1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
225 
■raie »in§ra©]LB 
iST" (For other Household Items, see "Basket" pages.) 
Farm Bath-Houses. 
It must bo confessed that the virtue of cleanli- 
ness is not sufficiently practiced by farmers or 
their families. Yet there is no class of people 
with whom the daily bath in summer time is a more 
Fig. 1.— BATH-HOUSE. 
imperative duty, and scarcely any to whom the duty 
canbe made more easily practicable. Generally, 
farm houses have few conveniences for bathing in- 
doors, but there is plenty of room out of doors for 
It. A bath-house will be found probably the most 
convenient arrangement. Where there is a small 
stream upon the farm, the plan shown in figures 1 
and 2 may be adopted. We have made use of such 
a contrivance for the convenience of our own 
workmen, and they and their boys very gladly 
profited by it. It consists of six light poles or 
scantlings, pointed at one end, and set in the ground 
so as to cross the stream. Eight light cross-pieces 
are made with a wire hook at each end ; the little 
brass hooks sold at the shops will answer the pur- 
pose. These hooks fit into small eye-screws in- 
serted into the upright pieces, so that when the 
frame is put together a screen of double width 
brown 6heeting may be hung around them. One 
side is made to open like a tent door, but may bo 
closed by means of buttons and button-holes upon 
the ends of the strip of eloth. The screen incloses 
a space sufficieutly large for a person to bathe in. 
A plank is placed across the stream upon which 
one may stand while dressing or nndressing, and 
some hooks are fastened to one of the cross-pieces 
upon which to hang the clothes. Figure 1 shows 
Fig. 4. — cup VALVE. 
the appearance of the screen. Figure 2 shows the 
inside with the arrangement of the frame. Where 
there is no stream upon the farm, a bath-house of 
similar construction might be set up in the back- 
yard, in which a pail or tub of water might take 
the place of the stream, 
A bath-house of somewhat more solid character 
is shown at figure 3. It is arranged for a shower- 
bath, ami is built of light scantling and boards. A 
platform is made within upon which the bather 
may stand, and from which the water may run into 
a drain and be carried away. A common tub is 
placed upon the roof, in the bottom of which the 
cup valve seen at figure 4, with the sprinkler and 
pipe, is fitted and cemented so as to be water-tight. 
The pipe may be of lead, and the valve cup and 
sprinkler of tin. The valve is a ball of lead, which 
is attached by a cord to a lever. From the other 
end of the lever a cord passes iuto the house 
within reach of the bather. It is not wise to u^ e 
cold water from a well for a shower-bath, but only 
water which has been exposed 
to the air and sun until it has 
gained the same temperature 
as the atmosphere. Nor is it 
wise to allow a sudden shower 
to fall upon the head or 
shoulders and the back of the 
neck, as is frequently done. 
But when the water is falling 
the feet should be extended 
alternately into the stream, 
then each knee, then one side, 
afterwards the other, and by 
and by the stream may be re- 
ceived upon the shoulders and 
the back. In the mean time 
friction of the body should be 
kept up with a sponge or flesh 
brush, and the bath should 
not be long continued. The 
reaction from a bath thus 
taken is very pleasant, and 
after a weary day in the hay 
or harvest field it brings a sensation of purity as 
well as of rest. It prevents that unwholesome, 
clammy perspiration winch is always experienced 
when the skin is foul, and it produces grateful, 
restful sleep. Of course, no person who takes this 
necessary pains to be clean will sleep in his work- 
ing underclothing; that would be greatly undoing 
what the bath has done. The working under- 
clothing should hang all night in an airy place, 
and a proper night-dress should be worn in bed. 
Home Topics. 
BT FAITH ROCHESTER. 
"Good Living." — There is a difference of opin- 
ion as to what constitutes good living, and I shall 
not undertake to settle any disputes dc gustiius. 
The Esquimaux Indian may eat his delicious tallow 
candle and drink his whale oil, and call both good ; 
the Icelander may delight in his rancid butter ; and 
others may swallow sour-krout with unmoved face, 
or cook and eat their wild game after it has become 
unbearable to the sense of smell — I shall not say 
that these things are not pleasant to the taste of 
those who eat them — but "deliver me." Science 
may put in a modest word — and Science, you ob- 
serve, grows more and more modest in her dictions 
— concerning the healthfulncss of various articles of 
diet. She may venture to ask us whether anything 
can really be good living which gives only a 
momentary pleasure to the nerves of taste, while it 
destroys the comfort of the body and undermines 
the health. 
Nothing can be called "good living" by a person 
who has not the least relish for it, and it is doubt- 
ful whether anything is really good for a person 
which is eaten with positive disrelish. So I think 
it very unwise to oblige children to cat anything 
agaiust which their stomachs rebel, because they 
have taken it upon their plates or because we think 
it is good for them. I know the dilemma very well, 
and am sometimes obliged to decide that it shall 
be that or nothing farther at that meal, when I 
perceive that the child refuses its plain fare, which 
was palatable only a moment before, as soon as it 
catches sight of something more dainty. 
But it is very certain that the appetite changes 
with habit, and that it is capable of cultivation. 
Children who are brought up to eat vegetables 
saturated with butter and highly seasoned with 
pepper and salt, so that very little, if any. of the 
natural flavor of the vegetable is retained, can not 
believe that they could relish the same things sim- 
ply well-cooked and only very moderately seasoned. 
They even prefer rancid butter on their squash or 
turnip to no butter at all, and then if there is any 
disagreeable flavor, or combination of flavors, they 
drown it out with pepper. 
It sometimes happens that a person who has 
learned how much depends upon care in the pre- 
paration of articles of food will sit down to a table 
where there is a variety of dishes which he would 
like if suitably cooked, and not find a single thing 
that he can relish. The potatoes are soggy, or 
flavored with the decay which one or more bad 
ones had imparted to the kettleful, or they are 
served swimming in hog's fat or melted butter. 
The other vegetables are all tainted with poor but- 
ter, or made hot with pepper or over-salted. The 
eggs are cooked so much as to be very hard of 
Fig. 3. — INTEIUOB OF BATH-HOUSE. 
digestion. The meat is not "just done," or is too 
greasy. The prepared fruit has been deprived ol 
its own finest flavor, and the fault has not beeu 
remedied by the excess of sugar in its seasoning. 
The yeast bread is sour and hard, and the hot bis- 
cuit is green with soda. Even the graham gem 
gives out an odor of soda as you break it open, and 
the oatmeal mush is so salt that you can not like 
it. Even the milk tastes of the cellar. But there 
is cake and there is pie, and you are supposed to 
be able to fall back upon these with satisfaction ; 
but it is not at all likely that a housekeeper who 
spoils all her plain cookery by carelessness or ig- 
norance will give you very satisfactory and whole- 
some pie or cake. Anyhow, a well-educated stom- 
ach does not wish to depend upon pie and cake — it 
wants good nutritious aud appetizing food. 
A Man's Repokt of a Good Cook.— A gentle- 
man who had just returned from a business trip to 
Missouri said in my hearing that Mrs. was the 
"best cook in Missouri." I took an early oppor- 
tunity to ask him to tell me wherein the excellence 
of her cooking lay. 
"Well, in the first place," said he, laughing, 
"her table-cloth is always nice and clean. Then 
her dishes are always 
so bright, and every- 
thing she puts on 
the table comes on 
in good shape, 
somehow." 
"Go on," I said, 
" All this gives you 
a good appetite for 
the food itself." 
"Yes," he replied. 
"I always feel as 
though the victuals 
would he good as 
soon as I see her table, and they are good. She 
gives us just the same things that we get at other 
places, and they seem to be cooked plainly and 
not much seasoned, but they are always cooked 
just right— nothing burned and nothing half raw. 
And they all look so nice ! " 
"You see, Faith," good-naturedly interposed 
this gentleman's wife, to whose skirts two small 
children were at that moment clinging — " You sec, 
SnOWEF.-EATn. 
