624 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



dry, clean place, as may raisins, Zante currants, evaporated and 

 dried fruits, and similar supplies. Sugar and salt are best kept, the 

 former in tin, the latter in wooden or crockery receptacles. Glass 

 preserve jars are perhaps the best and most convenient containers 

 for small quantities of any food material. 



While cooking, newly baked bread should be lightly covered 

 with a clean cloth or paper to prevent mold germs and dust from 

 falling upon it, but should not be tightly wrapped in a thick cloth. 

 When perfectly cold it should be placed in a close receptacle that 

 has been thoroughly scalded and aired. If it is to be kept for more 

 than two or three days in damp, hot weather, the jar or box should 

 be taken out and sunned for a short time now and then, and again 

 scalded and dried. 



Cake and cookies should be cooled after baking and kept in 

 tin boxes or in earthenware jars, which should be often scalded and 

 aired. Even if these foods are to be eaten at the next meal it is 

 well to keep in some such receptacle, as it protects from dust. A 

 cake, pudding, or pie put out of a window uncovered to cool or in 

 any other place where it is exposed to dust, and in summer also to 

 flies, is something that no careful housewife would place on her 

 table if she stopped to think how easily the food may be contamin- 

 ated. 



Commercial canned goods may be bought by the dozen in the 

 autumn, as they do not suffer from even a poor storage place, pro- 

 vided it is not so damp that the cans rust through. If dirty or 

 dusty, the cans should always be carefully wiped before they are 

 opened to prevent accidental soiling of the contents. Vegetables 

 and fruits canned at home and homemade jellies, jams, and similar 

 foods should be kept in dry, airy storage places, out of direct light. 



Canning may also be made use of daily for temporary pres- 

 ervation of food, especially where ice-chest facilities are not good. 

 When making soup stock a large quantity is made as easily as a 

 small, and the surplus may be poured, while hot, into fruit jars and 

 sealed. Boiled milk, cooked vegetables and mince meat may also 

 be canned, but mince meat will keep a long time in an ordinary 

 receptacle if melted suet be poured over the top. Such canning is 

 only recommended for a few days' keeping, and every precaution 

 should be taken that is familiar in the ordinary canning of fruit or 

 vegetables. All stores should be plainly labeled. 



Dishwashing. The bacteriologist finds no kitchen clean 

 enough and the ordinary methods of washing dishes he is likely to 

 call a smear. Dishes have been tested to determine the number of 

 organisms that remain on them after ordinary washing as com- 

 pared with a method that requires an application of hot water with 

 the help of soap or, better still, carbonate of soda, a thorough rins- 

 ing in hot water, and wiping with a sterilized cloth (that is, one 

 which has been in boiling water since it was used before) . By this 

 latter method the dishes were practically sterile while many organ- 

 isms were left on the dishes that were washed by the ordinary 



