The attractiveness of a rural home depends largely upon the promptness
with which all kinds of waste material are disposed of. The abundance
of space around the house is a great temptation for the members of the
household to use it as a place for storing rubbish and useless, worn-out
things. Sifted ashes are easily utilized in earth closets and upon walks
and roads, to make them compact and firm. Other articles of no use,
such as broken crockery, bottles, tin cans, etc., can be thrown into
depressions and gullies and covered over with earth, or else buried in
trenches where subsoil drainage is desirable. The removal of rubbish is a
very fruitful theme and might be dealt with at length. Its importance as
related to health and disease is a subordinate one, and the reformer must
appeal to the love of order, propriety, and beauty in and around the home
in order to make an impression.
Garbage is of much less annoyance in the country than in the city, where
its collection and destruction is a great expense, and is frequently very
unsatisfactorily done. In the country, the household garbage is fed to the
swine and poultry, and is in this way profitably used. There are, however,
homes where garbage must be taken care of in other ways. It may be buried
in the garden or else burned in the kitchen range. Recently a device has
been patented which enables the housekeeper to place the garbage in a
section of the smoke pipe of the range, where it dries out rapidly, burns,
and leaves only a little charcoal behind, which may be used for fuel next
day. This device has been well recommended by sanitarians (see fig. 8).
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Garbage cremator. The garbage is placed in the
perforated frame. The latter is pushed into the smoke pipe, where the
garbage becomes slowly carbonized.]