een vegetables in the shallow, moist cellars below the kitchens, much
of the sickness that attacks settlers under the various forms of agues,
intermittent, remittent, and lake-fevers, may be traced.

Many, of the lower class especially, are not sufficiently careful in
clearing these cellars from the decaying portions of vegetable matter,
which are often suffered to accumulate from year to year to infect the
air of the dwelling. Where the house is small, and the family numerous,
and consequently exposed to its influence by night, the baneful
consequences may be readily imagined. "Do not tell me of lakes and
swamps as the cause of fevers and agues; look to your cellars," was the
observation of a blunt but experienced Yankee doctor. I verily believe
it was the cellar that was the cause of sickness in our house all the
spring and summer.

A root-house is indispensably necessary for the comfort of a settler's
family; if well constructed, with double log-walls, and the roof secured
from the soaking in of the rain or melting snows, it preserves
vegetables, meat, and milk excellently. You will ask if the use be so
great, and the comfort so essential, why does not every settler build
one?

Now, dear mamma, this is exactly what every new comer says; but he has
to learn the difficulty there is at first of getting these matters
accomplished, unless, indeed, he have (which is not often the case) the
command of plenty of ready money, and can afford to employ extra
workmen. Labour is so expensive, and the working seasons so short, that
many useful and convenient buildings are left to a future time; and a
cellar, which one man can excavate in two days, if he work well, is made
to answer the purpose, till the season of leisure arrives, or necessity
obliges the root-house to be made. We are ourselves proof of this very
sort of unwilling procrastination; but the logs are now cut for the
root-house, and we shall have one early in the spring. I would, however,
recommend any one that could possibly do so at first, to build a root-
house without delay, and also to have a well dug; the springs lying very
few feet below the surface renders this neither laborious or very
expensive. The creeks will often fail in very dry weather, and the lake
and river-waters grow warm and distasteful during the spring and summer.
The spring-waters are generally cold and pure, even in the hottest
weather, and delightfully refreshing.

Our winter seems now fai