Making Home ProfitableSaint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Science
Making Home Profitable
Saint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Agriculture; Country life
Modern improvements are never to be found in inexpensive country
houses, so we found that a bathroom or some means of taking an all-over
scrub would have to be constructed immediately. We bought a full-sized
tin bath tub with a wooden bottom for about seven dollars, and placed
it in the little room off the kitchen. A piece of rubber hose was bound
tightly to the escape pipe of the bath tub, and carried through the
wall out into a box drain, thence to a barrel ten feet from the house,
which had no bottom, and was sunk into the ground. From there, of
course, the water seeped into the subsoil and disappeared.
We thought it was very fine indeed at first, but later, when our ideas
and finances broadened, we replaced it with a porcelain enameled tub
and wash bowl, with properly soldered waste pipes into a tile-drain
sink three feet deep, to prevent freezing.
A pump over the kitchen sink had been the only water supply, but as
that was drawn from a splendid spring several feet above the level of
the house, we determined, when investing in a new bathroom outfit,
to stretch the purse strings a little further, and put in hot and
cold water. A waterback was attached to the kitchen stove, and a
sixty-three-gallon boiler attached. It cost twenty-two dollars and
seventy-five cents. The bath and basin cost thirty-eight dollars. Fifty
feet of one-and-one-half-inch pipe, seven dollars and fifty cents. One
hundred feet of half-inch pipe, six dollars. Waste pipe, two dollars.
Labor, twenty-two dollars.
When a spring is not conveniently situated, an automatic ram and a
cistern will have to be used, and I am told that they would cost about
seventy dollars more. Even with the new arrangement of the bathroom,
we retain the earth closet, which had been bought some time before, at
a cost of twenty-five dollars. It stands with its back to the outer
wall, through which a trap-door was cut, to permit the removal and
replacing of pans and earth. This is undoubtedly the most inexpensive
and sanitary contrivance with which a country house can be furnished.
The next comfort was a telephone, which cost only eighteen dollars a
year, including local calls, long-distance calls, of course, being
extra charges. That, with the rural delivery and daily paper, brings
us stay-at-homes in touch with the great doings of the world and the
little interests of our friends.
We deserted the city in March, but experience has taught me that the
fall is the best time of the year in which to migrate. There are not so
many people looking for country places; the days are bright and cool,
the roads in good condition, and there is much that can be done in
the garden and orchard to facilitate next spring’s work. By starting
poultry in the fall, one can have broilers ready to catch the early
spring prices. Moreover, it is the early chick that will make a good
layer the following winter.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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