February, 1911 
~ Hints for the Housewife 
By MARGARET SEXTON 
66 AN you tell me of some way by 
C which I can cook prunes and 
eliminate the sweetness asks a 
constant reader of Connecticut.”’—W. 
ne. 
Many people object to the sweetness 
of prunes and yet object to the watery 
quality of the juice if the sugar is left out. 
A. skillful cook declares that the very 
proper way to cook prunes is in a bean 
pot in the oven. Wash and soak the 
prunes and put them in the pot with a 
very little water. Let them cook slowly 
for a long time. They will be found de- 
licious, thick, and rich without any of 
the objectionable sweetness. Thinly sliced 
lemon from which the seeds have been 
removed is a great addition if cooled with 
the prunes. 
“A subscriber writes from Chicago and 
asks what can be done with the discolora- 
tion which takes place on the wall paper 
where pictures are continually hung in 
one position. Any information on this 
subject will be highly appreciated.”—M. 
ASR: 
Plain papers on the walls are most ar- 
tistic and are a fine background for pic- 
tures or ornaments of any kind, but wher- 
ever a picture has been placed, if left 
there for any length of time, the paper 
will be marked. It either changes color 
or else becomes discolored from a collec- 
tion of dust behind them. This trouble 
can be remedied in a very simple way by 
driving a brass-headed tack into each 
lower corner of the picture frame. In 
this way the picture will be held out from 
the wall a fraction of an irich, thus allow- 
ing the air to circulate and so prevent 
ugly marks on the paper. 
“T would like to have a recipe for mak- 
ing a good lemonade. Will you kindly 
supply me with one?”—J. D. S. 
Grate one juicy pineapple. Add the juice 
of six lemons, two cupfuls of granulated 
sugar and one pint of water. Boil the 
sugar and water until it becomes a syrup. 
When cold add the juice of the lemons «and 
the grated pineapple. Add a quart and a 
pint of Apollinaris water and a small bottle 
of Maraschino cherries for flavor. 
“Will you kindly give some informa- 
tion to a young mother as to how to 
bathe a baby?’”—J. C. B. 
All too frequently the infant is fright- 
ened by its first bath, and for a long time 
after it is difficult to bathe the baby with- 
out its becoming alarmed and screaming 
and crying, which is most distressing. If 
when the easily-frightened baby is put in 
the bath a Turkish towel is first laid on 
your Jap and the baby laid on that, take 
all four corners together, two in one hand 
and two in the other, lift the towel gently 
and lower the baby into the water in the 
tub, and it will feel so secure in the towel 
and the water will steal so gently about 
it that the baby will not be frightened, it 
will soon become accustomed to the bath 
and be delighted when it is bathed.’ If this 
All letters accompanied by retum postage will be answered promptly by mail. 
w CORRESPONDE 
The Editor of American Homes and Gardens desires to extend an invitation to all its readers to send to the Correspondence Department inquiries on any matter | 
pertaining to the decorating and furnishing of the home and to the developing of the home grounds. 
Replies that are of general benefit will be published in this Department. 
is done a great deal of trouble will be 
saved and the baby spared a fright. 
“Will you please inform me how I can 
keep the juice from boiling out of a fruit 
pie into the oven.”—L. A. T. 
A fruit pie will often boil over or leak 
its juice and so make a very dirty oven, 
besides wasting much that is very good 
im “the pie. - his can) be prevented it, 
when you are making pies, you put tiny 
pieces of butter around the outer edge of 
the crust before putting on the upper 
crust. The size of the pieces need not be 
larger than good-sized peas. These small 
lumps of butter should be placed two or 
three inches apart and about two inches 
back from the edge of the crust. The 
butter not only keeps the pie from boil- 
ing over, but adds to the richness of the 
flavor of it. A small piece of butter put 
in rice when it is boiling, or, in fact, any 
cereal, will keep it from boiling over. 
“T am very anxious to learn of some 
simple means by which I can keep dishes 
of food on ice from slipping off.”—M. 
Pe IRG ay 
All housekeepers have experienced how 
difficult a thing it is to place on the top 
of the ice with perfect surety of its stay- 
ing there, dishes of dessert or any other 
thing placed in dishes and necessary to 
keep on the ice. A very simple remedy 
for this trouble is to place a newspaper 
on the ice first; that is, one or two sheets 
of the newspaper, and then the dishes 
on top of that. There need be no fear of 
tipping if this is done. 
“T would like to know of a simple 
method to use in cleaning gloves, cloth, 
and lace.’—Miss Ellen. 
After thoroughly cleaning in the usual 
way with gasoline, rinse the gloves well 
in a dish of perfectly clean gasoline. 
While they are still wet sprinkle thickly 
with talcum powder and rub all over the 
gloves. Rub them until they are per- 
fectly dry and the powder has fallen from 
them. Then pull in shape and hang in 
the air. In cleaning any kind of cloth 
or lace with gasoline a soiled ring will 
not be left if talcum powder is sprinkled 
over the spot while wet and allowed to 
remain until the article is dry, when it 
brushes off very easily. Unless the gar- 
ment or article to be cleaned is immersed 
in gasoline it is almost a surety that a 
large disfiguring ring will be left where 
the gasoline leaves off. 
“Can you tell me of some way by which 
cold butter can be cut without crumb- 
ling ?”—E. H. W. 
During the cold winter weather it is 
often very hard to cut butter in even 
slices or small cubes. There is a very 
simple and easy way of doing this. It 
consists in folding a piece of the waxed 
paper in which the butter is wrapped 
over the knife, and with the knife covered 
in this way, the butter may be cut with- 
out breaking or crumbling it. The result 
will be nice, smooth cubes of butter, with 
no ragged edges. 
(Continued on page xi) 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS ix 
NCE | 
a 
Garden Work About the Home 
By CHARLES DOWNING LAY 
F, L. The long terrace wall 6-8 feet 
high, which is such an eyesore to you 
now, can be made very useful and at 
the same time beautiful without, planting 
vines. There are many trees such as dwarf 
apples, pears, peaches, and apricots which 
can be trained to a wall when it is prop- 
erly wired. he wire on the wall should 
be not more than 12 or 18 inches apart, 
about an inch out from the face of the 
wall. They should be supported on expan- 
sion bolts every 6 or 8 feet. The trees 
when bought should be cut back to a single 
whip leaving spurs with one bud where 
it is desired to start a new bunch going 
along the wires. All other shoots must 
be cut off as soon as they appear, sending 
the strength of the plants into the horizon- 
tal limbs which are trained to the wires. 
The trees that can be used in this way 
are Magnolia stellata, M. Soulangeana or 
umbellata, and varieties of the last two. 
Amelanchior might easily be trained to such 
a wall and of course. Pyrus coronnaria, 
Tonensis, Parkmanni, and the apple. All 
in time become too large. Any of the Cra- 
taegus family which has ornamental fruit 
may be used in this way and give a stun- 
ning effect in winter. Cercis canadensis 
can be trained to the wall without difficulty, 
and will flower soon after the shade bush. 
Eleagnus longipes, which has rather in- 
conspicuous yellow flowers but has pretty 
and edible fruit in July, can also be used. 
Some care must be taken in planting the 
mixed lot of shrubs, unless you choose one 
or two of them, to avoid a spotty effect, 
which will be produced more by the tex- 
ture of the foliage than by the actual color. 
All these trees are perfectly hardy, and are 
not likely to suffer from-late spring frosts, 
even if the wall faces the south, which we 
have often pointed out is the worst 2xpo- 
sure in this country. We should be glad 
if you would take photographs of the wall 
every season for a year or two as we 
should like ‘to illustrate it in AMERICAN 
Homes AND GARDENS. 
M shown on the sketch submitted 
* seems, if I may be permitted the 
use of slang, “too noisy” for the rest of 
the place, although the main entrance gate 
in comparison to the front door of the 
house should be a little dressy, just as we 
dress up the front door. It is a great mis- 
take to have it outdo the rest of the place 
in grandeur. Neither should it be an iso- 
lated enrichment with the boundaries, but 
it should be played up. to for some distance 
on either side by some slight ornamentation 
as a boundary wall. It may be that you 
can subdue the effect of your entrance by 
different planting, and have the iron work 
and masonry as it is. A mixture of spruce 
and red leaved Japanese maple is not what 
a cultivated person would select for thi 
entrance, 
L. C. Your idea of a gateway as 
