much longer. Walnut, maple, hickory, and
oak, wood, are best, chestnut or hemlock is bad, because it snaps. Do
not buy a load, in which there are many crooked sticks. Learn how to
measure and calculate the solid contents of a load, so as not to be
cheated. Have all your wood split, and piled under cover, for Winter.
Have the green wood logs in one pile, dry wood in another, oven-wood in
another, kindlings and chips in another, and a supply of charcoal to use
for broiling and ironing, in another place. Have a brick bin, for ashes,
and never allow them to be put in wood. When quitting fires, at night,
never leave a burning stick across the andirons, nor on its end, without
quenching it. See that no fire adheres to the broom or brush; remove all
articles from the fire, and have two pails, filled with water, in the
kitchen, where they will not freeze.

_Stoves and Grates._

Rooms, heated by stoves, should always have some opening for the
admission of fresh air, or they will be injurious to health. The dryness
of the air, which they occasion, should be remedied, either by placing a
vessel, filled with water, on the stove, or by hooking a long and narrow
pan, filled with water, in front of the grate; otherwise, the lungs or
eyes may be injured. A large number of plants in a room, prevents this
dryness of the air. Openings for pipes, through floors, partitions, or
fireboards, should be surrounded by tin, to prevent their taking fire.
Lengthening a pipe, will increase its draught.

For those, who use _anthracite coal_, that which is broken or screened,
is best for grates, and the nut-coal, for small stoves. Three tons are
sufficient, in the Middle States, and four tons in the Northern, to keep
one fire through the Winter. That which is bright, hard, and clean, is
best; and that which is soft, porous, and covered with damp dust, is
poor. It will be well to provide two barrels of charcoal, for kindling,
to every ton of anthracite coal. Grates, for _bituminous_ coal, should
have a flue nearly as deep as the grate; and the bars should be round,
and not close together. The better draught there is, the less coal-dust
is made. Every grate should be furnished with a poker, shovel, tongs,
blower, coal-scuttle, and holder for the blower. The latter may be made
of woollen, covered with old silk, and hung near the fire.

Coal-stoves should be carefully put up, as cracks, in the pipe,
especially in sleeping rooms, are dangerous.