110 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



in a sufficient variety of ways to please and satisfy all the invited 

 guests ; a thought wliich truly suggests tlie close connection 

 existing between good cooking and good farming. Truly, there 

 is a world of thought clustering around tliis agricultural 

 department, spreading, as it does, its supporting branches 

 through almost, yea, every department of manufacturing. 

 Then there is our Yankee peculiarity of getting all we can, 

 and keeping all we get, together with that of asking questions, 

 especially that most oft repeated question. Why? Tiie farmer 

 gets and his wife should help keep. He fills the dairy-house, 

 cellar and barn, and expects her to look well to the things with 

 which she has to do. Her part is to save, not meanly, but from 

 absolute loss, that all that is in the house, may be of benefit 

 to those within and around it. This she can best do whenever 

 nature's suggestive Why, can be correctly answered. 



Allow mo then, ladies, to make a visit with you in your 

 cellars and cellar-kitchens, instead of the upper room or even 

 the parlor. As we look around, let me ask questions, and you 

 answer them. Your husband has provided for you some fine 

 potatoes — a couple of boxes, you say, just alike. But why are 

 the potatoes in the tighter box so much more free from decay 

 than the others ? I see you have some apples, also. But why 

 do they keep well, when the potatoes do not? Ah, here is the 

 milk-room, a little too cool. Canyon tell me why the tempera- 

 ture should be between 60° and 60° Fahrenheit to produce the 

 most cream ? 



You have your cook books filled with rules, but unless you 

 can give some reason for those rules, you will sometimes fail. 

 I have somewhere read or heard of a certain book captain, 

 who in all things respecting navigation, followed the teachings 

 of his boolc. One day in mid Atlantic, he was giving orders 

 from his book when, while looking aloft, the wind turned over 

 the leaf. Presently he looked on what he supposed was the 

 next order to the one last given, read and gave out, " Let go 

 the anchor." And the anchor was dropped. Now had the 

 man thought of the wherefore, he would not have done so fool- 

 ish a thing. But, ladies, I will not take too close an inspection 

 of the part you have to act in preserving the products of the 

 soil. I will not wait for an answer to the questions proposed. 

 If at some future day I should happen in, and you feel disposed 



