FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 219' 



WOMAN'S SECTION. 



MRS. MARY A, MAYO, CONDUCTOR. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 



KITCHEN ECONOMY. 



MISS MARGARET M. SILL, DETROIT. 



Good cooking consists in the first place in exciting the digestive 

 organs. The more we excite them and give them pleasure, the more 

 thoroughly is our food digested. If we take into our mouths food that is 

 poorly cooked, the saliva will not be excited; no pleasing taste is found, 

 and the food passes to the stomach without having had the work done for 

 it in the stomach that ought to have been done, hence more is demanded 

 of the stomach, sometimes so much that it is not able to perform it and 

 the person is made ill. This is indigestion, the foundation of many dis- 

 orders. 



It is a common saying that the mother is the teacher of cooking. 

 Many mothers are not competent teachers, because they do not know 

 themselves, not having been taught. Many of the discomforts of home, 

 ill health, ill temper, and their attendant evils, come from the fact that 

 the woman of the house has not been properly taught either as a cook, 

 manager of her home, or her duties as wife and mother. 



There is a movement, which is growing in favor, to introduce into our 

 public schools domestic economy. It is an excellent thing to have some 

 knowledge of domestic economy. I think I am safe in saying, that in the 

 average household, one-third of the food is wasted from lack of know- 

 ledge as to cooking, managing, and saving. 



The question was asked, ''What can five persons live healthily upon 

 per week?" And when I replied, "five dollars," they were dismayed. I 

 had charge of a house last summer where they averaged twenty persons 

 a day. The cost of living for each person per week was one dollar and 

 thirty-five cents. For breakfast, we had oatmeal, eggs, meat, potatoes, 

 hot rolls or muflfins. For dinner, soup, meat, two kinds of vegetables, 

 potatoes, and dessert. There is no economy in buying cheap meats. Do 

 not have the bones taken from beef or mutton; have them cracked, as- 



