The Farm Table. 647 



III. FURTHER NOTES ON CARE OF FOOD. 



By the Editor. 



A knowledge of germs as given in Bulletin No. 12 of the Farmers' 

 Wives' Reading-Course and in the foregoing pages of this Bulletin, makes 

 us stop to consider what opportunity there is for these little enemies to 

 do their work. The most painstaking housewife needs to have her faith 

 shaken occasionally in her own carefulness concerning foods. Thought- 

 fulness, with a knowledge of results of careless habits, will bring many 

 things to our notice to which we have closed our eyes. Yet it is not 

 wise to become finicky or too fearful lest we shall get something which 

 we should not, thus destroying our peace of mind. It is harmful dirt 

 we need to shun. Probably the guest who stood on an upper balcony 

 of a hotel and saw an employee come into the kitchen, remove his pipe, 

 lift a spoonful of preserves to his mouth, place the spoon back in the dish 

 and resume the pipe, would have been happier had she not seen the 

 episode. She was not in a position to remedy the difficulty, as she might 

 in her own home. 



Sometimes difficulties must assume large proportions before we are 

 much aroused to the necessity for reform. If only the mouse gets into 

 the flour it can be got along with; but the cat! For illustration, this 

 story is told in a New York paper: "A prominent politician has a wife 

 who is a model of domestic carefulness. She has a talent for making 

 bread, and takes great pride in having her loaves turn out well. One 

 evening she had set the batch of dough to rise in the kitchen, and was 

 reading in the parlor, when her six-year old boy came running to her, 

 saying: 'Mamma, Mamma! There's a mouse jumped into your bread 

 pan.' 



" The good woman sprang from her seat. 



" ' Did you take him out ? ' she asked, frantically. 



" ' No'm, but I done as good. I threw the cat in, and she's digging 

 after him to beat the band.' " 



The moral is that one uncleanly habit should not be used to correct 

 another.* 



The milk was not looking quite right and the housekeeper inter- 

 viewed the milkman. Many hairs and much dirt in the milk was the 

 complaint. *' Oh well," he said, " P have to hire my milking done and 

 you know how it is, they won't always be careful ; I have told the man 

 if the cow stepped into the pail to throw the milk away, but he won't 

 always do it unless he is watched." 



The baby whose mother chews the cracker before putting it into the 

 baby's mouth is still the loving and trusting infant, even if he is imposed 



