1861. 



THE ILimOIS FARMER. 



17 



opens — a long arm with a c'utch is thrust 

 out from the back of the oven, seizes the 

 car and hauls it into the glowing furnace — 

 down it goes with a steady motion; another 

 is pushed out from the opposite side, un- 

 loads its baked treasure, and passes along 

 the iron track, stands a minute to receive 

 its load, when the door again opens and it 

 follows its predecessor, and thus there is a 

 continuous round, letting in by one door 

 and discharging by the other, and all this 

 by the muscles of the huge monster who is 

 hard at work in the basement. Cakes, 

 plain and ornamental, are made bj the hun- 

 dred, c'ailj, these are all done by hand, and 

 baked in the common oven, three of which, 

 of large size, project far under the sidewalk. 

 Fbur, lard, butter, eggs and sugar are here 

 in large supply, ready to be worked up. A 

 dozen large bread carts are busy in deliver- 

 ing the products o^ the bakery to the re- 

 tail dealers, who distribute it to their cus- 

 tomers. Except the small amount retailed 

 for the neighborhood and country custom, 

 it is all sold at wholesale and delivered to 

 the dealer at his shop. 



The demand for crackers is large, and 

 hundreds of barrels are sent into the coun- 

 try weekly. To the people of the city this 

 vast bakery is a great labor saving inven- 

 tion, turning out a better article than most 

 city housewives are capable of doing, in fact 

 the whole product of the bakery is of the 

 first cla^s, and far superior to most of ttie 

 home wo'ked bread. This is not the only 

 bake shop using steam works, but it is the 

 only one in the whole west, so far as we 

 know, where the baking is done on such an 

 extensive scale. Farmers' wives cannot 

 expect the aid of these patent bakers, but 

 they can and should insist that when new 

 improvements are procured for the farm 

 that the kitchen should receive its due 

 share. When we look upon the hund»-eds 

 of poor, worn out stone ovens, where the 

 baking of the f imily must be done, and^see 

 a hundred and fifty d liar reaper wasting 

 out its value exposed to sun, wind and 

 storm, we think wouen have some rights 

 that their husbands ought to respect. 



For the Illinois Farmer. 



A Talk with the Editor. 



Mr. Editor: — My modesty demurs to the 

 "liberty "you Lave taken with my initials, but 

 if the full name of a contributor is an earnest of 

 the truth of what he asserts, or tends in the 

 least to secure the attention of his readers, a 

 tiller of the soil who seeks and communicates in- 

 struction through the columns of a public jour- 

 nal, ought not, perhaps, to comjilaia when the 

 editor exercises his conceded privileges. Hence- 

 forth, however, shou'd any of the facts or obser- 

 vations I may send you be deemed worthy a place 

 in any department of the Farmer, please consider 

 the signature appended hereto all that is needed 

 for the identifisation of the writer. 



riCKlKG APPLES. 



Let me here supply an important omission or 

 two, which I notice in my last paper. First, my 

 method of picking apples. I use half bushel 

 baskets, with wooden hooks attached to the hand- 

 les; when filled, they are lowered from the tree 

 into the wagon bed, not emptied, as is the usual 

 custon, but conveyed in the wagDn to the house, 

 then carried into the cellar and carefully emptied. 

 I know this is not a very expeditious plan, but I 

 think it pays, especially when the varities are 

 very choice. Good apples are very easily bruised, 

 an t every farmer knows, or ought to know, that 

 a bruise upon an apple is not an addition to ita 

 keeping qualities. A tender fall apple may be 

 kept till mid winter by careful handling. 



GOPHEHS AGAIN. 



I ought to have s'ated that the best time tj 

 give gopher hills a "good raking down," is juit 

 before a raia. They do not appear to fancy a 

 superabundance of wafer. Pi^y it is that they 

 and all their congeners were not left to (he ten- 

 der mercy of the element, through some over- 

 sight of grandpa Noah. 



The plan I recommended for their extermina- 

 tion, has been partially tried by an enterprising 

 and prosperous neighbor of mine, who, by-the- 

 by, I am glad to know, subscribes for and reads' 

 the Farmer. (And were I not apprehensire that 

 the statement might stir up your modicum of 

 vanity, I would tell you that this gentleman as- 

 sures me that the " Farmer " is worth to him 

 more than four times its cost. But this you may 

 put in brackets.) 



plaiitain. 

 I did flitter myself with the hope of being 

 able to announce to you that my efforts to ex- 

 terminate this most annoying of all weedy an- 

 noyances had been crowned with complete sue- 



