November, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



33 1 



springs passed without the ap- 

 pearance of a single morel upon 

 the beds; but in 1900 and 1901 

 half a dozen of the succulent 

 fungi appeared upon a compost 

 of apple residua and around a 

 stratum of dead leaves rendered 

 alkaline by carbonate of soda 

 and buried in a silo five years 

 previously. 



For the practical cultivation 

 of the morel the essential thing 

 seems to be to know what are 

 the substances necessary for the 

 nutrition of the fungus in the 

 very complex media mentioned 

 above. In a recent communica- 

 tion to the Academy of Sciences 

 of Paris (April of the present 

 year) , M. Molliard favors fer- 

 mentable sugars. M. Repin 

 thinks that it is necessary to 

 have recourse exclusively to 



compounds of the cellulose group. The co-operation of a mi- 

 crobe, however, appears to be indispensable in order to permit 

 the morel to pass through the cycle of its development. Thus 

 would be explained why it is that this excellent cryptogam, 

 like a number of the higher fungi, appears only at one time 

 of the year, its vegetation being connected with the season 

 phases of the microbian life of the soil. However this may 

 be, the problem of the artificial production of the morel is 



Germination of the Spores of the Morel 



now solved scientifically, and 

 mushroom cultivators may soon 

 be raising this esculent on a 

 large scale, to the great joy of 

 the gastronomers of the two 

 worlds. 



Co-operation in Forestry 



Work 

 Most of the work in forestry 

 in the United States has been di- 

 rected toward commercial ends ; 

 that is to say, for the financial 

 returns it would yield. A new 

 departure in such work has re- 

 cently been made by two indi- 

 vidual owners in New York 

 State who have sought the aid 

 of the National Forest Service 

 in the management of their 

 estates in which the commercial 

 end has a subordinate value. 

 The work has been under- 

 taken for the double purpose of accomplishing results and of 

 showing how they are brought about. The incident is of 

 interest not only for what it is hoped to accomplish through 

 it, but because it exhibits an active participation in forest 

 work by wealthy men whose object is, primarily, to have fine 

 estates, managed in the best way, and in which the financial 

 returns, while not ignored, are of comparatively secondary 

 importance. 



The Household 



The Man as Housekeeper 



HAT the occupation of housekeeping is one 

 of the exclusive prerogatives of the women 

 folk is one of the standard fetishes of 

 American domestic life. Nowhere else is 

 this notion so profoundly supported, no- 

 where else is it so widespread, nowhere else 

 is it so universally believed, nowhere else is it so completely 

 adhered to. And nowhere else, it may surely be added, 

 does it produce such disastrous results. 



In England there is much less support for the notion than 

 in America, although in that country the man who does the 

 actual labor of housekeeping is comparatively rare. But 

 England is a land that abounds in good servants, men and 

 women, and the English man servant — the trained article — 

 is thoroughly saturated with the art of domestic life. On 

 the Continent men habitually perform services that, in 

 America, are exclusively given to the women. The men 

 " chambermaids " that one meets in the French hotels are 

 among the strangest sights to the American freshly gone 

 abroad. But they perform their work quietly and without 

 fuss; that there is any sexual significance in the work they do 

 would be to them the most singular of all ideas. 



One meets the man houseworker everywhere on the Con- 

 tinent, and is glad to have his deft, careful, quiet service. 

 It is true these people expect a tip, but what hotel servant 

 does not? They have to work, and they have taken the 

 work which has easiest come to them and do it well and ably. 

 And there is no reason at all why men should not sweep 

 and dust, make beds, clean windows, fix the fire, clean the 



grate, arrange the furniture, while their special adaptability 

 to the art of cooking is amply attested by the princely salaries 

 the heads of this interesting profession receive in distin- 

 guished instances. What is there in all this that a woman can 

 do better than a man? What is there in this that unfits a 

 man for association with his fellows, or lowers him below a 

 rank that he thinks is rightly his? 



The fact is the domestic question has been greatly mis- 

 understood in America. There is no reason at all, in the 

 work itself, why all the household work might not be as 

 well done by men as by women. But there is a prejudice 

 against it, and that settles the matter. There is nothing 

 else, and no other cause of trouble. Domestic service is 

 regarded as degrading not because it is degrading, but be- 

 cause it is thought to be so. A vivid imagination, enhanced 

 by the prejudices of many generations, has made this feeling 

 a national one, and the feeling is so widespread that domestic 

 service has been practically closed to men until very recently. 



Fortunately, a saner view of the situation has arisen of 

 late, partly from seeing the work of men servants abroad, 

 partly from the well recognized superiority of Japanese 

 and Chinese men servants, and partly from the extraor- 

 dinary incapacity of the average woman servant. Every 

 housekeeper in the land can contribute a bitter chapter to 

 the latter subject, and the women must thank themselves if 

 the men supplant them in this important field. That, how- 

 ever, is not likely to happen for some time to come, but the 

 movement has begun. It indicates a development of the 

 greatest interest. 



