1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



397 



oats cooked in this way with good milk and 

 honey, and good crops of oats right in sight, 

 growing on our own farm, to furnish oats 

 for the family, as well as for the horses and 

 chickens. Doesn't this come pretty near 

 being "a land flowing with milk and 

 honey"? 



One of my recent "happy surprises" was 

 that, since omitting suppers, loan eat honey 

 for my noon meal in a way I have not been 

 able to do for years past. 



A CLIPPING FROM THE HOME PAPERS 



WHEN THEY WERE FIRST STARTED 



IN THIS JOURNAL 35 YEARS AGO. 



While discussing Terry, Fletcher, Sin- 

 clair, and others, in regard to the amount of 

 food really needed to sustain health, I re- 

 called some of my experiments conducted 

 in 1875, when the Home papers were first 

 made a department in Gleanings; and to 

 show you how history repeats itself I make 

 the following extract from Chap. V., De- 

 cember, 1875: 



We have in our home ofttimes discussed the com- 

 parative expense of the different articles of food, 

 especially when there seemed unusual need of re- 

 ducing expenses: and the difhculty of getting at 

 any really definite figures in the matter finally re- 

 sulted in the following experiments: 



Nov. 1. for breakfast I ate five graham gems. 

 These, with a cent's worth of butter, cost 3 cts. 8o 

 far as the gems were concerned, my hunger was 

 perfectly satiated: but I could with ease have eaten 

 after this a piece of pie and perhaps cake — may be 

 an apple or bunch of grapes also; but as I was " in 

 pursuit of science," and bent on determining just 

 how much food was really needed, T ate nothing 

 more. Somewhat to my surprise I did not get hun- 

 gry before noon, but, on the contrary, felt unusual- 

 ly well. At dinner I ate 4 oz. of rice, costing 3 cts., 

 with one ounce each of sugar and butter, which 

 made a very good meal for 5 cents. As I used few 

 dishes for this simple repast, the labor of preparing 

 the meal was also economized. The next meal was 

 4 oz. corn meal and half a pint of milk — cost 3 cts. 



The fourth meal was K pint of beans — cost less 

 than hcdf a cent. This amount seemed so ridicu- 

 lously small that I spent the afternoon in pretty 

 severe outdoor labor to see if it were really possible 

 one could live on such an insignificant expense. 

 To my surprise I felt unusually well, and yet this 

 vegetable was one that always disagreed with me 

 when eaten as usual with a full meal of other 

 things. In all these experiments I had taken unu- 

 sual trains to masticate my food, and, as a result, ate 

 sloirly. 



Fifth meal, beefsteak and pork sausage, 1 lb., cost 

 16 cts. I should have eaten the whole with ease had 

 not Blue Eyes petitioned for a part of " papa's sup- 

 per," and so my supper cost 14 cents. 



As the program was that I was to have what I 

 liked, providing I could give the cost of it, I next 

 chose ginger-snaps, of which I am very fond, and 

 cheese. As I had eaten no fruit I chose a good 

 glass of lemonade at the close of the meal, which 

 cost 1 ct., the cheese 2 cts., and the snaps 8 cts. — 11 

 cts. in all. 



Seventh meal, XM. lbs. of potatoes roasted in the 

 coals— cost less than half a cent: and the milk eat- 

 en with them brought it up to 2 cts.: but as I got 

 hungry before supper I concluded that potatoes 

 would not compare with the grains and beans. 



Eighth meal — felt like having some more meat: 

 and to try something a little cheaper I paid 25 cts. 

 for a soup-bone. This gave a very good meal for 

 about 4 cents. 



Ninth meal — 4 oz. oatmeal, and a most delicious 

 meal it was, for about 3 cents. 



Tenth meal — one gill of whole corn .soaked in wa- 

 ter 16 hours, the hull taken off in the usual way 

 with a lye made of ashes, and corn boiled until 

 thoroughly cooked. When eaten slowly with a lit- 

 tle salt it made a good meal for only K of a cent. 



Eleventh meal, and the most delicious one of all, 

 was simply whole clean wheat boiled until well 

 cooked, and served with butter and clover honey. 

 I ate about X of a cent's worth, and about 2 cents' 

 worth of butter and honey, but ate more than I 

 needed. 



Twelfth meal — oysters. They cost 10 cts.: milk 1 

 ct., crackers 2M: whole expense, 13M cents. 



Thirteenth meal — eggs roasted on the coals, a la 

 boyhood days. This experiment was a failure from 

 the fact that we roasted only five, and, after eating 

 these, were so hungry that we ate a quarter of a 

 grape pudding and a large slice of home-made gin- 

 gerbread. The latter costs only 5 cents per lb., 

 while the snaps are 18 at the grocery. Eggs would 

 be Quite expensive lor a full meal at present rates 

 122 cts.), and we should probably want eight or 

 ten to be equivalent to 54 lb. of wheat. 



In the above experiments it will be observed that 

 we have paid little or no attention to sanitary mat- 

 ters, and we should be very sorry to discourage the 

 use of meat, having at one time regained health by 

 an exclusively meat diet of many weeks: but there 

 is one very important fact elucidated, viz., that a 

 more extensive use of our grains in their unground 

 and unbolted state would not only be a great sav- 

 ing of money but a positive gain in health. As an 

 illustration, a pound of wheat costs 2 cts., and is 

 worth more in every way than a pound of flour 

 that costs 4 cts. or a pound of bread costing from 8 

 to 10. Cracked wheat, it is true, can be bought of 

 the grocer: but as it must inevitably pass through 

 several hands before it gets to the consumer, they 

 really can not furnish for much less than 6 or 8 cts. 

 what they pay 2 cts. for. Much the same might 

 be said of all our grains: and if you have never 

 tried cooking them whole in the way we have men- 

 tioned, it may be worth while to try the experi- 

 ment. If they are simply broken in two, say in a 

 common cofTee-mill, they will cook more quickly; 

 and mills are now in the market for this purpose, in 

 size and capacity from a coffee-mill all the way up. 



The great strides that are now being made in sci- 

 ence and the arts and industries are, by a kind of 

 Yankee faculty for cutting 'cross lots, producing 

 just as good or even a better article, with less labor 

 and machinery, less complication, and fewer hands 

 enu'loyed. Suppose we had a job of work to do on 

 the opposite side of a stream. We might go down 

 stream a mile to get to a bridge, and then come 

 back a mile on the other side, or we might roll up 

 our trousers and splash through, and have the 

 work a good way along by the time we reached the 

 bridge. Some might say that the latter is an un- 

 dignified way: but if it is the only road to honest 

 independence, we would advise taking it. We can 

 splash through the water on a small scale by tak- 

 ing the coffee-mill s(jme evening and seeing how 

 much money we can nuike by grinding wheat at 2 

 cts. per lb.; for even when ground very coarsely it 

 can be made into most excellent bread. You can 

 splash through the water again by purchasing meat 

 that is good and wholesome, at 4 ct.s. per lb. instead 

 of Ifi. And, again, by ];aying cash for every thing 

 you buy, and insisting that you have it at the very 

 lowest cash figure. Haven't you the cash on hand? 

 Reduce your expenses so that you can lay up half of 

 what you have formerly paid out for your table In 

 the way 1 have mentioned : and before you are 

 frightened for fear such a course may look undig- 

 nified, reflect that some of the finest minds the 

 world has ever produced have been obliged to study 

 this matter as one of the fine arts — how to live 

 cheaply. 



We have plenty of men in our cities who make it 

 a business to help those who are not afraid to 

 splash through the water, b.v offering the staple 

 commodities of life at very close figures indeed; 

 but you must pay cash, for these men figure on so 

 small a profit that it is entirel.y out of the question 

 to add a per cent to cover the losses on bad custom- 

 ers, as most of oui; country merchants and grocers 

 are obliged to do: and, for that matter, you can al- 

 most always make an arrangement with your own 

 grocer, if .vou will tell him that his money is always 

 ready, or, better still, if he is trusty, give him the 

 money to get what you want when he goes to the 

 city. If you have always the mone.v in your pock- 

 et you need not fear but that you will always find 

 him accommodating. 



You see from the above that I went over 

 the same ground where Terry and P'letcher 

 have recently made such a stir showing 



