FARMERS' HOUSES.

Waikato Times, Volume 354, Issue VII, 20 August 1874, Page 3

FARMERS' HOUSES.

A correspondent writes to the Jfe\r York Tribune about j manure for potatoes, and says : — I keep 100 bent and save-] all the droppings. I wish to prepare this manure bo as to use it in the hill (say a handful) with potato cuttings, but an old farmer tells me that it will muke the tops grow, but will not iDcrenso the size of the tubi-ra. If tins is true, what is the remedy, and if anything is added how should the compost bo prepared ? Is lime sluked with a solution of potash water as a top-dressing for potatoes, when the vines aro six inches high ? — He received the following answer :— Addition to this kind of manure, or rathar application at the same time with it, !of wood ashes will correct any one-tided tendenoy of growth that may follow its' use alone r JJo prepare the manure for putting in the ground, comport it a week or two before using with several times its bulk of damp loam ,or muck. Fork or turn the mass well over to break the dung and intermix it with the loam. Don't use too much of it, A handful of hen manure is enough for sereral bills of potatoes Mix well with the earth and with ashes, lime , or Slaster, a imall handful of either, at planting time, but don't put the seed directly in contact with the manure or compo«t ; let a layer of soil intervene. I ihould not recommend liuie slacked with potash water as a top-dressing to anything except sluj?s or insects. While loam or muck is perfectly safe to use in oompost the quantity beat to use will depend on the rapidity or duration of the composting. Should any smell of ammonia arise cover the heap with loam or muck until it is subdued.

Wher* ,to build ?' and what shall be the plan of the house? are'questions which have to be decided every year by hundreds of fanners all over the country, either young men just married, or who are about " opening " a farm in the bush { or by men who are more advanced in life, who, having dme well, have decided to treat themselves and their faithful wires to a new and better house than the one in which they hare lired and §triven so long and so well together. In cither case it is of the first consequence, and is necessarily the fi^st step to be taken, after having decided to build, to fix an answer to the question

WHEKE SITALI, I BUIID ? Upon the wise decision of this important enquiry depends, to a greater or less extent, the health, the consequent happiness, and errentual success in life of erery young farmer., It has bedri the experience of thousands who began life hopefully, and who went to work with willing and brave hearts, to " clear" a farm, and make it a home for life for themselves tend families, that they did well until sickness came, under which their strength and energy wilted away like a flower without water; and fell behind-hand, lost their energy, ran in debt, and, finally, settled down in the poor ambition of only meeting their expenses from month to month, their idea of getting ahead baring been abandoned for ever. It is demonstrably true that the difference of a few hundred yards —of a dozen rods sometimes —in locating a dwelling for a family, is precisely the difference between its extinction in a few years of disease, and its prosperity, its hoalth, and • large family of industrious, manly sons, and of rsfined, educated, and notable daughters. We have seen the wealthy citizen erect a beautiful building after [spending two yean*, and an immense amount of money in fitting up offices, garden, shrubbery, &c, &c, and when the appoimted time armed, his wife, children, and servants were moved into it. Everybody was delighted with'the "prospect" which it afforded of rirer, and field, and woodlands, and distant mountains. With autumn came chills and fevers among his servants, and thinking it night reach the higher branches of the household he abandoned it, and never occupied it afterward!, being wholly unwilling that his family should lire where such a disease was possible. The hospital* »cd barrack*-in and near Bengal ire now almost useless, taring been built in a locality utterly unfit for human habitations, as far aa health was concerned, Their •rection cost the British Government some millions of pounds. Bu,t it is useless multiplying instances of the kind, for it is to well known to experienced man thnt damp grounds have been the rae»ps of ruining the health of thousands above thousands and brought many to an untimely grave. Ie is undoubtedly true that a few feet distance in the locality of two buildings is the difference sometimes between life and death. These thing! being so, it is a matter of per* tonal happiness and pecuniary interest to every farmer who contemplates building a house, which it to be a home fo* himself and his family probably as long as he lives, to pafsjess himself of such information an to enable him to ascertain certainly why are certain localities so prejudicial to health, or in other words, what is the agent which caused disease in this mysterious manner ? It may seem discoftraging at first new to state that this destructive agency is as invisible as the viewless wind. At the same time it will afford encouragement to be assured that its nature is known, as also some of the laws by which it is regulated, and that by an easy attention to them the Sampson may bo shorn of his locks, and the great destroyer may either be avoided or rendered at harmless at the gentlest touch of infancy. The name of this remorseless destroyer of human lift is

MIABM, from » Greek word which means emanation — riling from — because it comet up from the surface of the earth, it brings ricknen and death to thousand! every year, and is the principal cause of nearly erery " epidemic " disease which falls upon the. people, attacking numbers in any community with ferers, ague, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholora, &c, &c. Before the laws of miasm ware known in the United States of America, the yellow fever had almost decimated its towns. In 1860, one of the daily papers of New Orleans stated : " The yellow ferer has broken out in the city under every coaceirable variety of circumstauoes ; when the streets were clean, and when they- were filthy ; when the rirer was high, and when it) was low ; after a prolonged drought, and in the midst of daily torrents ; when the heat was excessive, and when the air was spring-like and pleasant ; when the excavations of the soil bad been frequent, and when scarcely a pavement bad been laid, or a building erected. Almost the only fixed and undeniable fact connected with the diiease it, that its prevalence is simultaneous with the heats of summer, and that frost is its deadly enemy." Here, then, are two important laws of miasm ; and scientific observation directed to that special point, in all countries confirms the two great truths, that — first, miasm prevails in hot weather ; and second, that miasm cannot exist as a cause of disease in' cold weather. An inference is drawn embodying a third law of miasm, whioh is, that it is a cause of disease only in certain parts of the seasons in hot countries ; and a fourth law may be confirmed by the now established ftct, that where land is thoroughly drained and kept clean, Do miasm will arise. We bare then arrived at fair controlling facts in reference to miasm ; that heat and moisture are essential to its production in any locality ; that it cannot exist where there is severe frost or great dryness. But as it is known in the world over, that miasm never «xists in deserts, where there is nothing but dry sand and a burning heat, it is clear that something more than heat is necessary to cause miasm. But it is further known that, where it is so malignant that it is certain death to sleep on shore for a single night, a man may go a mile and sleep on shipboard with perfect impunity. This shows that something more than heat and moisture are necessary to the production of miasm. The third clement is vegetation — anything that grows from the earth in the nature of grass, leaves or wood. These throe in combination, are the great agents for the production of miasm ; no two of them can produce it. They all must bo present together, and for a considerable time, so m to produce destructive decay of the vegetation, which requires a degree of heat exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit. These three element* will always produce miasm, whether Oat of dovrs, nndcr the influence of the heat of the sun, or on ship-board, or in an unclean kitchen, by the heat of stoves or fire-places. If, then, a farmer builds bis house in a naturally wet situation — *' bottom lands," " made land " where running Stwarns- have in course of years been depositing decaying dtad leaves, mud, &c, he will certainly have various diseases in bis family, unless a system of thorough drainage is put in operation. Ponds,' sluggish streams, or any accumulation of water in a productive soil, always yield miasm, and a dwelling in their vicinity will be certainly visited with miasmatic disease, if attention is not paid to these plans which modify the result. Miasm it not supposed to cross a running stream ; hence if a creek run through a farm, and one bank of it is level and rich, the other higher and rolling, better far build on the latter, for then the miasm of the flat land will not cross the stream to the house. If there is no stream but a pond or flat land, and the house must be built in the vicinity, build it to that the prevailing winds may blow from the house to the unhealthy point, for miasm being a gas, is carried before the wind. It is hazardous to build on an eminence, if it gradually •lopes to the water's edge or to a low flat piece of ground, unless there is a growth of trees, or other shrubbery intervening, beoause roiasm, like the clouds, will sometimes " roll up," the sides of a hill or mountain. It is known that > igorous growing shrubs, or hedges, or trees, between a tbiasm producing locality and a dwelling, antagonize the miasmatic influence, the Hying leaves seeming to absorb and feed wpdn the miasm, but' there should be a space of fifty yards. at' lea'tfc between the hedge and the house, *nd the thicker and .brooder the hedge the better ; the nearer the leaves are to the ground the better ; for the miasm gropes on the surface in> its- greatest malignity, and is seldom eoneantrated enough at tile height of two feet to be materially Hurtful' to man, unless it comes up a slope. Hence in the old' cities of the world, in the times of plagues, the people who oonld not go out of town had a custom among them to live in the uppor stories of their dwellings while the sickness raged. They did not know at that time from more than experience, the cause of their safety in tlio»e higher apartments, but a law of miasm has since been discovered, which ■unravels the mystery ; it is condensed by cold, made heavy, and falls to the earth, hovering as it were, within a foot of the surface ; therefore is not breathed unless a man sleeps on thf ground. On the other hand heat so rarities miasm as to make it comprehensively innocuous. Hence the coolness of the early morning, and of sun down throw the miasm to the surface, by condensing or concentrating it, and thus making it heavy ; while the heat of the day of a summer's §un so rarifies and lightens it, as to send it upward. Hess than sixty years ago the yellow fever and other deadly diseases prevailed in America, and it iras known to be certain death, except to the very hardy, or the acolimated, Do sleep in the oities » single night ; yet the merchants came to town at midday, under a hot July sun with perfeot impunity. Miasm it- most pernicious about ounsefc and sunrise, beeauie the cooling of the atmosphere at the close of the day caused it to become condensed and fall to the e*rth, where it is breathed, while after sun down it has settled so near the earth, that it is not breathed.

A certain Sunday-ichool teacher was in the habit of making a collection in hit juvenile olan for missionary purposes. He was not a little surprised, bowever, one day, to find a bank note among (he weight of copper. He was- not long in finding it to be of a broken bank ; and on asking the class who put it there, the donor wat pointed out to him bj one who had seen him deposit it. " Didn't you know that this note was food for nothing ? " mid the teaoher. " Yes," answered the bar " Then what did you put it in the box for ?<*' The boy coolly replied, " I didn't s'pose the little heathens wouft know the difference, and thought it would be just u gpcd for them.'"