INDIANA HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 433 



bottom about three inclies from the hearth. There was also a heavy, 

 tight-fittuig lid. The oven and lid, preparatory to being filled for cooking, 

 were placed upon the burning wood and when sufficiently hot, lifted off 

 onto a bed of coals which were fresh spread upon the hearth, and after 

 judiciously being tested as to temperature the food placed within, the lid 

 .on top, and a covering of coal finished the job. We also had such pots 

 and skillets and frying pans as prevail to-day, modified by necessity and 

 fashion. These were used like the kettle upon the crane, or the oven on 

 the hearth, for such purposes as we now use them. In addition, the coffee 

 pot and sieve— the last named being sometimes the property of the 

 neighbors to our inconvenience, had their places among our household 

 goods— to which in time was added a hea-s^y cast iron teakettle. Compare 

 the above list with the paraphernalia the housekeeper of to-day places 

 at the disposal of Bridget or Dinah to be used on a first class range, 

 and it is but natui-al to Inquire, "Well! how did you manage to get along?" 

 I can, without prejudice, aver that the friendly sunbonnet and the up- 

 lifted left hand have screened from the fui-nace-like heat brains such as 

 you can not buy to-day, and that the skilled hands of such have yielded 

 results that the fancy clubs of gourmand would be glad to secure. 



Our supply of fuel was exhaustless. There was no gi-owling at gas 

 companies. Logs were hauled to the door from the clearings and piled 

 high for future use. Daily a sufficiency was cut the proper length by 

 the men folks, if time and season permitted, and if not, the -NPomen were 

 equal to the task. What did we have to cook? The products of wheat 

 and corn and buckwheat; light bread fi-om yeast and salt rising; biscuits, 

 dumpling and pie crusts, hoe cake, dodger, egg corn bread, hominy, and 

 mush; buckwheat cakes, flap jacks and pan cakes in variety; sponge 

 cakes, golden in their richness; and ginger cakes, the joy of election day 

 and the Fourth of July; with crulls in fantastic shapes for the holidays; 

 fresh game from the woods and streams alternating with the meats of 

 domestic animals, and annual unfailing fruits, such as blessed the happy 

 valley in which Rassela, the prince of Abysinnia was placed, and vege- 

 tables without end. I fear if I stop to explain, 1 shall be led to exploit 

 until I would wish to be a girl again with a bit of dough molded by 

 chubby hands ready to test the oven's heat for mother's baking. So I 

 pass to the labors that have prepared a generation for the duties of life 

 and rendered so serious their mental bent, and, I am sad to add, have 

 doomed many prematurely to their rest from toil. 



The ash hopper, safe and removed from buildings, was an unending 

 care. It was consti-ucted of split boards supported in a frame made of 

 four forked sticks driven in the ground, with cross sticks resting in the 

 forks. The lower ends of the boards converging and ending in a trough 

 hewn out of buckeye and placed slanting so that the lye could flow into 

 a crock or other vessel. Now we secured the lye by pouring water on 

 the well rotted ashes and permitting it to nm or pass slowly through the 



28 -Board of A. 



