AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
158 
TEE EdWEJSBIlOL©. 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
A Home-Made Cheese Press. 
Many farmers, especially those in the 
newer parts of the country, are forced by 
circumstances to make, with their own 
hands, many of the implements used in the 
house and upon the farm. The accompany¬ 
ing engraving is of a handy and easily made 
cheese press, and one that has done good 
service for years in a household having the 
A HOME-MADE CHEESE PRESS. 
reputation of making the best cheese in the 
county. The construction of the press is 
simple and easily understood from the en¬ 
graving. The press may stand in the middle 
of the room, and be worked at from either 
side; but it will save space to have it stand 
against the wall. If there is a sill along the 
side, the legs next to the wall may be made 
shorter than the outside ones, and stand upon 
the sill. As the lever is brought down, and 
the kettle of stones raised, it can be held in 
place by putting its small end under one of 
the pegs shown on the short standards. A 
woman can handle this press—as we know 
some have done for years, who made as good 
cheeses as others with more costly presses. 
A Clothes Dryer. 
To the many devices for holding clothes 
while drying, already published, we add the 
following, as one that gives a large amount of 
A HANDY CEOTHES RACK. 
hanging room for the space it occupies. It is 
made of light stuff, with the exception of the 
two standards and the foot pieces, which 
should be of hard-wood. The construction 
of this dryer is so plain, from the engraving, 
that no description need be given. Any one 
at all handy with tools can make this useful 
household convenience. When not in use the 
parts can be folded together, and the dryer 
will then occupy but a very little space. 
Hints on Health and Comfort. 
All of the strength, of body and mind, 
of power to move, to work, to think, comes, 
must come, and only comes, from proper food 
well digested. A few hours of effort uses up 
certain elements in the muscles, in the nerves, 
in the brain, which can only be replaced by 
digested food. One may go on for some time 
consuming elements previously stored, but 
exhaustion follows more or less rapidly, while 
the frequent supply of new elements, from 
food, is essential to active, efficient effort of 
muscles or mind. 
Tonics and stimulants may temporarily 
help the dormant or weak digestive organs, 
enabling them to digest food, but they do not 
add to the stock of strength. They may, in 
the absence of food, push the muscles and 
nerves to activity ; but it is only borrowing 
strength that must be soon supplied by food, 
or weakness and disease will surely follow. 
At best it is a rule, a law of our nature, that 
any activity excited by stimulants, will surely 
be followed by equal depression. 
All heat or warmth in the body comes from 
food oxidized, slowly burned in the body, 
just as much, and in about the same way 
that heat in the stove or furnace comes from 
fuel oxidized or burned there. Warmth is al¬ 
ways escaping from the body, unless it is in an 
atmosphere nearly up to 100° of heat. Warm 
clothing, warm houses, stalls, sheds, that 
prevent the rapid escape of heat, save the 
necessity of taxing the stomach to digest an 
excessive amount of food (fuel) to keep up 
the heat of the body, humane or brute. 
“ Good food, well digested,” we said. That 
means a great deal. Nine-tenths of all the 
sickness, the bad or dull feelings, the head¬ 
aches, the depression, etc., come from indi¬ 
gestion, though few people are aware of it, 
or will believe it. What is digestion ? The 
food in the stomach is moistened and large¬ 
ly liquified by the fluid supplied from the 
blood, coming in through myriads of little 
openings on the inner coating of the stomach. 
If there is much food to be worked up, 
there must be a great flow of blood to supply 
the digesting fluid, the “gastric juice,” as it 
is called. The blood is then drawn away from 
other parts of the body. After a heavy meal 
one feels dull, sluggish, because there is less 
general circulation of the blood. If violent 
or strong exertion of body or mind is made 
soon after eating, it draws the blood from the 
stomach, and digestion of the food is retarded. 
If there is more food than the stomach can 
readily supply gastric juice for, some of it 
will be imperfectly worked over, and will go 
into the system in that condition. It will 
disturb the brain and other organs. It will 
affect and intensify any local trouble or dis¬ 
ease. If one has weak or diseased lungs, this 
imperfectly digested food will irritate and 
intensify the trouble. For this reason a great 
deal of the coughing that occurs, actually and 
certainly comes from indigestion. Just so 
any and every other affection of any part 
of the muscular or nervous system, is in¬ 
tensified by the imperfectly digested food 
that is passing through the body. 
Nature ordains that to be well digested by 
[April, 
the gastric juice, the food must first be mix¬ 
ed with a good supply of saliva, and this can 
only be secured by thoroughly chewing the 
food—masticating it—working it over in the 
mouth long enough for the saliva to flow out 
of the glands in the sides of the mouth, and 
time must be given for it to be collected from 
the blood. One may slowly eat a heavy 
dinner and digest it, when a small repast- 
quickly swallowed will be slowly and im¬ 
perfectly digested. Eat slow, and keep every 
portion of food to be swallowed, some time in 
the mouth, to get its supply of saliva, sure. 
As every particle of food must be acted upon 
by the gastric juice, or some of it will be 
troublesome afterwards, it stands to reason 
that the finer food is cut, chewed, masticat¬ 
ed, the more easily and perfectly will it dis¬ 
solve, or be digested. Meats, vegetables, any 
food masticated as fine as small shot, will 
certainly be digested far more easily, and 
very much sooner than if it goes down in 
lumps as large as buck shot, or chestnuts, 
or walnuts. Masticate the food fine in 
the mouth, and mix it well there with saliva. 
Good teeth are a “means of grace,” in that, 
if fully used, they prepare food for easy diges¬ 
tion, and save much of the ill temper and bad 
health arising from indigestion. Many a sour 
disposition would be modified by well masti¬ 
cated, well digested good food.— Sharp table 
knives that make it easy to cut food finely, 
and save some teeth work, and the danger of 
“ lumps ” of meat being swallowed except in 
a finely divided condition, are a material help 
to good digestion and health. Any house¬ 
keeper ought, as one of her first lessons, t® 
learn how to sharpen knives, and to keep 
them always sharp. 
The natural stomach of a full grown per¬ 
son does not hold a bushel, or a gallon, and 
if it did, the surface of the stomach requires 
a long time and hard work to collect enough 
gastric juice from the blood to digest even a 
quart of food. How about two quarts or 
more ? If you smile at this, just set a bowl 
by the side of your plate, and put into it the 
same amount of solid and liquid food that, 
goes into the mouth. What is in that bowl 
at the end of the repast, is what the stomach 
has got to work over and perfectly dissolve 
or digest, or there is to be trouble somewhere, 
A small quantity of food well masticated and 
digested will give more real nourishment,and 
less trouble, than any very large meal. 
Broil meat or any kind of food long 
enough, and it will change to charcoal. After 
meat is heated through, every further addi¬ 
tion of heat advances its condition towards- 
the charcoal state. But charcoal is entirely 
indigestible. Rare cooked, fresh meats are- 
far more easily digested, and furnish much 
more real nutriment than those “ well done.’” 
Habit will make one enjoy the rare cooked 
steak as more juicy and palatable, and it is- 
certainly better as food. 
Spices, condiments, etc., in small quantity, 
when needed by the weak, infirm, or aged, 
stimulate the flow of saliva, and of the gastric 
juice, and these may help digestion. But the- 
young and strong should reserve the use of 
these until infirmity or age makes them par¬ 
tially necessary, and then they will be all the 
more useful, because the system has not be¬ 
come so habituated to them that they will 
have little effect. 
Any stimulants containing alcohol, as lk 
