346 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
and it may be done Bitting as well as standing. A 
high office-stool is very useful in the kitchen. 
Feeble women, who do their " own work," often 
stand upon their feet more than is necessary. Tou 
can sit down to dress vegetables, to wash and wipe 
dishes, to knead bread, to iron, and to do many 
other things. Tou may be a little more slow abont 
the work, but you will get through it in better con- 
dition. Housekeepers would often like to take an 
out door walk, only their "feet are so tired !" 
Dish-washing would not be half so disagreeable 
as it often is, if the dishes were lightly scraped free 
from crumbs, and neatly piled up for washing. 
There should be a large dish-pan and plenty erf hot 
water, with which to fill up the pan gradually as 
its contents cool. I seldom use soap for washing 
dishes, but to the unskilled, or to those who use 
much butter and fat in their cooking, it seems a 
necessity. 
Sweeping is good exercise, if the floors and car- 
pets are not dusty. Ah ! that "if" ! Bed-making 
will serve as gymnastics, if the beds are kept clean 
and well aired. 
And what of washing? I do not think highly of 
the old-fashioned wash-board exercise. It is hard 
for both lungs and back. With good washers and 
wringers, and strong arms for the lifting, it may be 
made passable as exercise, and it is always a plea- 
sure to see soiled things growing clean once more. 
A moderate amount of ironing is good for women 
in health, in cool weather. On hot days the ironing 
should be done in a cool room, if possible. The 
ironing-table may be on a shady porch, or in the 
dining-room. 
I really wish that every fashionable woman had 
to iron all her own washed garments for one month. 
She would then understand better the full meaning 
of the word " achy," as used by Mrs. "Whitney to 
describe the puffs and ruffles on summer suits, put- 
ting together in her estimate of the cost of her 
garments the labor on the sewing-machine, and the 
hard laundry work. There are few women who 
have not wished, when doing up fine linen plaited 
shirt bosoms, that men could know by experience 
how difficult and trying the work is, until one has 
become skilled by practice. But cooking is per- 
haps the most important department of housework, 
and its exercise is not heavy in quality, though to 
some it may be heavy in quantity. It seems to me 
more and mdre like a high art, or dignified occupa- 
tion, worthy to be called a profession — far more 
useful and honorable than — the legal profession, 
for instance. I should not wonder if really good 
and scientific cooks could do more to preserve and 
to restore our health, than the doctors of medicine 
can. As with ironing — the hardest kind of cook- 
ery is the least necessary, or the ornamental part. 
We should study to make our cooking work as lit- 
tle heating as possible. For instance, bread may 
be baked in the oven instead of cooking it upon 
the griddle in the form of " pan-cakes," and in hot 
weather we can avoid those forms of food that re- 
quire constant stirring while boiling. A Warrener 
or a Eumford apparatus for cooking by steam 
diminishes the unhealtlifulness of the cook's busi- 
ness, by confining the odors of the articles in 
course of preparation for the table. I hear, too, 
that there are ovens with glass doors. 
If the family cooking seems laborious, study 
how you can simplify it without making the food 
less nourishing, or less attractive. 
There is a great deal of necessary work to be done 
in the world, in order that we may all be comfort- 
ably clothed, and fed and lodged. I should like to 
Bee what would be the result if the labor and 
strength spent upon unnecessary work, usually 
considered ornamental, should be given cheerfully 
to doing the necessary work of the world-, as a pre- 
paration for the advent of real beauty and genuine 
adornment in all departments of our daily life. 
— *»■- _•. 
Farmers' Tables. 
BY ¥H. H. MAHER. 
Of the thousand and one illusions of my child- 
hood there was none so long-lived, or that I was so 
sorry to part with, as my ideal farmer. I owe the 
poets a grudge to this day for my disappointment. 
Why should he always have been pictured as " the 
jolly old farmer," " the most independent man in 
the world," "living on the fat of the land," and so 
on? I supposed that being a farmer, and being 
happy, were synonymous terms. And, as I have 
struggled with boarding-house beef, half wilted 
vegetables, strong butter, and watery-milk, I have 
sighed that my lot was not cast with those blessed 
sons of the soil — the farmers. 
Day after day, poring over journal, cash-book, 
and ledger, I have drawn pictures of what my life 
might be when I could lay business aside and be a 
farmer myself. I was interested in the price of 
crops, although the only crop I raised was my 
•■monthly balance-sheet ; and I took an interest in 
stock, although I was but the owner of a very 
serawncy-looking dray-horse. 
But there came a time when my business could 
be laid aside, and I at once started out among the 
people I had envied so many years. Of course you 
all know how soon the charm was dispelled. The 
farmer might be independent, but he was very 
slovenly; he might be exceedingly "jolly," but 
his wife was dying of overwork ; the only part of 
my early impressions that I found to be true, was 
that one which told of his living on the fat of the 
land. He did ; on the fat and on but little else. 
I had pictured the pleasantness of being among 
the soft-eyed cows ; the graceful, innocent-looking 
sheep and lambs ; the gobblers and other poultry ; 
and there was even a pleasant note— in the distance 
and in imagination — to be fouud in the porcine- 
grunt. But I found the fanner pounding his cows 
with his milking-stool, kicking his sheep as they 
passed through the bars, beating his pigs with the 
most convenient stake, and throwing rocks at the 
hens and turkeys, as he cursed them in language 
as coarse as uncalled for. 
But if there was aught of the charm still left in 
my mind, it was dispelled when I sat down to the 
family meal. Shades of departed dreams, what an 
awakening ! Where were the juicy roast, the 
tender steak, the fine potatoes, with feelings too 
big for their jackets, the crimson beet, the 6Ugary 
parsnip, the golden butter, and the "Adam's ale?" 
Even echoes fail to answer the question. They 
were probably on the table of the city boarding- 
house ; they were not here. 
The etiquette of the dining-room — of their dining- 
room — was an etiquette peculiarly their own. 
Preparation for dinner consisted of a hasty wash in 
the tin basin, and an equally hasty brush of the 
hair. The men in shirt sleeves, the "women- 
folks " with faces red from the stove, sat down at 
the table, which, to make less work, was placed in 
the warm kitchen where the dinner had been cook- 
ed. The " hearty hospitality " of which I had so 
often read, consisted in an order from the head of 
the house, to help myself, as they didn't stand on 
ceremony there. 
But the bill of fare! Forgive them, Professor 
Blot, they knew no better ! It consisted of fried 
ham, fried potatoes, and fried turnips ; bread with- 
out butter, and very strong coffee. These were 
put away without much ado, and then, what was 
evidently the crowning pride of the house-wife, an 
immense pie was attacked, and demolished. 
There was hut very little conversation during the 
meal, and each one helped himself, if he could 
stretch far enough, and reach what he wanted. 
Supper should be the daintiest meal of the day, 
and a farmer's supper more tempting than any 
other man's ; but my friend's table was decidedly 
prosaic aud plain : the ham had been warmed up 
so that it could swim in fat ; the bread, cold pota- 
toes, and pie and cake with tea completed the bill. 
After supper the family was too tired to sit up 
long, and I was shown at a very early hour to the 
"spare" chamber, where I might repose on an 
immense feather-bed. If I tossed and tossed about 
that bed all night, the fault must have been in me. 
Was it not their best bed ? and did they not use 
things all the plainer on their own, that this one 
might be as good as their neighbors' best? 
An early call to breakfast, found mc with a 
splendid appetite. I could have appreciated a 
broiled steak, but I probably was over particular, 
and it served me right, to have to sit down to " the 
plain food of the farmer." Again the everlasting 
frying-pan had been brought into use, and instead 
of a juicy steak, it was fried hard and white. The 
potatoes almost floated in the grease they had been 
fried in, and those who wanted butter on their 
bread might dip in the gravy, as some of my com- 
panions did. There was thick black coffee, and 
the perpetual pie. 
Such was the bill of fare for the three meals, and 
they were fair samples of our board during the 
month that followed. What was most noticeable 
to me was the entire, or almost entire, lack of veg- 
etables on the table at every meal. Of course I 
did not mention the subject so that they would 
connect it with their own table, but I was curious 
to learn why it was they ate no vegetables but po- 
tatoes and turnips. The answer was they didn't 
like vegetables ; they would as soon eat a pill as a 
pea ; would rather have chopped leather than string- 
beans ; and thought carrots and parsnips were only 
fit for cattle ! When the subject of cooking came 
up, I noticed they prided themselves first, last, and 
always, on their cakes and pies. 
Where, O, where were my visions now ! Dead, 
dead beyond hope of resurrection. And now I 
find that these farmers whom I have mentioned 
are really typical of their calling. The great State 
of Massachusetts, through her Board of Health, 
has been looking a little after the farmers of that 
State, and publishes the result in the last Annual 
Report of the Board. Among the many questions 
of the Board to their correspondents, were ques- 
tions as to the farmer's diet. The result of the 
questions prove : — 
1. Good bread is scarce. 
2. There is too little variety in food. 
3. Meat is too apt to be fried. 
4. Baked fccans and 6alt pork too generally used. 
5. Pastry and cakes are used to an injurious ex- 
tent. 
6. Too little time is allotted for meals. 
7. Coffee and tea are too freely used. 
8. Water is used to excess. 
After quoting from the replies of correspondents, 
the author of the article in question says : " The 
suggestions of our correspondents are admirable 
and worthy of heed. The general opinion is : more 
fresh and less salt meat ; less frying and more boil- 
ing, broiling and roasting ; a greater variety of 
vegetables and fruits ; less pies and cakes ; more 
well-kneaded bread, raised with yeast ; less tea. 
" It is a somewhat singular fact that fanners live 
so little upon their own productions. They send 
their fresh vegetables, fruits, eggs, and poultry, to 
market, and live themselves upon salt-pork, pies, 
and saleratus. 
" The poor cooking which prevails among our 
farmers, as well as all other classes, doubtless re- 
sults from hurry ; frying takes but little time and 
trouble, saleratus bread can be made in a ' jiffy,' 
and bread and pastry are heavy and sodden, be- 
cause kneading requires time. The overwork of 
farmers' wives is therefore, in great part, re- 
sponsible for inferiority of farmers' diet." 
Alas ! and again alas ! that my fancies should 
have been thus rudely killed ; and yet — it may be 
that the dream dies slowly — I can't help thinking 
that the fault is with the men and women who do 
not improve their opportunities, and not in the 
calling itself. I can not help thinking that their 
life ought to be just what it is not. Perhaps, after 
all, the poets wrote of what might be, hoping their 
prophecies would become realities. Would that, 
the time was here. 
[That the above is a truthful account of the way 
in which some farmers live no one can deny, but in 
justice to the many excellent housekeepers who are 
farmers' wives, and not only read, but contribute 
to these columns, we must say that the strictures 
of our correspondent are too general. Still, we let 
him " say his say," in the hope that it may con- 
tribute to a reform, for which, we regret to admit, 
there is still abundant room. — Ed.] 
