32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



do, even in winter, to get it, and butter-making must still go 

 upon chance. 



Another department, close to biitter, is the bread-making, 

 especially when bakers do not thrive. What say you to a little 

 head-work here, rather than to leave it all to the manipulations 

 of skill. I tell no undiscovered secret in saying that too many 

 pounds of flour find a short cut every year from the barrel to 

 Albee's patent pig-trough ! Chemical researches into bread- 

 making have been as thorough and satisfactory as the importance 

 of the matter demands. But why the changes are produced, — 

 why the kneading or stirring must be effectually done, and 

 cannot be slighted, — why the dough's cleaving from the hands 

 is the evidence of its completeness, — why yeast produces several 

 per cent, more nutriment from a hundred pounds of flour than 

 leaven, — why flour, which is good to all appearances yet will not 

 make light, sweet bread, can be made to do so by the addition 

 of a tea-spoonful of sugar to two pounds, — and why carbonate 

 of soda is better than the carbonate of potassa, or saleratus, 

 though both are needless, or worse, when the bread-making is 

 the best ; and either may be highly injurious in quantities which 

 leaves it free in the stomach. — why bread, made light by soda 

 and cream of tartar is just the bread for housekeepers, who are 

 behindhand with their family supplies, but never " raised bread," 

 — that good, old-fashioned, honest, nourishing bread of the past 

 — and finally, why the yeast powders, so called, sold by itinerant 

 commercial gentlemen, (ycleped, peddlers,) are almost an indict- 

 able fraud upon human well-being, — is, to say the least, worth 

 knowing. Each one of these lalnjs has an answering where- 

 fore ; and I can anticipate the satisfaction it will be to discover 

 any one of them. 



While we are in or about the kitchen, it will do no harm to 

 look, for a moment, into the meat pot. If the family is to have 

 soup for dinner, the worthy mother of the young housewife has 

 told her to drop in the meat, and, as far as practicable, the veg- 

 etables which are to flavor the liquid, and not to preserve their 

 own form and flavor, separately, while the water is still cold. 

 She told her it would be bettor to do so ; but did she tell her 

 why ? Doubtlessly, she reversed the lesson of wisdom, when a 

 joint has been procured to serve the excellent purpose of a boiled 

 dinner ; and the why, for this ; was that given, too ? If not, I 



