172 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Pomestic jBcpartmcnt. 



A Shout CiiArTER ox Bread-^Iakixg. — At no 

 period of our civil history has so much attention been 

 directed to the best means of sustaining life, as at 

 the present, The partial failure of the cereal and 

 root crops in P^uropo, together with the rapid in- 

 crease of their already crowded population, has led 

 the chemist, the political economist, and the philan- 

 thropist to a clearer and more accurate investigation 

 of the life-sustaining properties of the various arti- 

 cles commonly used as food. 



The term " bread," in the broadest sense, can be 

 applied to the main staple, in the support and nour- 

 ishment of man ; whether it be the " potatoes and 

 point " of the Irishman ; the ostrich, the puanacho, 

 or the wiKl bull of the Buenos Ayrean Guacho ; the 

 blubber of the Greenlander; the cassava, banana, or 

 sugar-cane of the West India negro ; the hump 

 Steak of the prairie hunter. The rice of the glutton- 

 ous Siamese, the contents of the ample wallet well 

 filled with dates of the Timbucto merchant, and the 

 rich white bread of the American table, — all are to 

 different individuals but so many different forms of 

 " daily bread." 



The Prench chemists have, by the most patient 

 series of analyses, fixed the utmost alimentary limits 

 of almost every article used as diet. Wheat, above 

 all other things, stands preeminent as an article of 

 food. With us, as a nation, it forms a most impor- 

 tant part of life's comfort. The question before me 

 now is as to the best way of deriving the entire nu- 

 tritious substance of wheat when presented in the 

 form of baked bread. That we fail in gaining the 

 object by the use of fermentatives, such as yeast, 

 leaven, &c., can be easily shown. The intelligent 

 reader need not be told that fermentation cannot 

 take place in any substance that does not contain 

 sugar in large quantities, and in the proportion that 

 sugar predominates will be the activity of the fer- 

 mentation. In other words, the activity of the fer- 

 mentation depends upon the strength or ability of 

 the yeast or leaven to change or convert into car- 

 bonic acid gas the saccharine contained in the wheat. 

 Experiments in this respect enable me to speak 

 knowingly. The quantity of nutritious matter 

 destroyed in getting what our wives call a "light 

 raise," is as eight to one hundred ; or, out of everj- 

 one hundred pounds of flour, we destroy eight, while 

 the balance is largely injured by the process. 



Nor is the practice of raising bread by the use of 

 salteratus any better ; indeed, it is infinitely worse. 

 Why are ninety-nine out of every one hundred of 

 the American jjcople afHictcd with poor teeth ? Solely 

 from the use of sakeratus, not "sweet" things, as 

 many suppose. I am confident that the love of gain 

 ought to lead us to abandon the use of the first 

 ingredient, wViile the love of health, and, above all, 

 a good set of teeth, should induce us to abstain from 

 the use of the latter. 



A sweeter and better kind of bread can be made 

 by following the recipe given below. One trial, I 

 am satisfied, will convince any one. 



Three cups of Hour ; 



Two tcaspoonfuls of cream of tartar; 



One tcaspoonful of carbonate of soda, dissolved in 

 hot water ; 



A little salt, and a small piece of butter or lard. 



Mix with sweet milk, roll out and bake them 

 quickly. Add a little sugar, and it makes a very 

 nice, healthly cake for children. The same propor- 

 tions may be carried out to make a large batch of bread. 



By placing the bread, when taken from the oven, 

 in a current of sweet, fresh air, it soon recovers the 

 oxygen that was expelled from it while it was in the 

 oven. No bread should ever be eaten while it is hot. 



It is not fit for the stomach, and will certainly pro- 

 duce derangement, — such as flatulence, acidity, 

 biliousness, &c. It is a want of economy to use 

 warm bread. Many persons will eat three or four 

 warm biscuits, while seldom will they eat more than 

 two when they are cold ; and yet the two cold bis- 

 cuits contain more nourishment than the four warm 

 ones. — Valley Farmer. 



Stewed Celery. — The Horticulturist recommends 

 highly stewed celery. Cut the blanched or white 

 portion of the celery stalks in pieces about an inch 

 in length, and put them in a saucepan over the fire, 

 with milk and water, in equal proportions, barely 

 sufficient to cover thcni ; add a little salt, and let 

 them stew gently, until perfectlj' tender. Then take 

 out the celery, add a i)iece of butter to the liquid it 

 Avas boiled in, thicken it slightly with flour, pour it 

 over the celery, and serve it up. 



Sojis' uJt'partmeut 



Utility of Frogs. — I remember somewhere of 

 reading that, many and many years ago, a number of 

 frolicsome boys were one day watching frogs, at the 

 side of a pond, and that, as any of them put their 

 heads above the water, they pelted them down 

 again with stones. One of the frogs, appealing to 

 the humanity of the boys, made this striking obser- 

 vation : " Children, you do not consider that, though 

 this may be sport to j'ou, it is death to us." It is to 

 be feared that the same propensity to maim and 

 torture these poor, innocent reptiles prevails to some 

 extent with the youth at the present day. But this 

 is cruel, wicked, "wrong ; for the usefulness of frogs 

 about our gardens and fields can scarcely be too 

 highly estimated, as their food consists almost ex- 

 clusively of worms, slugs, insects, and other small 

 living things, which they seek among the plants and 

 grass on the land. 



Frogs, like the toad, it is well known, are hatched 

 from eggs, laid early in the spring in shallow pools 

 or near the edges of sluggish streams, which, when 

 taken together, are called " spawn," and often re- 

 semble a mass of boiled sago, sprinkled with a large 

 number of small black dots. The young tadpole, 

 which is hatched from them, passes through several 

 metamorphoses, and at the end of some weeks be- 

 comes a " gaping, wide-mouthed, waddling frog." 

 If you examine his tongue, you will observe that, 

 instead of being rooted at the throat, as in other 

 animals, it is fastened to his under lip, with its point 

 directed towards the stomach. Nevertheless, this 

 singular arrangement is well suited to his purposes, 

 for his tongue, as an organ of prehension, is very 

 effective, being flat, soft, and long, and covered 

 with a viscous fluid, which enables him more readily 

 to catch and secure his prey. When he wishes to 

 use it, he lowers his under jaw, ejects and retracts 

 it with the rapidity of light. 



Instead of torturing these poor reptiles, it is rec- 

 ommended that every' lad in the country give ])lace, 

 in some snug corner in the garden, for a vessel liold- 

 ing a few gallons of water, buried nearly level with 

 the surface of the ground, in which may be put one 

 or more frogs, to be petted and cherished like any 

 other domestic animal, and where its curious and 

 interesting habits may be studied at leisure. 

 — Amcr. Agricalturist. IIANA. 



A Thought for Every Day. — We see not, in 

 this life, the end of human actions — their influence 

 never dies. In every widening circle, it reaches 



