256 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Junk 15 



sugar burn around the sides of the utensils 

 I cook it in. One day I happened to be on 

 the fairground where the candymakers were 

 at work. I noticed they had a little fire 

 made of charcoal. Their sugar and water 

 were in a copper dish with a round bottom. 

 The dish was large enough so the heat from 

 the charcoal fire could be applied just un- 

 der tlie ce7iter of the pan of syrup. The out- 

 side edges were far away from where the 

 heat was applied. In this way they made 

 the hot sugar boil rapidly, without any burn- 

 ing, because the copper boilerwas 1 arge 

 enough to be cool all around where the heat 

 was applied. I have been thus explicit be- 

 cause it is quite important to understand 

 how it is we can cook a variety of things 

 nicely without any burning around the 

 edges. Now let us go ahead. 



I put a piece of butter in the tin dipper, 

 say half the size of a hickorj'nut; then 1 

 held it above the flame of the lamp until the 

 butter was melted, and about as hot as it 

 could be without burning around the edges, 

 applying the heat, of course, to the center 

 of the bottom of the dipper. Then I broke 

 an &^^ and dropped the contents carefully 

 in the melted butter. Now, by holding the 

 dipper in my hand, and varying the dis- 

 tance between it and the flame, or, if you 

 choose, turning the flame up and down, I 

 found I could cook an egg beautifully in three 

 minutes by the watch; and to prevent it 

 from sticking to the bottom of the dipper I 

 kept constantly shaking it around. In fact, 

 after it was cooked it would slip out of the 

 dipper itself on my plate. If I wanted an 

 ^^^ turned over and cooked on both sides, 

 it took about four minutes. After the &^^ 

 was cooked I could fry enough sliced pota- 

 toes for one meal nicely, in about the same 

 time I cooked the ^^^; and in the same way 

 I warmed up or cooked a variety of articles. 

 When done I took a piece of soft bread and 

 wiped out the butter from the clean bright 

 tin. Lastly, I gave my dipper a good rub- 

 bing with a piece of soft newspaper, when 

 it was almost as clean as when I commenc- 

 ed. A very little soap and hot some water 

 made it perfectly clean, and at the same 

 time furnish dishwater for the rest of my 

 dishes. 



Now, may be the mothers in many of our 

 homes, who have been absolutely obliged 

 to economize time, know all about what I 

 have been telling you; but I am just egotis- 

 tical enough to think that my plan as given 

 above is far ahead of the way in which the 

 average hired girl operates. I did not 

 waste any food, and I did not have any 

 dirty dishwater. I cooked a good whole- 

 some meal, and had every thing put away, 

 and the table slicked up, in not much more 

 than half an hour. In the way of fruit, I 

 had excellent canned strawberries that 

 Mrs. Root put up last summer. For drink 

 I sometimes used milk; and when I did not 

 have it handy I used malted milk. If I 

 wanted a cup of tea for a change I could 

 have boiling water with my tin dipper in 

 less time than any other apparatus for the 



purpose I have ever seen, and the dipper 

 was alwaj's bright and clean until — I do 

 not like to tell the rest of it, but perhaps I 

 had better. When I was cooking an ^^^ 

 one day I had got it to going nicely when 

 one of my boys came to the door to ask 

 about the work. I thought I could tell him 

 before the &^^ would take any harm; but I 

 am afraid, as a result, I shall have to in- 

 vest ten cents in a new dipper — that is, if I 

 want to have one that looks as comely as 

 my old one did for many months. 



Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 

 make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into 

 the joy of thy lord. — Matt. 2.j : 21. 



From very early childhood I have been 

 interested in the matter of flying-machines, 

 especially with the idea of having a ma- 

 chine that would fly without the aid of a 

 balloon; and I was a good deal disappoint- 

 ed when I read in the Scieritific American 

 (I think I commenced reading that periodi- 

 cal when I was about twelve years old, and 

 I have read it pretty thoroughly ever since) 

 that there was no force yet known to me- 

 chanics capable of exerting a power or 

 force in proportion to its weight so as to fly 

 like a bird; and I do not know but this 

 may be true even yet. All the machines and 

 air-ships I have seen described have de- 

 pended on a bag filled with hydrogen gas 

 to buoj' them up while the engine and pro- 

 peller-wheels pulled it against the wind or 

 the reverse." I do remember, however, that 

 some time between 1850 and 1860 somebody 

 suggested there was one force known to me- 

 chanics, of sufficient power to move a flying- 

 machine — the explosive force of gunpowder; 

 and as a proof he suggested the sky-rocket, 

 which flies not only to a great height, but 



* Perhaps I should add right here that I am well 

 aware there are floating or gliding machines that, 

 when started at the top ot a hill or high cliff, will float 

 as a hawk or other large bird floats a long time on its 

 outspread wings without giving them any motion. It 

 has been said that, when we get a successful floating 

 machine, we shall have mastered the question oi fly- 

 ing machines. A few weeks ago while at Miami, 

 Fla., a strong wind was blowing from the ocean 

 against a sloping bank of sand. This sandtank di- 

 verted the wind so as to make an ascending current. 

 A great lot of crows and other large birds had found 

 this ascending current of air, and were having quite a 

 frolic by letting it keep them suspended without any 

 motion of their wings whatever. Yes, the current 

 would occasionally raise them bodily up away from 

 the earth. They learned by what we might, perhaps, 

 call instinct, to shift their wings and tails so as to glide 

 down hill in the direction from which the wind comes 

 — or at least it would seem they were going down hill, 

 but in reality the ascending current keep's them up, 

 and sometimes raises them still higher, i figured this 

 problem out in my boyhood, when the question was 

 discussed as to how these floating birds could keep up 

 in the air without any flopping motion of their wings ; 

 and if I am correct they never do this — in fact, they 

 can not do it unless they hunt up a spot in the great 

 ocean of air above us where there are ascending cur- 

 rents. 



