desired to have the posts square at both ends, the mold must be arranged as in Fig. 366. This latter form of post is not so strong as the former, but requires less concrete in its construction. Great care in tamping is necessary to insure the corners Fig. 370. A self-opening gate. When the wheel on the opposite side of the gate. of the mold being well filled, and if this detail is not carefully watched the metal, being exposed in places, will be subject to rust." Stone anchor-walls make good end or corner fence supports, and if made with care will add much to the appearance of the farm. Boulders from the farm are laid in cement, holes being left for the passage of the wires. The best practice is to fasten the wire on the inside of the posts; that is, on the side toward the field where the stock is pastured. The vertical alignment of the posts must be perfect, or the tension will draw some of the staples. If the corner posts are permanently placed, the others may be replaced without injury to the fence. A mode of securing the wire to the post, from Farmers' Bulletin No. 235, is shown in Fig. 367. Portable fences. It is often desirable to have portable fences that may be quickly set up and quickly removed. It is not long since rails were laboriously moved from place to place for temporary inclosures; but of late years portable wire fences have come much into use. A roll of woven wire fence will be found useful on every farm keeping stock. It may be quickly strung across a field, and as easily removed. Many efficient portable wooden fences are also in use. A good fence is made in sections or panels that fit into triangular jacks notched at the top where the side pieces cross, and in the bottom piece. Gates. Good fences give little satisfaction unless the gates are closed, and are strong enough to turn the stock. When gates are in constant use it is imperative that they swing freely. A common style that requires hand-lifting is the board gate that slides part way open on wooden crossbars before it swings. The chief advantage of this gate is that it reduces the strain on the posts to a minimum. The more common form is the hinged gate. It is easily swung, but there is difficulty in keeping the posts in position so that the "nose" will not drag. The posts must be most carefully set and be sufficiently large and strong to bear the continued strain of the gate. This demands more than ordinary care, especially when wooden posts are used. Well-made cement or stone posts give the most satisfaction in the long run. Many styles of gates are in common use, most of which give satisfaction. In fact, the satisfaction depends much less on the style of gate than on the success of the hanging. The gate may be made to swing both ways on simple iron hinges. Or, it may be pivoted in the center and when open will allow two teams to pass through at the same time. This calls for two driveways, one on each side of the center or pivot of the gate. In Fig. 369 is shown a wire gate that may be made of any woven wire fencing. The wire is fastened to one end of the gate, and at the other end to the bar that fits inside of the top and bottom railings; this is attached by two bolts to the upright frame of the gate and drawn to it until the wire is as tight as desired. A convenient and light brace to keep the gate from sagging is made by fastening a No. 9 wire to the outward lower corner and at the upper and hinged end to a ratchet placed in an an angular depression on the top of the frame. This structure is light and will serve the purposes ordinarily required of a gate. The board gate is heavy of itself and on the posts; its own weight will in time warp the braces and allow the point to rest on the ground. When boards are placed side by side, water is held, and rotting will result. A self-opening gate that has been in constant use for more than twenty years and is still swinging to the same locust posts, is shown in Fig. 370. The gate is framed from oak with upright iron rods bent to a half circle at the top. The hinge will Fig. 371. A pair of good farm gates. The large one in front is for stock and teams. The small gate is for persons; it is always closed, as it swings in a pocket of the fence. These can be used with wire fences, also. open the gate only one way, but as the top hinge is only a bent rod there is no mechanism to break. As the wheel throws the trip, the top hinge is drawn back and to the side to which the gate has been arranged to open. This pulls the top of the gate back and free from the latch, and, the hinge now being out of line, the gate swings open; likewise it is closed as the wheel passes over the trip at the opposite side of the gate. A third post must be placed to hold the gate open as the spring latch strikes it; as in opening, the hinge at the top is again thrown by the trip out of line and back, thus lifting the gate away from the post so that it is free to swing shut with its own weight. Such a gate is most convenient at the end of a private drive leading to the public road. Gates similar to these are advertised, yet few, if any, are so simple as the one shown. CHAPTER VIII SANITATION, AND WATER-SUPPLIES F ALL PERSONS, the farmer should be best provided with healthful surroundings. He has room, sunlight, clean air, exercise, normal sleep,-blessings so indigenous that he does not know their value; he does not realize the necessity of giving attention to sanitary surroundings. There are no energetic boards of health to look over his premises. He is so separate that the neighbors do not complain. He has taken health for granted. His exercise is likely to be only work, and it may not develop his physique or contribute to the preservation of health. The number of crooked and bent persons on the farms is very great. The city man is likely to have a better carriage. Probably no persons are in greater need of physical training and setting-up than the farmer, to correct the effects of his daily occupation and to keep the body resistant and resilient. In food the farmer has distinct advantage, since he buys less than other persons, and by that much is free from the dangers of contamination and adulteration. It is said that the farm cooking is not of the kind to produce the most sanitary results, but it undoubtedly is superior in this respect to the fancy and sophisticated cooking of many of the hotels and clubs. It has the merit of simplicity and veracity. All cooking is being restudied from the standpoint of rational scientific practice, and mere conventional dishes must go. We shall cook with less labor and better results when we learn the reasons underlying the practice. There will be a reaction against many factorymade food supplies, and a consequent reviving of home-made products. Even non-manufactured products, as fruits and vegetables, may be contaminated by exposure in stores and by much handling. The great emphasis in maintaining health must be placed on sanitation rather than on medicine. Physicians have studied morbid processes more than sanitation; in time, we shall have colleges of health rather than colleges of medicine. In time, also, it will be the first duty of schools to teach persons how to live; now most persons learn only by experience, and life is half gone before the significance and application of the experience are apparent. The science and practice of sanitation are yet new, but we now have sufficient knowledge to guide us to rational lines of procedure. Sanitation rests on two fundamentals: keeping the body in normal condition and function; excluding sources of contamination. The conditions and practices that will keep the body in normal function vary with every person. This means that the person must study himself. Every person is experimenting with himself every day. He should watch the result of this daily experience as carefully as he would watch the growth of crops or the behavior of a favorite horse. When the person has arrived at adulthood he should know himself, and what is good for him and what bad in the common routine of life, better than any other person can possibly know. It is so easy to say that pure air, abundant sleep, cleanliness, wholesome food and drink, active exercise, moderation in all things, and a calm mind are essential to perfect bodily function and long days that the statement makes no impression on us. Yet it is just these things that will finally release us from Bright's disease and dyspepsia and the larger part of functional disorders and relieve us from "treatment." All these things may be the farmer's if he knows how to avail himself of them. Most of us halt through life and hasten to the grave by sheer neglect of the plainest conditions to health and ignorant or thoughtless abuse of the good body with which we were born. The keynote of it all is to be satisfied with plain and simple things, reserving all the surplus appetite and energy for strong and honest work and for the enjoyment of what comes naturally and in due season. The Editor has no mind to turn preacher; but there is need of saying that health lies in the use of conditions and opportunities rather than in the patronizing of the drug-store. Some day, residences and schoolhouses and churches will be ventilated as rationally as the best cow-stables are now ventilated. Every good farm dwelling will have running water, and a bathtub that is often used. Water-supplies will eliminate much of the constipation and remove unsanitary conditions. Dust-trap mouldings and casings and hangings will be no part of a human habitation, and houses will be cleaned by taking the dust out of them rather than by moving it from place to place by the use of "dusters." Dish-washing will be reorganized, for many utensils need to be sterilized as well as merely cleaned of the visible materials. Milk and other food will be kept clean and free of contamination. Streams and springs and wells will be looked after. Animals will be kept healthy in order that the humans may also be healthy. Ways will be found of doing all this, and much more, not by adding to the labors of householding but by reorganizing the whole procedure and by making it rational and therefore simpler and directer. The ways of relieving the stress and burden of household work, to the end that the home may be more sanitary and less wasteful of nervous and muscular energy, are mostly of three kinds : simplifying the living; constructing more rational buildings; introducing better mechanical appliances. The chief labor of the household revolves about the preparing of food and the cleaning of the house. Both of these are not only consuming of labor, but are directly concerned with health, for food provides the sustenance and the house harbors dust. The buildings have been discussed in the foregoing chapter. A paragraph may be given here to the living and another to the appliances. The amount of energy consumed in the preparation of food and the consequent washing of dishes is beyond all reason. There is no kind of sense in having such an enormous variety of food as most human beings in good circumstances devour. It is merely a concession to custom. It would seem as if our measure of a competency is the number of kinds of food and the quantity of it that we are able to pile on our tables. A first-class hotel has come to be a place that supplies no end of things and of service that nobody should want. A few wholesome and clean articles of food, thoroughly well-prepared and in sufficient quantity, should satisfy the ordinary course of one's life; yet we search the earth to discover new things that can be eaten, most of which satisfy only appetite and not digestion and the demand for which is psychological and not gastronomic. One can be satisfied as well with a plain moderate variety as with the endless articles and mixtures that we now consume; and in time there will be an awakening to simplicity and temperance in eating as there now is to drinking. When we change our attitude toward the dining table, we will reduce the labor of preparing food, and half the work of cleaning dishes-which is now irrationally done, for the most part-will be at once eliminated. Having reduced the necessity for much of the household labor, we shall alleviate the burden of the remaining part of it. This relief will come in part through really good and simple mechanical appliances. Our attention to machinery has been given mostly to the invention of large and elaborate mechanisms for field work and manufacture. We now need machines to relieve the daily work about house and barn. In time every complete residence will be provided with light power, which will run simple and effective machines to aid in the laundry, kitchen work, small dairy, pumping of water-supplies, to carry burdens on accustomed routes between rooms and buildings, and to save human strength and administer to comfort in many other ways. A complete and fundamental reorganization of our household activities, resulting from a change in our point of view on life, will relieve householding of the greater part of its present toil and anxiety; and the result will accrue in better health. Supervision of health conditions, by means of some kind of boards or inspectors, will come for the country as it has now come for the city, and quite as much for the protection of the city as for the protection of the country. The agricultural colleges are beginning to force these questions in the teaching of subjects relating to home-making, for the country must live up to its full opportunities. Some of the literature on sanitation and water-supplies, especially with reference to rural communities, which is accessible to farmers, is given below, most of it having been suggested by the authors of the articles that follow: Public Water-Supplies, Turneaure and Russell; Handbook on Sanitation, Price; A Guide to Sanitary House-Inspection, Gerhard; Sanitation of the Country House, Harvey B. Bashore; Water-Supply, Mason; Water and Public Health, Fuertes; The Chemistry of Life and Health, Kimmins; Foods, Smith; The Earth in Relation to the Preservation and Destruction of Contagia, Poore; Bacteria, Newman; Mineral Waters, Report of Missouri Geological Survey, 1892, Schweitzer; Artesian Waters, Iowa Geological Survey, Vol. 6, Norton; The Farmstead, I. P. Roberts; Theory and Practice of Hygiene, J. L. Notter; Principles of Hygiene, D. H. Bergey; Treatise on Hygiene and Public Health, Stevenson and Murphy; Bacteria, Yeasts and Moulds in the Home, H. W. Conn; Trans. International Health Exhibition, London, 1884 (contains papers applicable to rural districts); Proper Disposal of Sewerage Wastes in Rural Districts, Julius Nelson, Bulletin No. 166, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, June 27, 1903; Sanitary Conditions in the Home and on the Farm, Haven Metcalf, Bulletin No. 89, South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, 1904; Sewage Disposal on the Farm and Protection of Drinking Water, T. Smith, Farmers' Bulletin No. 43, United States Department Agriculture, 1896; Practical Suggestions for Farm Buildings, George G. Hill, Farmers' Bulletin No. 126, United States Department Agriculture, 1901; Distilled Water for Drinking Purposes, Farmers' Bulletin No. 124, United States Department Agriculture, 1901; How Insects Affect Health in Rural Districts, L. O. Howard, Farmers' Bulletin No. 155, United States Department Agriculture, 1902; Mosquitoes, L. O. Howard, 1902; Milk, Butter and Cheese as Carriers of Infectious Disease, Veranus A. Moore, Yearbook, 1895, United States Department Agriculture, p. 431; Water-Supplies for Farm Residences, H. N. Ogden, Bulletin No. 29, Cornell ReadingCourse for Farmers, 1906 (contains the greater part of Professor Ogden's article in the present chapter, the article having been prepared specially for this Cyclopedia); Dust as Related to Food, R. A. Pearson and others, Bulletin No. 18, Cornell Reading-Course for Farmers' Wives; Sanitation of Farm Buildings, J. Scott, Trans. Highland and Agricultural Society, Scotland, 1897, pp. 40-60. GENERAL VIEW OF FARM SANITATION By Severance Burrage The fact is too commonly overlooked that sanitation is concerned with many things other than the water-supply and the disposal of sewage, and dry foundations for the buildings. The orientation of the house, the planting about it, the construction, heating and ventilation of the house, the furnishings and general care of the house, and, in fact, all the factors that have to do with the health of the persons and stock in the home and on the farm are more or less closely related to farm sanitation, and must be considered in a discussion of that subject. It is the purpose of this article to treat briefly of the more important of these factors. Location of the house. In choosing a site for a farmhouse, the following factors should be considered carefully at the start the character of the soil and its elevation relative to the surrounding country; the proximity of forests, deserts or bodies of water; the geology of the region; the possibility of proper drainage and disposal of household wastes; a pure and sufficient water-supply; safe distance from barns and other outbuildings. Porous soils, that is, gravel and sand, are the most healthful. They allow air and water to pass through them. The level of the ground water in such soils is not constant, depending largely on the amount of rainfall. The rise and fall of the ground water creates a respiration or ventilation of the soil which is most valuable. Rock or clay beds do not permit a free passage of air and water, are not easily drained, retain moisture on the surface, and are consequently unhealthful. It is a problem of great difficulty to drain properly a heavy clay soil. Such a soil should not be used for the site of a dwelling unless properly drained. Proper drainage of soil requires that the level of the ground water be six feet or more below the surface, some authorities requiring that it be at least ten feet. A southern exposure is desirable, and every effort should be made to secure sunlight in each room in the house at some time in the day. The value of sunlight as a promoter of health and preserver of wholesome conditions cannot be overestimated. The living-rooms should be so placed as to receive the maximum amount of sunlight. The windows of such rooms should be protected in the warm weather from the heat and glare of the sun, by blinds, awnings or trees. Trees in moderation about a house are a benefit, but tree-planting is easily overdone, shading the house too much and making the surroundings damp. Trees tend to prevent the free circulation of air (Fig. 373). Barns and other buildings should never be placed so as to prevent the sunlight and air from reaching the dwelling. Aside from the general conditions of dampness prevailing near swamps and bodies of water, the fact that these places afford a breeding-place for the mosquito renders them undesirable neighbors. The old idea that malaria is caused by an effluvium having its origin in swamps and damp soil no longer prevails, for it is known that certain kinds of mosquitos are the spreaders of malaria and malarial fevers. Even the rain-water barrel should be covered, to prevent the access of mosquitos to lay their eggs. Temporary pools and puddles of stagnant water should be dispensed with; and permanent ponds should be covered with coal-oil during the breeding season of the mosquito (See page 287). General construction of the house. Care should be exercised in the construction of the house in regard to the general safety of its inhabitants. The persons should be protected at all times from the weather, sudden changes in temperature and wind- and rain-storms. The timbers used in construction should be of sufficient strength to bear all loads coming on them, even under exceptional circumstances. The roof should provide the necessary protection, and be able to bear the snow. It is essential that the foundation and walls be as dry as possible. When the soil is damp, a satisfactory condition can be secured only by draining the subsoil below the foundation; and aside from this the foundation walls and cellar floors should be cemented. A cellar is always advisable, but should there not be one, the ground floor should be raised two feet or more from the ground, thus permitting thorough ventilation beneath the house. The cellar should be carefully constructed in order that it may be dry. A damp cellar is much worse than none. Care should be taken to make the cellar as light as possible, having as many windows on the sunny side as the construction of the house will permit. The windows must be arranged to open and close easily, and should be kept open during the dry weather. This will be of great assistance in keeping the cellar well-ventilated, dry, and free from odors. ing up around the stove, and enters the room through outlets at the top of the jacket. In this way the room is much more evenly heated, and is supplied with fresh air without creating any noticeable drafts. The house that has a cellar may be supplied with a hot-air furnace, which is in reality a modification of the jacketed stove mentioned above. By this method, a pipe carrying the heated air goes to each room. The air thus heated is supplied to the furnace through a cold-air box. Whether the coldair box is to supply the jacketed stove or the furnace, the outer opening should never be placed on the side of the house near such air contaminators as privies, manure heaps, stables, henyards, piggeries or garbage cans. Fireplaces are excellent room-heaters in moderate weather, and provide a most desirable ventilation, but they cannot be relied on in extreme weather. Systems of steam and hot-water heating are becom-ing very popular and are the most reliable systems. They heat the house comfortably and evenly, but have the objection from the sanitary stand Fig. 373. Overplanting of trees, preventing access of light and circulation of air. The private house, particularly one in the country, rarely has a system of ventilation. A wellbuilt house, however, needs much ventilation, especially when it is artificially heated. The most common method of heating the farmhouse is by wood, coal or gas stoves. Such a method is undesirable because it heats the room or house very unevenly; heats the same air over and over, with no supply of fresh air except that which seeps in through cracks in floors and about windows and doors. It often happens that poisonous gases are given off through the heated metal of the stoves, which result in headaches and other ailments. If stoves are to be used, the only ones that are advisable from the sanitary standpoint are the so-called "jacketed" stoves. A jacket of wood, lined with galvanized iron or asbestos, is constructed around the stove and connected with the outdoors by a pipe or cold-air box. The fresh air enters the jacket from below, is warmed in pass point of not providing any means of ventilation. If such a system is installed in the country home, some provision should be made for supplying fresh air, for in a well-constructed house there will not be sufficient supplied through cracks in the floors, walls and about windows and doors. There are many simple devices for placing in windows, some of which can be made at home, that act as excellent ventilators. One of the simplest of these is a narrow board, say three or four inches wide, placed beneath the lower sash so as to raise the upper edge of this sash above the level of the bottom of the upper sash. This forms an opening between the two sashes, by which a current of fresh air enters and passes upward toward the ceiling. When artificial methods of heating are used, some means for providing moisture for the heated air should be supplied. In the hot-air furnace there is a regular water-pan for this purpose, which should be kept filled. Substitutes for this should always be provided with the jacketed stove, or |