FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 221 



DISCUSSION. 



I) 



Mrs. Mayo: The question comes to me, "Why are not our daughters 

 skilled in this line of work? If they live they will have to do it, and 

 how few can bring any skill or competent training to their aid. They 

 are educated for everything else except what God designed them to be^ 

 wives, mothers apid home makers. It is the unskilled housekeeper that 

 is wasteful ; she does her work at a disadvantage, finds every task a bur- 

 den, is a hard mistress to serve, and seldom has competent servants. 

 Science is doing much today in aiding the chemists of the kitchen, but 

 so few care to avail themselves of the help, but keep on in the ruts. 

 Women are slower to move in new ways than men. 



The time has come when domestic economy, in all its branches, must 

 be taught somewhere. The parents and daughters demand it, and the 

 welfare of the homes demands it. We are soon to learn about ''Art in the 

 Rural Home." This is of great importance to us as farming folk. It 

 has too long been neglected. The country homes need all that art, edu- 

 cation and our means will permit to make them beautiful, refining and 

 elevating. All the appointments of our homes should be as pretty and 

 attractive as we can make them. This does not call for a great outlay of 

 money — a little money, with a cultivated, artistic mind, will make such 

 a beautiful harmony in the arrangements of a home as to charm all who 

 come beneath its roof. 



A table, daintily spread with the whitest linen, pretty dishes and a few 

 flowers, will materially aid digestion, besides exerting a refining influ- 

 ence upon all who sit at the board. We do not give attention enough to 

 artistically adorning our homes. 



Q: "Miss Sill; how do you make good pie crust?" 



Miss Sill : The secret of a good pie crust is quickness in making, cold 

 materials and a hot oven; use twice as much flower as shortening, and 

 water sufficient to moisten; put flour in chopping bowl, add shortening 

 and chop it with a knife. 



Q: "Do you use cottolene, lard or butter?" 



Miss Sill : I prefer butter. 



CHEMISTRY OF THE KITCHEN. 



PROF. FRANK S. KBDZIE, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The practical applications of scientific principles have, for some cause 

 OP other, kept themselves out of the kitchen. Whether this was brought 

 about by the supposed incompatibility of the feminine mind and scientific 

 study is doubtful. My own idea is that so long as the masculine side of 

 the house was satisfied with the results produced in that domestic chemi- 

 cal laboratory called the kitchen, the presiding genius, the cook herself, 

 didn't care for principles, but confined herself to the practice of the art 



