PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 171 



First, sunshine. It would seem so, and yet how many farmers' 

 wives scarcely see the sun from one week's end to the next? How 

 many farmers' daughters contrive to avoid the health-giving rays of 

 the sun, the while they industriously apply so-ealled skin foods ? How 

 often does one see at the seacoast whole families taking the fashionable 

 sun-cure in bathing suits, or with bare heads and sleeves rolled up. 

 This is the same sun which shines on the ranch, and is so carefully 

 excluded from the parlor and bedrooms lest it fade the carpets. 



Fresh air should be available on the farm, but often the only member 

 who uses it to any considerable extent is the farmer and he has it only 

 in the day time when he needs it least. 



Fresh air has different qualities. There is the cool breeze that comes 

 in off the ocean, and the hot wind that blows across our great valleys, 

 and the night air currents that flow down through our murmuring 

 forests. Each plays its special part in the environment of the body, 

 but all are fresh, and are alike invigorating to the lungs. The fallacy 

 of dangerous night air has cost the human race untold numbers of 

 lives. The sleeping porch is the most effective weapon we have thus 

 far used to combat tuberculosis. The old-fashioned fireplace was a 

 most important fresh air apparatus, because it constantly drew into 

 the house great quantities of out-of-door air to replace the hot air it 

 sent up the chimney. The present day air-tight heater and oil burners 

 are economical of fuel but most expensive in headaches, drugs, and 

 doctors' bills. 



It is poor economy to utilize unfinished attic space for bedrooms for 

 the growing family. The rooms of a house which depend on ground air 

 forcing its way up through the walls and floors from mildewed cellars 

 or malodorous kitchens, or closets, are not the rooms in which good 

 health will flourish. Such air will not cause any specific disease, but 

 it will lower the resistance of the body to disease. Sanitarians estimate 

 that sleeping rooms should have for each occupant at least 500 to 1,000 

 cubic feet of air space exclusive of the cubic space taken up by the bed 

 and other furniture, but this depends on the ventilation, i. e., the 

 frequency with which the air of the room is changed. The farmer who 

 screens in his porches for sleeping purposes and uses the bedrooms only 

 as dressing rooms will have plenty of air and few bills for medicine. 



The selection and preparation of food for the family is a very impor- 

 tant factor in farm life. The farmer knows his land and sows his 

 crops advantageously with reference to the soil. It is equally impor- 

 tant that the farmer's wife know her family and prepare her table 

 according to the varying needs of the individuals. Simplicity, variety, 

 the best materials, and proper cooking are the general requisites. The 

 normal healthy individual may count on his appetite to guide him 

 in what he eats from day to day. His stomach is simply one of the 

 way stations along the alimentary canal, from which the body helps 

 itself to such tissue-building and energy-producing ingredients as it 

 needs, leaving the excess to be passed on and discharged day by day. 

 "I never know I have a stomach," is only another way of saying that 

 one has good digestion. But if this be said by all the members of the 

 f amity, it means there is a clever housewife in command of the kitchen, 

 who realizes that her position is that of commissary general. The 

 standard army ration is not sufficient for her needs. First, she must 



