270 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
Sometimes I cannot understand their little quarrels, 
and do not know what course to take, while each 
insists that the other is most to blame. I say “ I 
don’t know just what to do now, but I know what 
Addie and Hose would do to end this trouble, and 
how they would have avoided it. Do you know 
why they never had any difficulty in getting along 
together ?” Yes, we all know, who have ever 
heard the story of “Addie and Rose.” A lady (the 
writer of the story), who observed that these little 
girls always played very happily together, asked 
them the secret of their agreement. “I don’t 
know,” said Rose, “unless it is because Addie 
always lets me and I always let Addie.” Then 
the lady observed that most childrens’ quarrels 
arose from the unwillingness of one to let the other 
do or have some thing desired. When each is wil¬ 
ling to let the other, there is no tyranny and no sla¬ 
very, but a mutual helpfulness. I have read this lit¬ 
tle story to my children many times, and it is the 
most pleasant as well as most speedy way to settle 
difficulties simply to ask, “ What would Addie and 
Rose do in this case?” Thanks for the little story. 
“ How far the little candle throws its beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” 
Providing for Winter Supplies. 
At the time of my writing the preserving, and 
canning, and pickling business has not begun. In 
our own gardens we have only Asparagus and Rhu- 
bard (or Pie-Plant) of this year’s growth. I have 
not heard of any method of preserving asparagus 
for winter use, but perhaps it might be canned as 
well as green peas and string beans, two things very 
difficult to preserve by canning, I am told. Rhu¬ 
barb can be dried in thin slices or strips, and it is 
successfully canned, cut in transverse slices, and 
stewed in a little water, and sealed up while at the 
boiling point. When this appears in print, straw¬ 
berries will be in season. Then come currants and 
other fruits, small and large. In what way cau we 
make all these bounties of Providence sen>e us best? 
I think the question is an important one, and not 
sufficiently considered by house-keepers in general. 
Articles of food which might nourish the body, as 
well as gratify the taste, are often preserved in 
such a manner as to prove a positive injury to those 
who use them. To put them up in the old-fashioned 
way of preserving—a pound of sugar to a pound of 
fruit—is to get them into such shape that weak 
stomachs can not take them without pain, and 
children suffer many an ache on their account. The 
same may be said of sweet pickles. Those house¬ 
keepers who must have everything that is “ nice ” 
will make sweet pickles, and judged from a com¬ 
mon standpoint, they make a very pretty show 
upon the table, and the professors of “ good liv¬ 
ing” pronounce them good. But there are hosts 
of good house-keepers now who have ceased to 
make them. As for me, I never made a pickle, nor 
a mince-pie, nor a regulation fruit-cake, nor a sau¬ 
sage, nor a fried-cake. I never expect to make one 
of these things. It is not in our line to make them 
or eat them, and I know very well that none of my 
family would thank me for setting them upon the 
family table and expecting them to partake, “ ask¬ 
ing no questions for conscience sake.” I don’t say 
that we never taste these things at our friends’ 
tables, but we do not believe in them as wholesome 
food, and think ourselves better provided for with¬ 
out such things in the house than with them. But 
those who expect to live on fat pork daily through 
the winter, perhaps had better provide a stock of 
pickles as an antidote to grease. We shall have 
apples, canned tomatoes, and fruit sauce enough 
to supply the acid needed in our diet. Of straw¬ 
berries, I think we will make 
Strawberry Jam, by Marion Hurland’s recipe. 
For every pound of fruit, three-quarters of a pound 
of sugar. One pint of red currant juice to every four 
pounds of strawberries. Boil the juice of the cur¬ 
rants with the strawberries, half an hour, stirring 
all the time. Add the sugar, and boil up rapidly 
nearly half an hour, skimming carefully. Put up 
in small jars, bowls, or glasses, as jam keeps much 
better if not disturbed. Currant juice improves 
the flavor, but it may be omitted. 
Currant Jam is easily and cheaply made, and 
fills a very important office, I have found, in mak¬ 
ing up lunches for school and office. It is custom¬ 
ary to use pound for pound of sugar and fruit, in 
making jam, but three-quarters of a pound of sugar 
to a pound of currants is sufficient if the fruit is 
well boiled. If the jam is stored in sealed cans, 
sugar is not necessary, and one may sweeten to taste, 
but in common bowls use sufficient sugar to keep. 
Currant Jelly.— Last year I filled twenty-live 
tumblers with currant jelly, at a cost of only seven 
cents a cup. This year I hope to double the quan¬ 
tity, the jelly is so nice and wholesome and con¬ 
venient for use, as well as cheap. I used half a 
bushel of excellent red currants, freshly ripened. 
They were not stripped from the stems, but Were 
steamed in a stone jar set inside a kettle of boiling 
water until the juice ran out freely, then squeezed 
through a jelly-bag. From half a bushel I had ten 
and a half pints. To each pint of juice allow a 
scant pound of sugar. Let the juice boil alone for 
twenty minutes. In the meantime be heating your 
sugar in the oven on plates. Add it hot to the 
boiling juice, and stir briskly. It is done as soon 
as the sugar is all dissolved, and further boiling 
does not improve it. Remove it immediately from 
the fire and pour it, scalding hot, into jelly glasses 
just rolled in hot water. When cold and firm, lay 
a piece of tissue paper cut to fit the glass close 
upon the jelly, and paste a thick paper over the 
glass. If you use the currants when first ripened, 
I do not see how you can fail of success by follow¬ 
ing these directions. Dead ripe fruit of any kind 
has lost much of its jelly principle. 
I have previously written fully about jelly male- . 
ing. The recipe is about the same thing for jelly 
from all kinds of fruit. In making plum jelly, do 
not squeeze the fruit, but let the steamed plums 
drain through a colander and use only the juice so 
obtained for jelly, and very beautiful it is ! Then 
rub the pulp through the colander to remove the 
skins and stones, and make marmalade of it. From 
one heaping gallon jar of small wild plums I made 
three small tumblers of jelly and three of marma¬ 
lade. Plums and crab-apples do not need quite as 
much sugar as currants and wild grapes. Brandied 
tissue paper is often recommended, but if you care 
to get the delicate flavor of each kind of fruit made 
into jelly, do not use it. Tomatoes and sweet corn 
follow right along, but we need not at present 
discuss modes of preserving them for winter use. 
Thorough. Cooking. 
It is one of the most common mistakes of the 
cook to give too little time to the cooking of meat 
and vegetables. She is „^reless about getting them 
over the fire in season, and to make up for the de¬ 
lay, she attempts to “ rush things ” by using a very 
hot fire, spoiling the food by too furious boiling or 
baking. Hard boiling toughens the fiber of meat, 
and spoils the texture of vegetables, but a long 
steady boiling heat gradually softens or makes 
tender the toughest fibers. Many persons suppose 
that certain articles of food do not agree with 
them, when the whole difficulty arises from the 
imperfect manner in which they are prepared. 
Some vegetables are thought to be especially pro¬ 
vocative of flatulence, but a more thorough cook¬ 
ing usually remedies that evil. Flatulence has 
other causes, as over-eating, or too great a propor¬ 
tion of sugar in the diet, but those articles of food 
which are usually associated with the evil may be 
robbed of these terrors by a more prolonged cook¬ 
ing. Cook dry beans several hours, a gentle but 
steady simmering—five hours are not too many, 
even after an all night soaking. Dry peas need the 
same treatment. Vegetables need more and more 
time as they grow older. By spring, rutabagas need 
cooking almost half a day, and onions should be 
boiled an hour or more. Salsify and parsnips, 
especially the former, need more than the twen¬ 
ty minutes boiling usually prescribed for them. 
Mush.; Oatmeal. 
Mush of all kinds needs more boiling than cooks 
usually give it. We should drop the name of “hasty” 
pudding, for in this case “haste makes waste,” as 
the full nourishment of corn meal, even the finest, 
is not brought out by the very quick cooking usu¬ 
ally given. It is wonderful how oatmeal improves 
with long boiling or steaming. There is a differ¬ 
ence in the quality. That which is fine or floury, 
needs less cooking and is palatable with half an 
hour’s boiling. But the best oatmeal—that which 
is coarser and firmer and safer to buy in large 
quantities, as it keeps better—needs two hours 
steady boiling, and three or four hours will not be 
in vain, if the mush is not scorched. To prevent 
this, put the oatmeal with four times its bulk of 
cold water and a little salt, in a tin pail or stone jar 
inside a kettle of cold or luke-warm water. It can 
be cooked safely in a steamer or steam-cooker, or 
farina kettle. After it comes to boiling it should 
boil for two hours. It can be cooked more quickly 
if soaked over night. Oatmeal mush is such a fav¬ 
orite dish with us just now, that a day’s supply is 
put upon the stove to cook, nearly every morning 
as soon as the fire is built, and it sometimes happens, 
that one or the other of the family relishes it so 
much, as to eat nothing but oatmeal and milk, for a 
breakfast or supper. Since we have learned to cook 
it so long, we have forgotten to use sugar on it, ex¬ 
cept as there is sugar with our berries, or other sauce 
eaten with it. It is very nice cooked with milk—as 
1 have previously told—half milk and half water. 
A good sprinkling of raisins boiled in graham or 
oatmeal mush, makes a very pleasant variety. 
Bathing the Baby. 
In various “exchanges,” one now sees a short 
article on the care of infants, which says, among 
other things, that babies should be washed in cold 
water twice a day, and oftener in hot weather. 
This article was probably written by some mascu¬ 
line writer, who knows extremely little about ba¬ 
bies, and it is seized upon by male editors, and put 
into their household columns as a very wise bit of 
advice for ignorant mothers. But few mothers are 
so ignorant as to take such advice. Instinct teaches 
them better. A well-dressed and well-fed baby needs 
a full bath only two or three times a week in cold 
weather, aird only once a day in warm weather. Warm 
baths are weakening, and cold baths make too great 
a demand upon the constitutional vigor, and are al¬ 
ways injurious, unless there is pleasure in them, and 
a quick and complete reaction or warm glow of the 
skin. The water used should be neither cold, nor 
decidedly warm, but comfortably cool or even luke¬ 
warm. Try it by your elbow to see whether it is 
too warm or too cool. The article mentioned, says 
nothing about the conditions under which a bath 
should be taken, but it should never be immediately 
following a meal, or when the child is cold, unless 
it be a warm bath used as a medicine. No matter 
if the little one is in a perspiration when the bath 
is given, if neither the room nor the water chills it. 
Window Screens and Awnings. 
In our intensely warm summers—not the less 
warm on our northern borders, while they last, 
Fig. 1.— FRONT VIEW OF AWNING. 
than elsewhere—provision must be made for shade. 
Hence no house in this country can be regarded as 
appropriately designed unless it has broad and 
abundant verandas or piazzas. Windows in the 
