WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE
Water in abundance for the domestic animals should be provided by means of artificial pools or lakes, situated on land higher than the barns, but if they must be placed below the level of the buildings, aermotors or windmills may be easily made to elevate it to any reasonable height. It is difficult to explain why more miniature lakes, in which to store water for all except culinary purposes, are not constructed. In [Fig. 7] it is shown how easily these pools may be made without expensive stone dams, and after the fashion of those constructed in many of the southern states.
Wells, in many places, must be deep, and then often furnish but a meager supply of water, while cisterns large enough to supply all wants are expensive. In addition to artificial lakes, wells, and cisterns, there are often streams, or best of all, springs, to be drawn upon. In any case, a full and continuous supply of water should be provided before buildings are constructed if annoyance, loss, and unnecessary labor are to be obviated and the best sanitary conditions secured in the house. Unless the water is brought into the house under a constant pressure, one or more storage tanks should be provided. They should be placed at such elevations as will secure at least some pressure on the first floor above the cellar. The storage tank may have a capacity of from one to five barrels, and may be constructed of rough or planed two-inch planks and lined with galvanized iron, if the water is to be used for culinary purposes; if not, it may be lined with lead. The tank, which may be of any shape desired, may be placed on supports near the ceiling of the bath-room, or the room which contains the commode, or at one end in the upper part of the clothes-press; provided, however, that the discharge pipe is made so large that under no contingencies will the tank overflow. If the house is fairly large and the cistern capacious, sufficient water may be pumped into the tank from the cistern in a few minutes to supply all wants for the day. From the tank it will flow by gravity into the hot water boiler and to all other points desired which are not above the tank. If water be raised by means of an aermotor, a storage tank will still be necessary, as the wind may fail to operate the motor for an entire day. By whatever means water is secured, the supply should be ample at all times. Springs and wells in the middle and northern states, and cisterns in the southern states will, in most cases, serve to supply the potable water needed, but these are too often inadequate to supply the large demand for water made by the animals, and the extra demand for water in the house made by cleaner and more sanitary methods of living.
In using water in the household, it becomes mixed with a great variety of organic substances which pollute it, and which tend to putrefaction and decay. As these various organic substances break down, numerous compounds are produced, many of which endanger not only health but life itself; it is therefore evident that all soiled water should be removed from the house immediately and by the shortest practical route. But what to do with the polluted water after it has been removed from the rooms, becomes one of the most difficult problems of modern civilization. The first thought is to empty this sewage into streams and lakes; but those living on the streams and in the cities must secure their water-supply from these sources. It is evident, then, that the streams should not be polluted. The next thought is to distribute the sewage over the land, but this method is usually an expensive one, and seldom can enough sandy land be secured to absorb and filter the vast quantities of sewage which modern conditions make necessary.
On the farm the same difficulties are presented, and the problem to be solved differs in degree rather than in kind. If dry-earth closets are used on the farm, there is still the kitchen and laundry sewage to be provided for. While disposing of this, provision may also be made for the night-soil, thus obviating two systems of removing waste from the house. However, the earth-closet will reduce the amount of liquid sewage and increase the temptation to discharge it into the streams which, above all things, should be avoided. If porous or sandy lands can be found within reasonable distance of the dwelling, and yet not too near to it to endanger health or pollute the water supply, a cesspool may be constructed. A hole some ten feet in circumference and ten to twelve feet deep, dug in the earth, walled with stone without mortar, may serve for catching and filtering the sewage. On top of the wall, which should not reach the surface of the ground by about two feet, lay two pieces of railroad iron, and on these place large flat stones, covering all with dirt, providing, however, for ventilation by means of a 4-inch iron pipe, which should be long enough to reach a little above the surface of the ground when all is completed.
Fig. 87. Plan of a cesspool.
If the soil is not as porous as is desired, lay several tile or stone drains at a depth of three to five feet, and extend them from the cesspool some distance out into the field or grounds beyond. ([Fig. 87].) These drains should have free outlets, and the longer they are the better. At the outlet of the drains plant willows or some other water-loving, fast-growing trees. These will take up and utilize vast quantities of liquid and decomposed solids, and if the household is of only ordinary size no nuisance will result.
If water is limited and the dry-earth closet must be adopted, then the cesspool for the kitchen and laundry liquids need not be made so large as described, but may be built in the same manner. The dry-earth closet may be built as follows: Construct a privy of suitable size, 5 to 20 feet from the most convenient rear door, and connect it by a covered walk to the house. The small building should be placed not less than two feet above the ground, on a good, tight wall, which should extend under three sides of the building, the other side to be furnished with a hinged door. Secure a large, iron-top, dump wheelbarrow, which may serve to hold all fœcal matter. This may be emptied weekly or monthly into a nearby trench, previously prepared. A few shovelfuls of earth thrown upon the excreta will effectually arrest any offensive odors which might otherwise arise. Before the ground freezes in the fall dig a trench of sufficient length to contain the fœcal matter during the winter. In cold weather the barrow may be inverted over the trench, and by the application of a few quarts of hot water to the iron bottom the frozen material will be released. When the ground thaws, the accumulated matter may be covered. While the material is frozen there will be no danger from it. It should be said that this trench would better be dug near a row of trees or other strong-growing perennial plants. These will quickly take up the products of the night-soil which might, in rare cases, tend to contaminate the soil-water. If but little of the night-soil be deposited in one place, the earth and plants—two most efficient disinfectants—may be trusted to preserve good sanitary conditions. However, pains should be taken to discover if, by any possible means, the sewage may find its way into the well. An intelligent inspection of the soil, the stratification of it and the rocks, will reveal the direction which the soil-water takes; but if the cesspool and the drains are placed some distance from the dwelling, no contamination will take place under any circumstances, since the amount of sewage is so small and the power of plants and soil to take up the dangerous products of sewage is so great.
CHAPTER XIII
HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION, ECONOMY, AND COMFORT
In colonial times, before so many of the household operations were transferred to shops and manufactories, women were producers almost as much as men; but in modern times women are more and more concerned with how money shall be spent. The woman is still a producer when she cooks an egg, mends a garment, or sweeps a room; but the question of how much or how little can be had out of the family income has become relatively more and more her concern. In Europe, far more than in the United States, attention is given by the women to the economical expenditure of the family resources. A provincial French girl is trained from her childhood for household duties. She assists her mother not only in order to learn the finer arts of housewifery, but especially the judicious expenditure of money. The French husband leaves the apportionment of the family income almost wholly to his wife’s discretion.
There can be no doubt that the prosperity of the family depends quite as much on the wise use of the income as upon the size of that income. The first essential of good household management is that the housewife should know definitely how much there is to spend. Nothing is more productive of marital discontent than the habit which many husbands have of doling out money to the wife at irregular times and in indefinite amounts. It destroys the wife’s self-respect, it places her in a degraded position before her children, and it removes all incentive to thrift. It not infrequently supplies a powerful motive for deceit. If the wife is inexperienced, unwise, or extravagant in the use of money, so much the more reason why the husband should patiently and firmly teach her how to spend, both for her own sake and that of the family welfare. An arrangement by which the wife controls the expenditure of a certain portion of the income is very easy whenever the man receives a salary or regular daily wages. A regular income tends to develop thrift and to teach people to avoid debt; but there is always a tendency to live up to the limit of it, and the margin for saving and for extra pleasures is always small. Salaried people seldom get deeply in debt, but they as seldom become very rich.
On the other hand, whenever the family income is irregular, as from farming and most other kinds of business, the problem of household financiering is much more difficult and requires both greater self-control and better judgment. It is usually possible for such families to determine upon a definite minimum amount which may be counted upon for ordinary living expenses. The margin above this may vary widely, but if the scale of living be habitually adjusted to come within the minimum income, there will be no terror of debt. The expenditure of the surplus, when it comes, becomes a unique and unexpected pleasure. Whatever the plan adopted for distributing the family income, the wife should have at her command and should be expected to live within, a definite share of the income.
After the minimum expenses of the family have been determined, the next most important question is how and when they shall be paid out. Cash payments are much to be preferred. They have two advantages: whoever pays cash asks no favor of the tradesman, and commands the best quality at a given price. The tradesman who lends money by allowing the payment of bills to be postponed, must pay for his goods and must have interest on the money necessary to carry on a credit business. He must necessarily, therefore, reimburse himself by charging a higher price, or by giving a poorer article. It should never be forgotten that credit costs something. The cash customer is always considered a good customer, and can always have the first choice of the market, and favors if any are desired. Whenever monthly or quarterly bills are run, the debtor is apt to acquire a most dangerous habit—the habit of spending now, to pay at some future time. The more remote the time, the more dangerous the habit. It is evident that the oftener bills are paid, the less likelihood there is of mistakes and deceit. If bills must be run, it should never be for longer than a month, and prompt payment of them is a solemn obligation. The article should be done without rather than the seller asked to wait for his money. Whatever plan the housewife adopts will be conditioned by the customs of the locality in which she lives and by the habits of the local tradesman.
Women waste much time and energy in buying things one by one; they spend in this way, too, much more than they realize, and then they wonder where the money has gone. China, linen, and the stock of clothing necessary for changes of season, should be bought by the set, or quantity, marked and prepared for use at regular intervals. Women buy a collar or two, a pair of stockings, a bit of ribbon, a bread plate, a few glasses, etc., and then are surprised that they seem to have very little for the money. Unless the housewife be really poor, or unless the money be doled out to her irregularly, it will invariably pay to buy in quantity things which are not perishable, and which the household wears out and, therefore, habitually needs. Handkerchiefs, stockings, underclothing, china, drinking glasses, cost less by the dozen and half-dozen than by the piece. Lamp chimneys are continually broken, toilet paper and soap used up, yet very few housekeepers realize that they waste both time and energy, beside suffering inconvenience, when they buy these one at a time. Buying piecemeal is demoralizing, as well as wasteful, because it is unsystematic. Successful housekeeping involves attention to numberless details; if by periodic instead of incessant attention some of these can be disposed of in the mass, there will be immense saving of energy.
Many housekeepers will object to this, either because it involves the immediate expenditure of a larger sum of money for one class of articles, or because, not having more wholesome social and intellectual interests, they find recreation in wandering from store to store, or counter to counter, pricing much and buying little; or because they love to find “a bargain.” The instinct to get something “cheap,” that is, to get something for nothing, or, more properly, to get more than we pay for, lies very deep in human nature. Because women have usually lived from hand to mouth, without foresight, it has perhaps been exaggerated in them. There are the bargain-hunters, and there are the bargain-scorners; both are doubtless equally illogical. When an article is phenomenally cheap, it is so, usually, either because too many of its kind are on the market, or because the seller is sacrificing a normal profit to draw general custom, or because the people who have produced it have done so at less than a decent living wage, or because it is going or gone out of fashion. Good buyers are rightfully suspicious of bargains. No one should be willing to buy or use articles which have been produced at starvation wages under wretched sanitary conditions. It is never good economy to buy things which are gone out of fashion unless one is quite satisfied to be out of fashion. If the article offered on the bargain counter be of good quality, and in staple use in the household, it is often well worth buying. Flannels, linens, sometimes woolen dress goods of inconspicuous patterns, may be bought at the end of the season much cheaper than at the beginning, and are a good investment if one has money to spare and is sure what is going to be needed by the family. Over against the money saved in securing a bargain, must always be reckoned the time and energy used in finding it, and the risks that its quality may prove inferior, or that it may be unsuitable when finally used. If a woman has nothing better to do with her time and strength than to hunt bargains, there is nothing further to be said; but if she has, it is usually more economical and more satisfactory to buy the articles needed for definite use at a reliable place and at a fair price.
All the suggestions that have been made imply accurate knowledge on the part of the housekeeper. A thoroughly trained housekeeper of long experience may possibly keep all the household detail in hand without keeping books of account, but it is absolutely impossible for the inexperienced or unsystematic housekeeper to do so. The mental training involved in keeping an accurate account of family income and expenditure is as valuable as a course in mathematics. For her own self-discipline, as well as for the better distribution of the family income, every housekeeper should keep an itemized account. Until she can balance her account accurately at the end of every month she has not learned the a b c of thorough housekeeping. After having learned to do this easily, she may, perhaps, allow herself a very small margin for those “sundries” which have not been put down, and which would waste valuable time to hunt out. Every housewife knows by experience that it is not the regular meat and grocery bills that eat up the income; if adequate care is taken of them, they can be reduced to a definite scale and kept there; but it is the incidentals. A system of accurate accounts will speedily show how many of these are extravagant or unnecessary. Book-keeping is a bugbear to most women, chiefly because the system which they undertake is too complicated. The simplest form is the best. Any blank book may be used; put down on the right hand side everything bought; on the left side all money received; at the end of the week or month the total sum of the right-hand column plus the money still on hand should equal the total of the left-hand column. If it does not, some item has been omitted or not accurately entered. It is better in the beginning to balance the account at least once a week, for then inaccuracies can be more easily traced. The secret of success is to put down at the time of the transaction what has been received and spent. When the account has been balanced, a second step is much more interesting. In another book or in the back of the day-book, if it be large enough, open several accounts on separate pages, as follows: groceries, meats, fuel, clothing, subscriptions and charities, incidentals, etc. Copy each item from the day-book into its proper account; at the end of a month or year, by adding up these separate accounts, the housewife can tell exactly what proportion of the income has been spent for each class. Mr. Lawes, the famous English agriculturist, when traveling in America, was able to quote accurately the cost of the various items of expenditure in his own house.
Economy is a relative, not an absolute thing. Economy of money is often wastefulness of life, yet extravagance, on the other hand, is a serious cause of human degeneration. With the exception of poor management, poor service is probably the most wasteful factor of all in the household, yet there are conditions in which poor service is certainly less wasteful of the family resources, than none at all. The end of housekeeping is the health, comfort, and serenity of the family. The two main factors in producing this result are the family income and the mother’s strength and energy. Saving, however desirable, is merely an incidental end. The mother’s intelligence, therefore, if she be in command of her fair share of the income, must be used to save not only money but her own resources. The lack of nutritious, palatable food and of nursing in illness, the lack of service when the mother is weakened by labor and child-bearing, is sometimes economy with most disastrous results. Health and serenity are worth more to the family than houses and a bank account. A good education given to an intelligent child is worth ten times its cost saved up for him to inherit in middle life.
Every device, therefore, which saves the housewife’s energy is a true economy. A clothes-washing machine, a cabinet table, a slop-hopper for kitchen and chamber waste-liquids, are all obtainable and of special value in saving labor. In planning the kitchen, economy of steps in reaching water and fuel should be considered. China should be kept either in wall cupboards opening on one side into the dining-room, on the other into the kitchen, or in a pantry between dining-room and kitchen. Kitchen utensils need no longer be of black, heavy, ugly iron, but of granite ware, nickel plate, and aluminum; they may be placed in shelves close to the range, or hung along the wall beside it. A dumb waiter or hand elevator, from kitchen to cellar, saves much going up and down stairs. The height of sinks and work-tables should be adapted to that of the woman who works over them. A tall stool—a clerk’s stool—in the kitchen allows the housewife to sit while doing some kinds of work. Distances between sink, range, dishes, and store-room, should be as short as possible, while the ventilation and lighting of the kitchen should be particularly good. Every step up and down from kitchen to shed, or kitchen to cellar, is an extra drain on the overtaxed woman. Small, cheap contrivances, such as dish-mops, iron dish-cloths, pan-scrapers, small scrubbing-brushes, wire screen garbage-pans, and many others, lighten the work and make it possible for the housewife to be more dainty in her personal appearance.
In no respect does farm life differ more from city life than in the kind of food provided and the method of serving it. The farmer’s table is loaded down with a great abundance and variety of food, all placed on the table at once, and often rich and indigestible. The city table has half as much, both in variety and quantity, served daintily in courses. The city housewife provides variety from meal to meal, seldom repeating any dish, except the staple ones, more than once or twice a week; the rural housewife puts a large variety of the same things on the table at every meal. Abundance of well cooked, appetizing food there should be, but variety from meal to meal, and from day to day, is far preferable to excessive variety at any one meal. Not only is it better for the digestion to eat of a very few kinds of food at one meal; but, since novelty stimulates appetite, any particular dish will be more appetizing if not served too frequently. The farmer’s family, while very economical in the expenditure of money, is often very wasteful of food. Vegetables, fruit, chickens, pork raised on the farm, seem to cost no money, but they cost much vital energy, which is quite as valuable. The value of milk, butter, and eggs is recognized, because it is customary to sell them in town; but the cost in the labor of those who raise and those who prepare food, is often overlooked. The farmer’s table is thus not only overloaded, but really extravagant. Here, again, quality is more desirable than variety; simplicity should accompany abundance.
Since rural life involves a certain degree of isolation, the family must keep in touch with the world chiefly through literature. Even at the sacrifice of some of the rich variety of food on the table or of new clothes, books and papers should be provided. The local newspaper is apt to contain little beside local gossip; it should be supplemented with an agricultural paper and a family journal, a housekeeping magazine, a children’s magazine, if there be children, and other general magazines if they can be afforded. But better than the general magazines, would be the gradual purchase of the standard works of history, travel, poetry, and fiction. A musical instrument, a small library, and interesting games will do more than admonition to keep young people at home. Children naturally want a good time; if it is not provided for them at home they will go to other and perhaps less desirable places to get it.
With the increase of appliances, and with the added social and intellectual demands, country as well as city life is becoming more complicated and exacting. The housewife, whose physical strength is scarcely equal to the demands of housekeeping and child-bearing, must develop her intelligence and whet her judgment. She must find easier and wiser ways of doing the necessary drudgery, and make brains do an increasing part of the labor formerly accomplished by muscle.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HOME YARD
The yard, as well as the house, should be planned. It should be convenient, neat, handsome, restful. It will need planting with trees, shrubs, herbs and grass; but these things should not be scattered promiscuously over the place, for then they mean nothing. Every plant should have some relation to the general plan or design of the place.
The first thing to consider in the making of a fit setting for the house is to lay out the plan or design; the last thing is to select the particular kinds of plants to be used. The place should be a picture. It should be one thing, not many things. If the design is correct and the planting is well done, all parts will be in harmony and the place will appeal to one as a whole. If the bushes and trees are scattered promiscuously over the yard, then there is no central idea and the attention is fixed upon the details rather than upon the place. [Figs. 88] and [89] illustrate these contrasts.
The one central thought or idea in home grounds is the house. Therefore, make the house emphatic. Let it stand out boldly, as in [Fig. 89]. Keep the center of the place open. Do not clutter it with trees, flower beds and other distracting things.
Fig. 88. The common or nursery type of planting.
Fig. 89. The proper or pictorial type of planting.
If the house is to be made emphatic, give it a flanking. Plant trees or bushes, or both, on the sides. Back it up, also, with trees. If it sets in front of a natural wood or an orchard, the effect is better. If the country is bare and bald behind it, plant tall trees there.
Fig. 90. A modest and direct driveway.
Make as few walks and drives as possible. They are always unsightly and expensive. Let them lead to their destination by the most direct curves. Do not make them crooked; for crooked walks and drives are expensive. Gentle curves are more retired and modest than awkward and laborious ones. [Fig. 90] shows a good, easy curve. If possible, place the walk or drive at the side, rather than in the center: avoid cutting up the lawn.
Most of the planting should be in masses. Plants present a bolder front when standing together. A group is one thing; scattered shrubs are many things, and they divert and distract the attention. By massing, one secures endless combinations of light and shade, of color, and of form. Against the mass-planting, flowers show off best; they have a background, as a picture has when it hangs on a wall. One canna or geranium standing just in front of heavy foliage makes more show than do a dozen plants when standing in the middle of the lawn; it is more easily cared for, and it does not spoil the lawn. A flower bed in the middle of the sward spoils a lawn, as a spot soils the table-cloth. Flowers at the side, or joined to the other planting, are a part of the picture; in the middle of the lawn they are only a spot of color and mean nothing except that the grower did not know where to put them.
Fig. 91. A good house; but the home is only half built.
Take these suggestions to heart. Consider which you like the better, [Fig. 91] or [92]. Consider, also, how [Fig. 92] would look if plants were scattered all over the yard.
Fig. 92. A house and a home.
Plants are difficult to grow in little holes in the sod. The grass takes the moisture. They are always in the way. The yard in [Fig. 92] can be mown with a field mower. The bushes take care of themselves. If one dies, it matters little: others fill the gaps. If pigweeds come up amongst them, little or no harm is done. They add to the variety of foliage effect. One does not feel that he must stop his cultivating or sheep-shearing to dig them out. In the fall, the leaves blow off the open lawn and are held in the bushes; there they make an ideal mulch, and they need not be removed in the spring. In front of this shrubbery a space two or three feet wide may be left for flowers. Here sow and plant with a free hand. Have sufficient poppies and hollyhocks and pinks and lilies and petunias to supply every member of the family and every neighbor. Against the background they glow like coals or lie as soft as the snow.
Fill in the corners of the place. Round off the angularities. Throw a mass of herbage into the corner by the steps ([Fig. 93]): then you will not need to saw off the grass with a butcher knife. Plant a vine and some low plants along the foundations.
Fig. 93. The corner by the steps.
When these main or fundamental things are considered, then some of the incidental things may be considered. If you are fond of some particular plant, as the hydrangea, plant it in some prominent place in front of the shrub border. You may want a tree to shade a window or a porch: plant it. You may want a pile of odd stones and relics: put them in the back yard, or at the side, where you may enjoy them unmolested. You may have any kind of plant you want, only put it in the right place.
Have an eye to the views. Build your house with reference to them, if you can. Do not plant so as to hide the good ones. Plant heavily in the direction of offensive views. Plant so as to obscure the barnyard; or else move the barnyard back of the barn, or clean it up. Leave the front of the barn open: you want to see it from the house.