THE ART OF COOKING. 13 



readily be made in the food-supply of an average family. The 

 customary ration is from three fourths of a pound to a pound ; in 

 the families of poor people, who depend very much upon bread, I 

 suppose it is one pound. Now, wherever such a family is paying 

 six cents a pound for wheat bread, not an uncommon price among 

 the poor in Boston, a saving of two and one half cents a day can 

 be made on bread only by making it in the family and baking it 

 in this oven. 



But, again, this possibility leads to another consideration. It 

 is conceivable that all the bread may by and by be made in this 

 way. Then what would become of all the bakers ? They would 

 for a time suffer for want of work ; but you will observe that in 

 this as in most of the actual improvements in the conditions of so- 

 ciety, the art which would be displaced is one of the most onerous 

 kinds of labor, requiring long hours of night-work ; a greater 

 abundance of bread would be furnished at less cost ; and pres- 

 ently the bakers would be absorbed in other branches of work. 

 How that happens, and how such adjustments are made, I suppose 

 no one knows. There was formerly one branch of cotton-spin- 

 ning, viz., the sizing of the warps, which was conducted under 

 very uncomfortable if not unwholesome conditions. The old- 

 fashioned dressing-machine, as it was called, on which all the 

 warps of cotton goods were prepared with starch for weaving, was 

 worked in a room at from 110 to 120 Fahr., the atmosphere be- 

 ing impregnated with the smell of sour starch ; and in a given 

 factory the work of eight men was required. In the year 1866 I 

 was myself instrumental in importing two machines of a new 

 kind from Great Britain ; these machines were operated in a light, 

 cool, and well-ventilated room ; a man and a boy did the work of 

 the eight men. What became of the other seven men ? I never 

 could trace them ; they were merged in the great body of work- 

 men. The new machine has wholly displaced the old one ; and 

 there is now no branch of work in the cotton-mill which is con- 

 sidered injurious, or subject to any great discomfort. In fact, 

 when the final application of invention is made to the cotton-fac- 

 tory by using ice or other methods of cooling the air in summer, 

 as we use fuel to heat the rooms in winter, the atmosphere of the 

 cotton-mill will become about the most salubrious that can be ob- 

 tained, for the reason that the exact degree of heat and humidity 

 which is called for in the best work in spinning and weaving is 

 consistent with the exact degree required for the health of the 

 human body ; and since electric lighting has displaced the nox- 

 ious vapors of illuminating gas, it may soon become possible to 

 secure workers in a cotton-mill on the ground that a cotton-mill 

 is the best sanitarium. 



I have given you these last few data, which are not immediately 



