AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Q - 
May, 1909 185 
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PLENTY OF F/R ALL AROUND | 
SLEEPER BUT NONE O/RECHY | 
BLOWING ON 177 | 
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cruises I left my tent at home. 
to sleep in as a bed is founded on the well-known liability of 
cold air to penetrate between the blankets and other covers. 
Fig. 10 shows how this is done. The sides of my canoe used 
to make my outdoor’s sleeping warm and cozy. Why 
should not a box do as 
well? 
Fresh air indoors, and 
outdoor sleeping if possible, 
is better than medicine or 
life insurance; although, as 
to that, "tis well to take 
out some insurance against 
accidents, and doctor 
with “Diet and Nature, 
ni D.'s.” 
Salubrious climate and 
wholesome food are con- 
ducive to vitality—a 
healthy body and a sane 
mind; and it is probably not 
too much to add—a happv 
disposition and a moral 
existence. 
The fact is, modern 
science has reached a point 
that puts the house problem 
in two aspects. We must 
have houses for shelter, 
but the house is no sooner 
built than the great problem 
of free air and complete 
circulation is _ presented. 
And this must be solved 
also, as well as the protec- 
tive problems of house 
building, or there will be a 
complete Jack of utility in 
the construction. 
But it is not sufficient 
simply to state these two 
problems, or rather these 
The suggestion for a ‘“‘box’’ 
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OUTDOOR § 
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two aspects of the one problem. Natural instinct has given 
us-the natural craving for shelter which we gratify in house 
erection, while modern science has declared that, even while 
we need houses, we must open them sufficiently to give us all 
the air we can obtain hygienically. Now the latter proposi- 
tion is not generally under- 
stood, and is certainly not 
generally admitted. Why, 
it is often asked, build in- 
closures, only to knock holes 
inthem? But this knocking 
of holes is most important 
and essential, and until its 
value is generally admitted 
and understood our houses 
will quite fail in yielding 
their fullest utility. 
The principles of venti- 
lating a house are so simple 
it is truly wonderful that 
they are so little understood 
and so seldom put into 
practise. The air is pro- 
verbially restless; the poets 
are inspired by its invisible 
comings and goings, to re- 
fer to it in many memorable 
similes and metaphors; but 
to the physicist, whose busi- 
ness with it is too practical 
to allow sentiment to creep 
in, the mystery of its vaga- 
bond nature resolves into 
one of the commonest 
phenomenon known to men, 
of which water is the chief 
example—the necessity and 
the endless struggle to pre- 
serve that balance which is 
induced by the iron hand of 
gravity of which the physi- 
cist can speak so eloquently, 
