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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



On the Store Room Shelves 



By .Mary G. Phillips 



WHEN the first shivery nights 

 demand an extra blanket on 

 the bed, and we begin to wear 

 clothes that are faintly reminiscent 

 of ninth-balls, it is time to think of 

 winter foods. The Food Administra- 

 tion says that enough vegetables and 

 fruits have been canned in American 

 homes this summer to allow most of 

 the commercial output to go to the 

 soldiers. This not only means re- 

 leasing needed food, but also lessen- 

 ing transportation difficulties, for 

 most of the canned goods purchased 

 for home use has been .shipped by 

 train, sometimes all the waj across 

 the continent. The motto of most 

 American housewives for the sum- 

 mer, even with the thermometer at 

 1110 degrees, has been 

 "Count that day lost whose low de- 

 scending sun 

 Looks down and sees no worthy 



canning done." 

 And now they may reap their reward, 

 for the winter meal problem is solved 

 with a cellar stocked with a variety 

 of garden products. 



The Food Administrator (ells us, 

 however, perhaps in order to keep us 

 from becoming too conceited over 

 our achievement, that our labor in 

 canning has not been sufficient un- 

 less in our storerooms we have the 

 equivalent of the following supplies, 

 given for a family of five: There 

 should be for every winter month at 

 least 25 cans of vegetables, 20 cans 

 of fruit, \y 2 bushels of potatoes, and 

 half a bushel of other root yegeta- 

 bles. If your shelves can boast of 

 this large a supply then profiteers 

 may howl and retail prices may soar 

 —your family, at least, may live com- 

 fortably, and all winter you will have 

 that easy sense that comes only with 

 the accomplishment of a hard task 

 faithfully performed. The thrifty 

 ant and busy bee have their day 

 when the butterfly and grasshopper 

 starve of hunger in the cold. Of 

 course, it has not been possible for 

 every thrifty ant among us to ac- 

 complish such results as the Food 

 Administration has pictured, for tin- 

 doubti dly, although most of us have 

 had gardens, there have been tin- 

 usual obstacles to perfection— weeds. 

 bugs, drought, and the neighbors' 

 chickens, and some neighbors have 

 more chickens than others The most 

 fortunate women have been those on 

 th. farms where there is always all 



abundance of every sort of f 1, and 



the most unfortunate have been the 

 city dwellers with no gardens, who 

 have had to battle with retail 

 cers, almost as hard a struggle as 

 that of the farmer against his bug 

 and weed enemies. But, as usual, 

 the law of compensation won 

 it has been the farm women who 

 have had least time in which to do 

 their canning, even with an abund- 

 ance right at hand, while tin cit; 

 havi i" pend a great 

 amount of time and energy in going 

 from place to place trying to find 

 fruit and vegetables cheap enough to 



can, have conveniences which make 

 the actual canning quick and easy. 



No matter what our winter stock 

 may be, now that it is all on the 

 shelves but a little green tomato 

 pickle, it behooves the ant to be still 

 thrifty, and conserve her supply so 

 that it will surely last through the 

 winter. To some people meals mean 

 meat and potatoes — heavy, fuel-pro- 

 ducing foods, and nothing more, but 

 that is as bad a diet for winter as 

 it is for summer. The body needs 

 some fresh fruit or vegetable every 

 day during the winter to give the 

 proper elements of growth, and the 

 essential acids, and it needs as well 

 one of the protective foods each day, 

 that is those foods which assure the 

 body sufficient mineral salts. The 

 following list of protective foods is a 

 good one to memorize or tack up on 

 the wall: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, 

 cauliflower, celery, collards, lettuce, 

 milk. onions, spinach and Swiss 

 chard. 



Variety in winter meals is rather 

 difficult unless one looks ahead and 

 plans definitely with that in mind; 

 but when once the plan is made, the 

 greatest bugbear of winter meals is 

 over. Take a sample store-room for 

 illustration, in which everything has 

 been canned from a small home gar- 

 den, and nothing has been bought to 

 put up. Here are 26 quarts of string 

 beans, 16 quarts of lima beans, 31 

 quarts of tomatoes, 10 quarts of 

 beets, 6 quarts of kohl rabi, 87 quarts 

 of canned early apples, 12 quarts of 

 peaches, 26 quarts of cherries and 100 

 jars of jam of various sorts. Accord- 

 ing to the Food Administration fig- 

 ures, this supply is inadequate in- 

 deed for the five winter months for 

 this family of five. The housekeeper 

 has only 89 quarts of canned vegeta- 

 bles, when she should have ISO 

 quarts. She must make good this de- 

 ficit by buying canned goods from 

 her neighbors if possible, or from 

 the nearest canning center, naturally 

 buying such vegetables as she is 

 without, particularly peas, corn and 

 greens. Rut leaving out of the ques- 

 tion what she must buy, how shall 

 she use what she now has in her cel- 

 lar? To begin with, the date should 

 be set for the time when she will be- 

 gin to draw upon the winter supply, 

 Probably November 1 in her locality. 

 If she expects to use from her store- 

 room until April 1. it gives 20 weeks 

 of winter to provide For. Having 26 

 quarts of string beans on her shelves, 

 the family may regale themselves 

 with this delicacy once a week with a 

 little leeway for the unexpected and 

 unsuspecting guest, when an extra 

 jar may !"■ opened. With 31 quarts 



of tomatoes, one can a week nun be 



opened, leaving a quart to be used 

 once in I w i - • eel For -oi, p. With 87 

 quarts < >i apple i eadj 1 1 < use, think 

 . if the de -< rtsl Vpple pie i me day a 

 v, eek, made with honey, of 

 .i hi inej l>i i >w n bet I s .mother night, 

 apple sauce for the children, apple 

 cake but w h i i numet ate all the 

 delicious things to be made from 

 those 87 quarts. Having only 12 

 quarts oi pi iches, they must In- 

 opened with care, one every two 

 weeks, probably every other Smnla , 



evening for tea, remembering to in- 

 vite the minister in the evening 

 those luscious peaches are due. With 

 26 quarts of cherries there may be 

 cherry cobbler or cherry pie once a 

 week; and the night that comes is 

 the one on which to invite daugh- 

 ter's latest soldier to dinner. It may 

 readily be seen that planning of this 

 sort means a saving of effort, and as 

 there will be constantly a greater 

 demand upon women's time for other 

 work during the coming hardest win- 

 ter of the war, we must plan ahead 

 and get out of our way as much de- 

 tail as possible, in order to leave 

 room in our days for the other 

 things needful. 



There is a small and easy job on 

 our hands right now, in which every 

 club, every family, every church and 

 every community should be helping 

 — the saving of pits and stones for 

 gas masks. Here is the list of ma- 

 terials needed, and if every mother 

 would see that the collection which 

 goes from her house contains no 

 other pit or stone, it will save a tre- 

 mendous amount of sorting after- 

 ward: Peach stones, prune pits, 

 apricot pits, olive pits, date seeds, 

 cherry pits. Brazil nut shells, and 

 the shells of hickory nuts, walnuts 

 and butternuts. 



Washington, D. C. 



Notes From German Switzerland 



By C. W. Aeppler 



IN April, 1918, a census was taken 

 of colonies of bees and beekeep- 

 ers. It goes to show that the 

 beekeeping industry is on the decline 

 in Switzerland. Switzerland pos- 

 sessed, in 

 1901—42,257 beekeepers, with 242,544 



colonies. 

 1911 — 34,351 beekeepers, with 225,030 



colonies. 

 1918—29,460 beekeepers, with 204,128 



colonies. 

 In the last 17 years the number of 

 colonies diminished by 16% and the 

 number of beekeepers by 30%. 



Probably for the first time in his- 

 tory has the price of honey* to the 

 consumer been tixed by any govern- 

 ment. During the past two or three 

 years there has existed considerable 

 speculation on the honey market. In 

 order to put an end to this specula- 

 lion, the Department of Economics 

 of the Swiss Government tixed the 

 price of honey to the consumer at 

 6.50 l-'i . per kiligram. This is at the 

 rate of 64 cents per pound. Under 

 the stress of high prices during the 

 war the consumer knows in advance 

 what honey will cost him. Possibly 



such a procedure would be a i 1 



thing in Switzerland for all time. 



but the same would be a debatable 

 proposition, at least during normal 

 here in the United States 

 Some of the clement of competition 

 w.mld be done away with. There 

 would, however, be some direct 



benefits. More direel marketing 

 from the producer to the consumer 



would result. The consumer, know- 

 ■ price he would have to pay, 



might feel in. i] e in. lined to deal di- 

 rect!) with the producer. The bee- 



