THE FRESH AIR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5550, 11 January 1879, Page 3

THE FRESH AIR.

It’s indoors, sir, as kills half the people ; being indoors three parts of the day, and next to that taking too much drink and vittals. Eating’s as bad as drinking ; and there ain’t nothing like fresh air and the smell of the woods. You should come out here iu the spring, when the oak timber is tbrowed (because, you see, the sap be rising, and the bark strips then), and just sit sit down on a stick fresh peeled—l means a trunk, you know ; —and sniff up the scent of that there oak bark. It goes right down.your throat, and preserves your lungs, as the tan do leather. And I’ve heard say as folk who work in the tanyards never have no illness. There’s always a smell from trees, dead or living—l could tell what wood a log was in the dark by my nose, and the air is better where the woods be. The ladies up in the great houses sometimes goes out into the fir plantations—the turpentine scents strong, you see—and they say it’s good for the chest ; but, bless you, you must live in it. People go abroad, I’m told, to live iu the pine forests to cure ’em. I say these here oaks have got every bit as much good in that way. I never eat but two meals a day—breakfast and supper ; what you would call dinner—and maybe in the middle of the day a hunch of dry bread and an apple. I take a deal for breakfast, and I’m rather lear (hungry) at supper ; but you may lay your oath that’s why I’m what I am in the way of health. People stuff themselves, and by consequence it breaks out, you see. It’s the same with cattle, they’re overfed, tied up in stalls aud stuffed, and never no exercise, and mostly oily food too. It stands to reason they must get bad ; and that’s the real cause of these here rinderpests aud pleuro-pneumouii and whatnots. At least that’s my notion. I’m in the woods all day, and never comes home till supper—’cept, of course, in breeding time, to fetch the meal and stuff for the birds—so I gets the fresh air, you see, and the fresh air is the life, sir. There’s the smell of the earth—too—’specially just as the plough turns it up—which is a fine thing ; and the hedges and the grass are as sweet as sugar after a shower. Anything with a green leaf is the thing, depend upon it, if you want to live healthy.” —“ Gamekeeper at Home.”