14 = 4 = 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[APRIL, 
mination of this abominable insect, need read this. 
Such readers I know I shall have. Once I supposed 
that no decent housekeeper ever had any trouble 
with bed-bugs, and I still believe that no decent 
housekeeper will rest contented while any remain 
on her premises. But alas ! and alas ! The small 
pestiferous creatures have given me more than one 
severe trial of patience and skill. 
I don’t know that I ever saw one of these bugs 
until I had grown to womanhood, but I have seen 
too many since. How could I help it when I lived 
in the midst of risks like this one 1 will give as a 
sample, though rather worse than any other experi¬ 
ence of mine in that line. A member of our family 
left a black dress at the house of a neighbor, a mile 
distant, and the dress remained there several weeks. 
When it came home I had the forethought to open 
it out of doors, fearing that one or two of my 
neighbor’s lodgers might have found their way into 
it. I state but the exact truth when I assert that I 
found in that bundle niue full-grown bed-bugs. 
What if the bundle had been laid in one of the 
sleeping rooms for days before it was opened ?. In 
books that had been lent, and in new papers, fresh 
from the little country post office, I found these in¬ 
sects, and yet for a long time I never found one at 
home in my pleasant little log house. At last, after 
I began to have a hired girl, I found them in almost 
every room, and by using kerosene on the beds be¬ 
fore I could get anything else, I scattered them 
into the walls. I did not know how to hunt the 
creatures, and so I worked, night and day, all sum¬ 
mer long—and that accounts for some of the pre¬ 
mature wrinkles I wear. But I have learned what 
some discouraged housekeeper will be glad to hear, 
that even an unplastered log house may be cleaned 
of vermin, after they have got considerable foot¬ 
hold in the walls. It is sometimes a hard fight, but 
how can any one give it up and have any more en¬ 
joyment in this life ? Some have sold their houses 
for the sake of getting rid of the live stock infest¬ 
ing them—rather wicked treatment of purchasers. 
The most natural place for bed-bugs is in the 
beds—or in the bedsteads. It is a piece of folly to 
simply try to drive them out, without attempting 
immediate extermination. They can be caught and 
killed more easily in the beds, than in the walls, 
floors, or furniture. If a bed is considerably inhabit¬ 
ed by bugs, it is hardly safe to take it down and 
carry out the pieces. I should prefer to take off 
the clothing, one piece at a time, and examine each 
thing very carefully, especially along the seams and 
corners, and laying each piece so examined, out of 
doors if possible. Then I would put a large white 
sheet on the floor under the whole bedstead, and 
beginning at one corner, with a fine knitting needle, 
poke out the cracks as clean as possible, stopping 
often to put the bugs to death before they run 
away. It might be well to set each leg, one at a 
time, in an old pan or tub with hot water or strong 
soap suds in the bottom. Examine every nail hole 
and loose place, every crack and joint, even along 
the top of the head and foot boards. 
It seems to be a common practice to scald sus¬ 
picious bedsteads with boiling water, but this very 
seldom finishes the business. I am told that it 
does not destroy the vitality of the eggs, but per¬ 
haps the continued propagation of the vermin in 
bedsteads often scalded, is due to carelessness in 
hunting out all of their haunts. Of course boiling 
water injures the varnish of bedsteads. It was a 
long time before I learned to know the eggs of the 
bugs. Housekeepers who had had years of acquain¬ 
tance with the grown and growing specimens, 
would tell me that the black specks on the wood 
were nits, but they are of the same nature as fly- 
specks. The egg of the bed-bug appears to the 
eye white and hard, shaped like a long hen’s egg. 
Under the microscope it has delicate rainbow tints, 
and shows a depression in one end, like a turtle’s 
egg. These are usually laid on rough wood, or 
among slivers. I think they can all be discovered 
and destroyed by a careful hunter. They can be 
broken by hard pressure ; but I believe that cor¬ 
rosive sublimate destroys them, and ammonia is said 
to do it also. It is well to press a thin knife blade 
through the cracks, and scrape it along the bed slats. 
Having killed every live specimen, it is well to 
wash the bedstead clean, taking it down and out of 
doors for the purpose, if one prefers, and then apply 
your corrosive sublimate or ammonia. I like am¬ 
monia better than anything I have tried, but care¬ 
ful hunting, and personal attention to the imme¬ 
diate death by drowning or by crushing, of each 
specimen discovered, avail more than any poisons. 
As soon as a bed is suspected, pull it out from 
the wall, and keep it as free from touching other 
furniture as you can, until it is considered free. 
There are some patent mixtures sold as poisons 
for bed-bugs, but I should let them alone. After 
I had cleared my log house pretty well of bugs, I 
had the walls of the sleeping rooms washed with 
strong lime, or salt and water, applied with a paint 
brush. Bugs hate salt, and will not go where it is. 
If the bugs are not killed, but are simply driven 
from their old haunts by disagreeable applications, 
they lay their eggs on the bedticks and comforta¬ 
bles, and hide in the bedding, and floor, and walls, 
and make night as hideous as ever. Many believe 
that they can not be entirely got rid of, if they once 
get a lodging in the walls, but I know this belief to 
be untrue. Intelligent perseverance can overcome 
even such a mountain of trouble. People who 
plaster houses infested already with bugs, hoping 
thus to circumvent the enemy, are usually disap¬ 
pointed. The bugs find some way to crawl out. 
Sleep. 
A correspondent sends an article upon sleep ; his 
views, though eminently sensible, present nothing- 
new, and the article is too long for us to give it 
place. He illustrates the improper use of sleep by 
the case of a young farmer who brings city habits 
into the country, and rises anywhere from 7 to 9 
o’clock in the morning. We think we know that 
young farmer. Of his own notion, or through the 
advice of his friends, he concludes he never will 
make a business man, and as anybody can run a 
farm, he thinks he will try it—not work himself 
you know, but manage it; he buys fancy animals 
and farm machinery, and usually with other peo¬ 
ple’s money. His house is furnished in city style, 
and he has the usual corps of city servants. We 
know him, in fact he is rather too numerous. But 
as to sleep; our friend hopes, if we cannot publish 
his article, we will give our views on the subject. 
That we can do, and very briefly. Sleep, and 
enough of it, is one of the prime necessities of our 
existence, and more persons are injured by having 
too little than there are by taking too much. To 
appear “ smart,” many persons deprive themselves 
of the amount they really need, and make it up by 
beginning their “ long sleep ” all the sooner. No 
general law can be given as to the proper amount 
of 6leep; like eating, it is governed by the require¬ 
ments of the individual, and must differ greatly. 
The time at which sleep is taken probably makes 
less difference than its regularity. Kailroad men 
on night trains, watchmen, printers, bakers, and 
others, who regularly w-ork at night and sleep in 
the day, are not known to be less healthy than 
others; and sailors, who sleep by short snatches at 
intervals all through the 21 hours, appear to be 
.none the worse for it. The hours for sleeping must 
be governed by one’s occupation, and as the work 
of the world is arranged, a large number of persons 
must be awake while others sleep. If this were not 
the case in cities, there would be no milk or hot 
rolls for breakfast, and the morning papers would 
all be evening ones. Unless one can accommodate 
his sleeping hours to his business, he would not be 
desirable as an engineer on a locomotive to a night 
train. Now farming happens to be an occupation 
in which to succeed certain work must be done in 
the morning. It is imperative that the animals be 
fed early, or they will not thrive. A day’s work 
cannot be done by hired men unless they are started 
early, and they must know that at any time, early 
or late, their work is liable to be supervised, unless 
farm work starts early, things in general will go to 
the bad. Our notion is that if one cannot adapt 
his hours for sleep, as well as all his other habits of 
life to his business—especially if that be farming— 
he had better go into some other business, as it is 
very certain that he will never succeed, except in 
running behind hand. 
The Convenient Arrangement of a Kitchen. 
There is no one room in the house the arrange¬ 
ments of which is of so much importance as that 
of the kitchen. This is especially the case in a 
farm house, yet while we see the kitchen in a city 
house arranged with great care to facilitate the 
work of servants, the kitchen of the farm-house 
seldom has much thought bestowed upon it to help 
the labors of the farmer’s wife. The kitchen in the 
American farm-house, even among those farmers 
who are spoken of as “ well to do ” is the most im¬ 
portant room, and as its w T ork is more generally 
performed by the wife or daughter than by “help,” 
it is of the greatest importance that everything 
possible be done to make this work as light as pos¬ 
sible, and to save taking every unnecessary step. 
We have in former volumes published plans for ar¬ 
ranging the kitchen, and for the immediate sur¬ 
roundings of the sink, but no single plan will answer 
the needs of all, and while what are known as 
“ modern improvements ” are well worth all they 
cost, yet that all, or even a fourth of it is entirely 
beyond the reach of many, especially that large 
A METHOD OF ARRANGING A KITCHEN. 
