226 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Q: *'Mrs. Mayo, do not the farmers' wives do too much cooking?" 

 Mrs. Mayo: Yes; especially in cooking fruit. When we have such an 

 abundance as Michigan gives us, do not spoil it by cooking, but put it on 

 the table fresh and ripe. The city woman does this, while we toil and 

 broil to cook it. 



DISCUSSION. 

 LED BY MBS. H. GAYLORD HOLT, CASCADE. 



Firfet in the line of making housework easier, I should place order, for 

 there should be order in housework, as well as in other kinds of business. 

 1 say business, because there is as much business in good housekeeping 

 as in any other pursuit. ''Order is heaven's first law." We will do well 

 to follow the advice of our grandmothers, and ''have a place for every- 

 thing and keep everything in its place," and thus save unnumbered steps. 



Promptness is a very material aid to the housekeeper. Get the meals 

 regularly, and try and educate the men of the house to eat at the 

 appointed lime. Begin the work of the day early in the morning, thus 

 forestalling unexpected delays or hindrances. Another old saying, "An 

 hour in the morning is worth two at night," is, in this case, eminently 

 true. 



System. More depends upon being systematic, perhaps, than upon 

 any other one thing. Planning the work ahead, and doing certain things 

 on certain days, or at stated times of the month or year, will lighten the 

 work, and save much confusion. A wise housekeeper, like an able gen- 

 eral, will plan her campaigns, and will be prepared, if possible, to with- 

 stand the attacks of the enemies of good housekeeping, which are sure 

 to attack the unguarded points of the home. 



There should be a division of labor among the different members of the 

 household. If there are children or young people, some definite duties 

 should be assigned to each, that they may learn to share the labors and 

 responsibilities devolving upon the mother. They will thus become 

 better fitted themselves to fill the position of wife or mother, or the head 

 of the household, as the case may be. It is a great mistake to allow girls 

 to grow up with no practical knowledge of what constitutes good house- 

 keeping. Housework is anything but easy for them, when it suddenly 

 devolves upon them, with no previous education in that line. To make 

 housework easy, one needs to be educated for that, as well as for other 

 things. No matter how much a young woman knows about books or 

 music, or painting, her education has been sadly neglected in one line at 

 least, if she has not learned something about how to keep a home, as good 

 housekeeping is essential to the health and happiness of a family. 



In a recent number of a household journal, a housewife states that she 

 always devotes Monday to the picking up. brushing and putting away 

 of the clothing worn on Sunday by her husband and children. Wouldn't 

 it be just as well if some of the Mondavs were spent in teaching those 

 children to attend to their own clothing? We won't say anything about 

 the husband, perhaps he is too old to learn. Evidently his mother did 

 not bring him up risrht. Many a wife has to suffer for the foolish 

 indulgence of her husband in his youthful davs by his mother. Mothers 

 owe it to their boys as well as to their girls, to teach them to be helpful, 



