376 ANNUAL REPORT 



In closing, I desire to briefly urge the general planting in gar- 

 dens of our native fruits for trial under cultivation, and of our 

 native shrubs and trees that seem promising for ornamental or 

 economic purposes; especially to recommend extensive plantings 

 of them at our experimental station. Let the state legislature give 

 this all the support needed to supplement and give wider scope to 

 the small amount available for this purpose from the Congressional 

 appropriation. 



EATIONAL AND HYGIENIC COOKEKY. 



By Mrs. Clara S. Hays, St. Anthony Park, Minn. 



There is no one subject which should so concern us all as cook- 

 ery. We are dependent on the right selection and proper prepar- 

 ation of our food not only for our power of enjoying the good and 

 pleasant things of this world, but also for our ability to so work 

 that we merit success; and also to "do unto others as we would 

 have them do unto us " The dyspeptic can do none of these 

 things. Pure air, bathing and abundant exercise are important, 

 but must be accompanied by good, wholesome food. Now since 

 cooking food for some classes of stock is being practiced unless 

 we bestir ourselves cooking for stock will be better done than is 

 that for our families. I recently heard a gentleman say of cook- 

 ing oats for stock: "Boiling rapidly for a few minutes does no good 

 but if cooked slowly for a long time it pays." This illustrates the 

 proper cooking of the cereals for the table. Yet on our breakfast 

 tables we have oat- meal served which has been cooked only ten, 

 fifteen, or at most thirty minutes. If cereals cannot be well 

 cooked for breakfast leave them for supper, when there is ample 

 time for slow cooking, If a milk boiler is used, time is all that is 

 necessary since the only attention requisite is to see that the water 

 does not all evaporate from the lower boiler. A substitute for 

 this boiler is easily improvised from two pails, or a pail and a 

 kettle. Beans soaked in cold water for twelve hours, boiled 

 until the skins crack when exposed to the air, and then baked 

 twelve or fifteen hours have a very different flavor from the beans 

 which are placed on the table three or four hours after it was de- 

 termined to have beans for dinner. The long cooking makes them 

 much more easily digested as well as more palatable. 



W e must know more of the chemistry and physics of cookery, 

 then the subject will be interesting. When we knew such facts as 

 that starch grains burst when heated to the boiling point in water; 

 that starch heated much hotter than boiling water without moisture 

 is changed to an entirely different substance, as in the crust of 

 bread; that over-heating some substances, as white of egg, or the 

 curd of milk in making cottage cheese makes them indigestible; 

 when we once become interested in these things we resent a sug- 



