THE SENSE OF SMELL. 
283 
THE SENSE OF SMELL. 
Insensible must be that person who can take 
a beautiful and fragrant rose into his hand with¬ 
out feeling thankful for so good and perfect a 
gift. With the most systematical form and 
color is blended an odor more exquisite than all 
the arts of the chemist’s laboratory could ever 
imitate, or we enjoy, but for the sense of smell. 
This lovely flower is a favorite among all people 
wherever it grows, and is more sought after by 
civilised man, than any other. Why ? Is it 
because of'its beautiful varying tints? No, for 
other flowers, the dahlia, for instance, in this is 
more wonderful; but it lacks odor. It gives no 
pleasure to the sense of smell. It is this sense 
that gives us a higher degree of enjoyment than 
the sense of sight. How often have been sung 
the pleasures of the hay field—the beauties of 
making hay. Deprive us of the sense of smell, 
and what should we find there to attract us to 
the spot and give us pleasure ? 
The objects about which the sense of smell is 
constantly employed are as incomprehensible 
as the other creations of the same power that 
created these. They are no casual produc¬ 
tions, they are given to make man happy if he 
so wills it. The sense of smell is the poetry of 
all the senses. It may be cultivated with taste. 
Our dwellings may abound with sweet fla¬ 
vors as well as pleasing views. Everything that 
is cultivated to corrupt the'senseof shiell, should 
be as carefully excluded from the vicinity of 
our homes, as things that are offensive to the 
sight, if we would avoid corrupting the minds 
of those more than tender plants we are rearing 
there. Familiarity with corrupt smells will 
corrupt the taste, and render the sense of smell 
obtuse to the pleasures always enjoyed by this 
pleasure-giving faculty in an uncorrupted state. 
This sense, too, should always be consulted for 
the benefit of our health. That which is offen¬ 
sive to it, indicates that the salubrity of the 
atmosphere is affected, and should warn us at 
once, to remove the cause that is slowly diseas¬ 
ing the human bodies that come within its dele¬ 
terious influence. But the disease of the body 
is not so certain as the disease of the mind, that 
lives within the influence of such vile smells as 
fill the precincts of some places, some human 
beings denominate their home, a word that should 
always call up a sacred feeling of love to hear 
it spoken. 
Here is the picture of a “farmer’s home” I 
lately visited. Not five rods from the door there 
is a duck pond daily stirred up by a dozen dirty 
swine, filling the air with anything but the scent 
of roses. At the east end of the house, and directly 
under the window of the “ spare bedroom,” 
stands—What do you think ? A rose or lilac, 
or a bed of flowers, or a climbing honeysuckle, 
to fill the room with sweet odors, as the morn¬ 
ing sunbeams find their way through a curtain 
of green leaves, charming the sense of smell of 
those who sleep there, and awakening in their 
minds a feeling of thankfulness to God, for the 
gift of smell and odors of flowers that give it 
gratification? No. Instead of these, the space 
is filled with hen coops—useful, to be sure—but 
out of place, and corrupting the atmosphere with 
a most villainous stench. On the south side of 
the house, and directly in view of the door of 
the dining room, and scarcely fifty feet from it, 
stands a small building, which should always 
be located far away from the dwelling, and if 
possible, out of the range of prevailing summer 
winds, shrouded with evergreens and creeping 
vines, and kept in such condition by the use of 
substances that absorb ammonia, and frequent 
cleanings, that the sense of smell should scarcely 
be offended by a visit to it, as it now is while 
partaking of the morning meal. By the side of 
the back kitchen door, stands the swill barrel, 
steaming with putrifying buttermilk and bonny 
clabber; and just three rods off. is the trough 
and pen where it is fed to the pigs; and imme¬ 
diately in connection with that, the cowyards and 
stables. On the side opposite the swill barrel, 
and within three feet of the door, is the spout 
of the kitchen sink, and an open drain to carry 
all the dirty suds and slops slowly winding along 
between overhanging weeds to feed the duck 
pond first mentioned. The house itself, a one- 
story, shingle-sided, gambrel-roofed, unpainted 
structure, with stone chimneys, stands corner- 
ways to the road, and separated from it by a 
crooked rail fence, and rickety gate, without a 
single shade tree to hide its hideous nakedness, 
nor a flower to charm away the offence offered 
to the sense of smell by all the horrid things 
surrounding this farmer’s home. 
Can the inmates of such a house be pure in 
heart? Does not the mind of man grow upon 
the food it feeds upon ? Can the sense of smell 
be blunted and save the moral faculties free of 
contamination ? Is it to be wondered at that 
children, who have such a home as this, when¬ 
ever their minds become elevated by visits to 
more pleasing scenes, lose their love for the old 
birthplace of themselves and their ancestors and 
wander far away from fatherland, in pursuit of 
enjoyments that might have been procured at 
home, only that they have been sickened with 
everything connected with it that calls up a rem- 
iniscense of its offensive sights and smells ? 
Shall we be told these things cannot be avoid¬ 
ed on the farm—that manure must be made, and 
such objections arise from ridiculous fastidious¬ 
ness? Truth will answer, the more cleanly the 
premises, the more free from offense to the sense 
of smell, the more are the fertilising properties 
of all offensive substances saved and locked up 
in fresh mold, charcoal, peat, copperas, tanner’s 
bark, or better still, gypsum, which have been 
freely used, to keep the air sweet and pure, and 
concentrate the escaping ammonia in a solid 
form, to carry to the field, and increase the grow¬ 
ing crops to a value ten times greater than all 
the cost of the substances that in the using have 
added so much to the pleasures of the farmer’s 
home. Fastidious indeed! Pity it were not 
more fashionable. If you would make your 
children coarse and unintellectual beings, rear 
them in just such a place as I have described; 
scold them for being top fastidious if they “ turn 
up their noses” at the vile odors surrounding 
them, and you will succeed in blunting the 
