as soon as the 

 horse is properly installed, and not be- 

 fore they shall proceed to install a pas- 

 tor. This doctrine in which we fully be- 

 lieve, has reference no less to the inter- 

 est of the church than to the interest of 

 the clergyman. It will secure one or- 

 iginal sermon on every Sabbath morn- 

 ing; it will obviate the necessity of as- 

 sistant chaplains, and save the expenses 

 of a voyage to Europe once in five 

 years. It commeuds itself especially, 

 therefore, to the consideration of poor 

 and feeble congregations. 



The utility of horseback exercise is 

 not limited however, to clergymen and 

 their congregations. It is, in our hu.ii- 

 ble opinion, the best exercise for both 

 men and women, whether within or with- 

 o t the church; combining as it does, 

 the largest amount of active and passive 

 motion, with agreeable excitement. 

 The trout may refuse to nibble, and 

 the game to start, but upon the horse 

 there is certain pleasure beyond all con- 

 tingences. The rider is above every- 

 body else, he goes faster than anybody 

 else. He has for a time a kind of ideal 

 and not actual being, and rides his horse 

 as the poet rides his Pegasus. At one 

 moment he imagines himself a general 

 at the head of an army; at another, an 

 emperor making a triumphal entry; now 

 he is a knight, returning from conquest, 

 and now, perhaps he rushes in battle; or 

 he is riding a fierce race, and he springs 

 in his saddle as if ten thousand bright 

 dollars depended upon the result. Not 

 that he actually believes all this, but 

 only that he feels somewhat as if it were 

 so or might be so. 



"When he presses his spur into the 

 tender flank, and his horse plunges 



and prances, he also plunges and 

 prances like his horse. He feels as if, 

 in riding hftn, he was a part of the 



noble animal himself, and that he is in- 

 deed what the Thessalians were reputed 

 to be, half man and half horse — a real 

 Centaur. 



We cannot tell you what a horse will 

 do with that precision and minuteness 

 with which an empiric recounts the 

 diseases which his hobby will infallibly 

 cure, but we are certain that our hob- 

 by will reach a great variety of cases; 

 and we believe that a horse — one horse 

 a day — is good for almost everybody, 

 if properly administered. Somg will 

 require to be cautioned against riding 

 too violently, while for the benefit of 

 others you must add the directions usu- 

 ally given in the old polypharraic pre- 

 scriptions; "when taken to be well 

 shaken.*' 



BROADCLOTH AN ENEMY. 



"American gentlemen have adopted 

 as a national costume, broadcloth — a 

 thin, tight-fitting black suit of broad- 

 cloth. To foreigners, we seem always 

 to be in mourning; we travel in black, 

 write in black, and we Work in black. 

 The priest, the lawyer, the doctor, the 

 literary man, the mechanic, and even 

 the city laborer, choose always the same 

 unvarying, monotonous black broad- 

 cloth; a style and material which ought 

 not to have been adopted out of the 

 drawing-room or the pulpit; because it is 

 a feeble and expensive fabric; because it 

 is at the north no suitable protection 

 against the cold, nor is it indeed any 

 more suitable at the south. It is too 

 thin to be warm in the winter, and too 

 black to be cool in the summer; but es- 

 pecially do we object to it because the 

 wearer is always afraid of soiling it by 

 exposure. Young gentlemen will not 

 play ball, or pitch quoits, or wrestle and 

 tumble, or any other similar thing, lest 

 their broadcloth should be offended. 

 They will not go into the storm because 

 the broadcloth will lose its lustre if rain 

 falls upon it; they will not run because 

 they have no confidence in the strength 

 of the broadcloth; they dare not mount 

 a horse, or leap a fence, because broad- 

 cloth, as everybody knows, is so faith- 

 less. So these young men, and these 

 older merchants, mechanics, and all, 

 learn to walk, talk and think soberly 

 and carefully; they seldom venture even 

 to laugh to the full extent of their sides.'' 



WHAT IS NEEDED. 



We need for our dwellings more venti- 

 lation and less heat, we need more out 

 exercise, more sunlight, more manly, 

 athletic and rude sports; we need more 

 amusements, more holidays, more frolic, 

 and noisy, boisterous mirth. Our in- 

 fants need better nourishment than 

 colorless mothers can ever furnish, 

 purer milk than distilleries can manu- 

 facture; our children need more romp- 

 ing and less study. Our old men more 



