DECEMBER 1, 1914 



of bother ; but if " lots of bother " helps to 

 " defer old age " I think we can Avell afford 

 this bother. Old people especially should 

 have access to a warmed-up bath-room every 

 hour and every minute in the day. Let me 

 say to you younger ones, if your old father 

 and mother have no such arrangement get 

 right about it and fix up one for them. I 

 was going to suggest it as a " Christmas 

 present;" but Christmas is too far away. 

 Make it a Thanksgiving present. Since 

 natural gas was brought to our premises, a 

 little heat in the basement heats the bath 

 water ; and in our bath-room there is a little 

 radiator that cost only a trifle, and this is 

 always hot. Now, I do not want hot water 

 nor very warm water for bathing all over. 

 Water at about 60 or 70 is to me more 

 agreeable, and I am sure a moderately 

 warmed sponge bath is more helpful. Well, 

 after I have been washed and scrubbed all 

 over I put on my night dress and draw off 

 into the bath-tub a little hot water, and 

 stand in it. When both feet are made hot 

 I slip on some flannel bed stockings that 

 cost only eight or ten cents a pair. When 

 I get tolerably well warmed up in body I 

 can easily push these stockings off; and if 



961 



the weather is very cold we have a hot soap- 

 stone for " emergencies." 



I have thus gone into details because I 

 know there are hundreds of old people 

 reading Glj:anings and profiting by every 

 thing that not only helps to defer old age, 

 but which helps us to care for ourselves so 

 we shall avoid as long as possible being a 

 burden on the younger generation. I wish 

 a'U of our readers would learn to repeat, or, 

 better still, sing, the beautiful hymn with 

 which Mrs. Axtell closes her kind letter. 



Below is a clipping taken from the New 

 York Weekly Witness, which Mrs. Axtell 

 inclosed in her letter : 



KICKING THE KHEUMATISM OUT OF BED. 



On Tuesday in the Senate, Senator Tillman (S. 

 C.) gave a dissertation on the conservation of health, 

 and describes how he kept himself alive four years 

 after his obituary had been written, and invited them 

 to come to his office for further instruction as to 

 details. He remarked, when he saw some of his 

 audience smiling, that he would bury some of them 

 yet. The four things to which he attributed his res- 

 toration to health after a severe paralytic stroke 

 were: careful diet, deep breathing, physical-culture 

 exercises, and drinking hot water (of which he 

 drinks at least three quarts a day). He described 

 his method of exercise as lying on his back and 

 kicking the headboard of his bed. By this means 

 he said he had " literally kicked the rheumatism out 

 of bed." 



HIGM=PEE§§UME GAEDENING 



FALL-BEARING STRAWBERRIES, ETC 



Last spring I had about a dozen plants, 

 highly recommended, the Superb and the 

 Progressive. For some reason — I rather 

 think improper soil for strawberries — I lost 

 about half my plants. After I got irriga- 

 tion, however, they took a start, and during 

 October I had some very nice berries. 

 ]My near neighbor, Mr. Henry Horn, had 

 about 60 plants of the Superb, and he 

 brought me about as fine a dish of straw- 

 berries yesterday, Nov. 3, as I ever saw. 

 To-day, Nov. 4, he has a large amount of 

 gr<?en berries, some just getting rii3e. In 

 the spring he prepared a piece of ground 

 (about 1/2 acre) for strawberries, and gave 

 it a very heavy fertilizing of bone meal. 

 The season got so late, however, that he 

 did not get his j^lants put out. To avoid 

 losing the use of the ground he sowed it to 

 purple-top flat turnip, and just now he is 

 pulling and selling a most prodigious crop 

 of beautiful turnips. One of them weighed 

 fully 11 lbs., and measured 32 inches in 

 circumference. When I suggested that it was 

 the heavy application of bone meal, he said 

 that when he pulled them up he found the 

 bone meal adhering to the roots. We have 



just had a part of one for dinner, and the 

 quality is excellent, even if they are so 

 large. 



Just a Avord more about fall-bearing ever- 

 bearing strawberries. It has now been 

 pretty well demonstrated that just as nice 

 berries can be grown in the fall, especially 

 when the frost holds oft', as in the summer 

 time. It has, however, been suggested, and 

 I think with some weight, that people will 

 not be so eager to buy the berries, no matter 

 how nice they are, when peaches and other 

 kinds of fruit are so plentiful. Strawber- 

 ries come in May and June, and are about 

 the very first fruit, when there is almost no 

 other fruit to be had; and yet strawberries 

 grown in Florida, so as • to be ready by 

 Thanksgiving, are often sold at high prices. 

 It looks now as if we should soon be able 

 to have strawberries every day in the year. 



FROM THE FLORIDA HOME. 



We have just had a beautiful rain, and 

 our garden looks fine. We have four trees 

 of oranges, one of tangerines, luscious per- 

 simmons, kumquats, and one big pineapple 

 — our own growing — paypayas (muskmelon 

 tree) galore, one 19 inches around and a 



