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The National Geographic Magazine 



The Village Threshing Floor at Jelenovka 



fifteen inches wide, and about as thick 

 as pie crust. These are baked either on 

 beds of hot pebbles or in the regulation 

 oven, which consists of a hole in the 

 ground three or four feet deep and as 

 many in diameter, lined with hardened 

 clay, and narrowing toward the top, a 

 fire being built in the bottom to heat the 

 clay. The baker spreads his sheets of 

 dough on a sort of pillow, and, dex- 

 trously seizing it by a handle on the 

 bottom, bends down into the oven and 

 spats the dough against the side, where 

 it sticks and is baked in a few minutes. 

 The sheets of bread are pulled out of 

 the oven by means of a hook and hung 

 on the walls of the shop to cool. The 

 bread is sold by weight, the price be- 

 ing about one and one-half cents per 

 pound, and is delivered without wrap- 

 ping paper. 



The people roll up their sheets of bread 

 and carry them home under their arms 

 as if the}^ were packages of brown paper. 

 It is literally whole-wheat bread, and 

 though it contains no salt, tastes better 

 than it looks. 



There are two kinds of butter, one 

 made from buffaloes' milk and the other 

 from that of cows. The former is white 

 and tastes like tallow, but the latter can- 

 not be said to be as attractive or any 

 more palatable, for the people churn it 

 in a goat skin with the hair inside. 



Each farmer seems to prepare his own 

 grain for grinding. After the harvest- 

 ing, the grain is spread out two or three 

 feet deep on a spot of specially hardened 

 ground, and oxen and buffaloes are 

 driven around over it until the kernels 

 are broken out of the heads. In some 

 cases the threshing instrument is a 



