1881.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
207 
keeping the strips an inch apart, by alternat¬ 
ing short square pieces of wood upon the 
wires. Fasten the ends of the wires when 
the mat is made as wide as desired, and it is 
ready for use. A very useful mud mat may 
he made from a piece of plank of convenient 
size, in which inch or inch and a half holes 
are bored. Into these holes are placed tufts 
of corn husks made tight, by driving in pegs 
with them. A mat of this kind will cost 
nothing, and last long. If all persons who 
have muddy boots will first scrape them, and 
next use the mud mat, and afterwards the 
ordinary door mat, much mud will be kept 
out of the house, and the labors of the neat 
housewife will be thereby greatly lessened. 
Our Rural Improvement Society. 
Of course we believe in “ Rural Improve¬ 
ment Societies,” for did we not several years 
ago record the work of one of the veiy first 
and most successful of them, and thus incite 
the forming of others ? When we read that 
the inhabitants of this or that village have 
formed a “Rural Improvement Society,” 
have chosen officers and are going to work at 
once, we rejoice. We know that it means 
for that locality, street trees, passable roads, 
well kept front yards, and many other im¬ 
provements that most villages need. But all 
of our readers do not five in villages ; and 
■our farmers are generally too far apart for 
this concert of action. Yet farmers need the 
work of an improvement society quite as 
much as villagers ; hence we propose “ Our 
Rural Improvement Society,” intended espec¬ 
ially for every reader of the American Agri¬ 
culturist, who lives upon a farm, though 
those who have the misfortunes to live in 
villages,towns,and cities,will not be excluded. 
Generally, in the press of farm work at this 
season, this “Society” must consist of one 
—and that one the wife and mother. All 
the better if we can have the father and hus¬ 
band, and better still if there are sons and 
daughters who can aid. But as things go on 
our farms, our “ Society ” will be a very com¬ 
pact body, having an executive committee of 
one, and she should have power to call in 
aid. This Society must be formed at the 
proper time, and that is, now. No time need 
be wasted, as is always the case in large 
bodies, in discussing the constitution and by¬ 
laws. For our Society, these may all be 
comprised in “I must, I can, I will,” and it 
will always have a quorum, and need spend 
no time in the election of officers. Its great 
end and aim should be to organize itself now 
and get at work before hot weather comes 
upon us. Its organization being completed, 
what should be 
The First Work of the Society ? 
If there is anything that gives an idea of 
refinement and comfort within the farm 
house, it is a neat approach to it, a well kept 
front yard. The Executive Committee of 
■one, if it makes its first visit to the front 
yard, should pass right through it to the back 
yard and sit in consultation on the condition 
of the sink spout. It is delightful to have 
a veranda shaded by vines with fragrant 
flowers, but—where does your kitchen sink 
spout terminate ? If horrid smells come from 
that spout, so much the better, as these may 
call attention to the matter. This being 
the weak spot in the arrangements of the 
majority of country houses—the disposal of 
the kitchen waste, it is the very first thing 
that should receive the attention of our 
“Rural Improvement Society.” Ah! many 
a little coffin has gone out at the front door 
because the sink spout at the back door had 
been neglected. Unless physicians, chemists, 
and sanitary scientists are all wrong, sewer- 
gas—and the emanations from the sink on 
the farm are as much sewer-gas as those from 
the many sinks of a large city—is deadly. 
In building, whether the house is a log-cabin 
or one designed by a city architect, we find 
provision made for getting the kitchen waste 
water out of the house, and but veiy little 
care to taking it away from the house. A 
too common method is, to carry the waste 
water off for a few feet, to an open ditch, 
trusting that it will soak away there, and 
be thus disposed of. The ditch may end in a 
hole covered with boards, called a cess-pool. 
Both these depend upon the supposition that 
the waste water will soak away, be taken up 
by the earth of the ditch or cess-pool. But 
the trouble is that the thing will not work. 
Grease and other matters soon fill the earth 
and the ditch and the cess-pool, and in a short 
time they become water-tight. The waste 
water cannot soak away within this limited 
space. All that our Society can do at once 
to avoid danger from this sink drain, is to 
provide some means for the waste water to 
soak away under the surface. A few feet of 
ditch or a cess-pool the size of a flour barrel, 
will not answer for the waste water of a 
family. Carry the waste water away through 
drain tiles or wooden drains with holes in 
their sides. Provide means at once where all 
that enters the sink can rim over into fields, 
meadows, or wherever it can go below the 
surface, and be soaked up as a temporary ex- 
* pedient. Get it away from the house at once, 
and then set about studying up and providing 
some permanent method of disposing of the 
house waste. We have placed the sink drain 
as the first thing for the consideration of our 
“ Rural Improvement Society,” but the privy 
is scarcely of less importance. There is but 
one way to improve the ordinary privy, with 
a vault, whether on the farm, or in a village 
or city, and that is to fill it up—be done with 
a vile thing that has no excuse for existing. 
Fill up the vault, and employ some one of the 
several methods we have given for making it 
useful as an Earth Closet. One of the first 
things that our Society should learn is the 
wonderful utility of dry earth. This does not 
mean sand, but good stiff loam made not 
merely so that it is not wet or damp, but dry 
—thoroughly dry— dust dry, and sifted 
through a coarse sieve to remove the lumps. 
Abolish every vault, and if the appended 
building will be convenient, then arrange a 
receptacle below the seat, of a kind that can 
be easily removed ; put within the building 
a box of dry earth and a scoop; let every 
member of the family understand how it is 
to be used, and insist that it shall be used. 
The earth-closet will need to be emptied 
at intervals determined by the size of the 
closet, and the family using it. In no case 
should it be left until inconveniently full. 
One of the best ways is to use a stone- 
boat, and a box or barrel, drawing the con¬ 
tents to a compost heap or a distant field. 
Observe another point; no slops from the 
chambers are to go into the Earth Closet. 
The proper place for these is on the manure 
heap in the barn yard. We have one other 
point just now to which to call the attention 
of our “Rural Improvement Society,” and 
that is the well. Most farm houses draw 
their water supply from a well. Whether 
the water is drawn by buckets or a pump of 
some kind, look to the top of the well. If 
the sink drain and privy have been attended 
to, all danger of infiltration through the soil 
from there is removed. There is still another 
source of danger, one not often thought of— 
that is, the inflow of water at the top of the 
well. This should always be guarded against 
when the well is made, but if there is the 
slightest danger that surface water can flow 
in during heavy rain storms, prevent it at 
once. What must be done will depend upon 
the location. Often a small ditch or surface- 
drain will carry surface water away from the 
well. If it is necessary to raise the surface 
around the mouth of the well, a moraine of 
coal ashes and loam, pounded down firmly, 
will serve as an expedient. If our “Rural 
Improvement Society ” can, during the first 
months, reform the sink drain and the spring, 
and keep the well from the surface water, it 
will have made a most useful beginning. 
A Clothes-Line Reel. 
“C. C. W.” writes : “I have been much 
pleased and benefited by the many timely 
hints and descriptions of handy appliances 
given to the readers of the American Agri¬ 
culturist. I herewith send some drawings of 
Fig. 1.— INTERIOR OP CLOTHES-LINE REEL. 
a convenience which is both simple and 
handy. It is a cheap clothes-line reel. I had 
long coveted one of these, offered at the 
hardware stores, but being unable to buy, I 
set about making one. A box was procured 
from the store—a starch box well made— 
about 18 inches long by 8 inches wide and 
high. I paid a turner ten cents for a shaft 
about l 1 /* inch in diameter, and the length 
of the box. A hole was cut in one end of 
the box the size of the shaft, the other end 
of the shaft coming up flush with the inside 
of the box and held in place by a large 
screw. The opposite end of the shaft has a 
ratchet wheel of wood, with a crank fas¬ 
tened to the shaft by two long screws. A 
pawl of wood engages the wheel and holds 
the line taut. There is a hole in one end of 
the shaft large enough for the line to pass 
through, it being fastened by a knot tied in 
one end. On the back 
is a strip one inch thick, 
2 inches wide, and about 
2 inches longer than the 
width of the box, with 
slots in the ends to haug 
the reel upon two large 
screws in the side of 
the house, or other con¬ 
venient place. The cover 
is fastened on with two butts on the lower 
side, and turns down out of the way when 
the reel is used. The total cost of this handy 
device was 25cents.” The construction of the 
reel is given in figure 1, and figure 2 shows the 
ratchet wheel with the crank and the pawl. 
Fig. 2.—CRANK AND 
PAWL. 
