Edgefield Advertiser

Whitewashing.

There is nothing, perhaps, which contributes more decidedly to the healthiness of a homestead than whitewash. It is a cheap article, and any one who can lift a brush can put it on. Fences and rough siding, as well as the inside of the tie-ups, sheds and other out-buildings, and also the walls and ceilings of the cellars, should annually be painted over with a good coat of whitewash. The Spring is the most eligible season for the application, as there is generally sufficient leisure at that time before Spring's work comes on, and as the disinfecting and deodorizing action of the lime will tend to prevent those unhealthy miasmas which are generated around most dwellings, by the decay of vegetable matter, and the heat of the vernal and Summer sun.

White walls, and long lines of white fences gleaming amid luxuriant and embowering foliage, give to a farm establishment an appearance of neatness and rural elegance and comfort, indescribably attractive to the man of taste, and can in no way be so effectually and economically secured as by giving them a few coats of whitewash. The ceilings of bed-rooms, cookeries, and wash-rooms, should also be frequently whitewashed. If the walls are not prepared, the brush should pass over them likewise. The lime will not only tend to sweeten the air and prevent epidemical diseases, but fill up the thousand imperceptible cracks which always exist in plastering, and through which more cold air will find its way in a windy Winter's day, than can be neutralized by many an armful of hickory, maple or white oak.

The white washing of cattle and horse stalls, as well as the inside of log cotes and heneries, not only renders them more healthy, but prevents the animals and fowls from being infested with troublesome and filthy vermin.—N. E. Farmer.