310 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
ful disposal of all waste matter, so that it may not 
become a nuisance and a poison. Flies come in 
from out-of-doors. They come from the stables, 
the compost heaps, the pig-pens, and other out¬ 
houses. They seem to' spend 
considerable time and pains 
cleaning their feet, but the more 
1 think of it, the more strongly 
I object to their presence in 
my rooms. They breed fast, 
Fig. 1. 
and each one may become the parent and grand 
parent of countless hosts in a single season. 
A Word about Pies. 
I am glad to let “ pies ’n things ” pretty much 
alone, but we do like a good wholesome pie now 
and then. We never use lard for shortening, and 
seldom have more than one grade of butter, and 
that the best we can 
get, though not ne¬ 
cessarily the most ex¬ 
pensive in the mar¬ 
ket. For instance, I 
buy but ter of a neigh¬ 
bor who makes it to 
sell to one regular 
customer, who pays 
Fig. 2. 
her the same price the year round, however the 
market rate may fluctuate. 1 do not buy her but¬ 
ter, and she does not use it herself, but she tells 
me frankly that the butter which her husband 
buys in the country for a little more than half what 
she gets for her own 
butter, is every bit 
as good as hers. I 
think so myself, hav¬ 
ing tried both,but her 
reputation for care 
g and neatness com¬ 
mands the extra price 
from her wealthy and particular customer. With 
good butter for shortening, and not too much of it, 
pie-crust is good and not unwholesome, and cream- 
crust is better still. But the common lard pie-crust 
seems to me a sheer abomination as many house¬ 
keepers make it. They use too much shortening, 
and in an unskillful manner, and the taste of the 
lard spoils the flavor of the pie. It amuses me to 
see my children refuse it with a wonder how other 
people can eat it, and why any one ever makes it. 
They think mamma’s pies, eveu when made with 
graham flour in the crust, are very much nicer, and 
certainly no stomach has ever been hurt by them. 
Fig. 4.—RACK OPEN. 
I use a very little baking powder in pie-crust, mix 
the dough pretty stiff, but do not knead it, roll it 
thin, and bake the pie slowly and thoroughly. 
Several times I have seen complaints about pies 
running over in the oven, or directions for avoiding 
this catastrophe. The well-baked rhubarb or pie¬ 
plant pie just taken from my oven did not run over 
a particle, and this is the way we do it: Slice the 
stalks half an inch long, sugar very plentifully (a 
teacupful to a large pie), but do not add a drop of 
water. Wet the edge of the under crust all around 
and pinch down the upper crust tight upon it. 
Then have the heat of the oven very moderate, 
just sufficient to keep the pie baking and no more. 
An hour is not too long to bake a rhubarb pie, or 
a pie tilled with berries, but a hot oven would boil 
over the juice and burn the crust in that time. 
Plain Sweet Biscuit.— A cup of sour Cream, 
with half a teaspoonful of Soda, one cup of Sugar, 
one Egg, a little Nutmeg or Cinnamon, and Flour 
enough to make a soft dough. Mix very quickly, 
beating the egg first and putting the dissolved soda 
and sour cream together last. Roll out half an 
inch or a little more in thickness, cut into small 
biscuit, and bake quickly. If your sour cream is 
only milk, make up the deficiency by a good table¬ 
spoonful of butter. These are good made with 
graham flour. Thick old-fashioned cookies like 
these are much better for the children (and for me) 
than crisp cookies with more butter and eggs. 
How Much Soda ?—I have before this given the 
proportions as they were taught to me by careful 
cooks—a level teaspoonful of soda to one even tea¬ 
cupful of sour milk or buttermilk. This is a 
smaller proportion of soda than has been advised 
by another contributor to these pages. But I have 
been astonished to hear, and to learn by experi¬ 
ment, that only half as much, or one-half of a level 
teaspoonful of soda to a teacupful of sour milk, is 
even better, and now I never use more, as I find 
that this amount perfectly neutralizes the acid in 
the milk and makes my biscuit and gems even 
lighter than before, it seems to me. I am more 
than ever convinced that it is best to steer pretty 
clear of the use of soda, and this can be done, 
without falling back on baking powder too. But 
both are handy to have on hand to use occasionally. 
Old Furniture. 
As a nation, we are not a lover of old things, but 
we run after those that are novel. We set to one 
side, anything that is at all old, and say it has had its 
day. This spirit is excusable in many tilings—such 
as machinery, where rapid progress is made, but it 
has been carried into all departments of life, and too 
often in the American youth, extends to aproverbial 
disregard for his aged superiors. In this general 
disrespect for aged persous and things, one of its 
most painful manifestations is the putting out of 
sight of all old furniture. It is a sorry thing to go 
into many of the garrets and sheds of country and 
other houses, and find piled away there, so many 
articles that were the care and comfort of the for¬ 
mer generations of the family. Compare these re¬ 
jected chairs with those now in use—they are as 
substantial and easy, and above all, they should be 
dear to us in memories and associations. We should 
have more room for memories—we should love the 
things that our grandfather made, and our grand¬ 
mother had in daily use—we should keep the old 
sofa in its appropriate place, where we may rest our 
weary limbs, and live over the early days of the past, 
and should we fall into a reverie, and see in our 
day-dream our good old grandmother, who first 
folded our little hands to rest on the same old 
sofa, we should be none the worse for it. 
Ants in lawns.- Whether ants are more nu¬ 
merous this year than usual, or people are giving 
more care to their lawns than heretofore, we can 
not say, but we have had more inquiries concerning 
ants in lawns during the past two months, than we 
have had in several years altogether. This is one 
of the afflictions that we have fortunately been 
spared, and as we cannot speak from personal ex¬ 
perience, we must ask for that of others. That a con¬ 
siderable number of our readers have been troubled 
with ants in their lawns and grass-banks, and have 
utterly failed to exterminate them, we already 
know. A list of failures is useful in one sense, as 
it gives us a record of the “ remedies,” that do not 
remedy. What we wish now, is an account of the 
successes. If any readers have succeeded in rout¬ 
ing a colony of ants that had become established in 
his lawn or grass plot, by means that does not unfit 
the soil for the future growth of grass, they will con¬ 
fer a great favor upon many, by making it known 
through the medium of the American Agriculturist „ 
A Clothes-Rack. 
A correspondent at Oak Hill, N. Y., sends us 
drawings of a rack for drying small articles, that 
is in very general use in his vicinity; this he thinks 
is more easily made and more convenient than the 
one given in April last. 
He says: The back 
can be formed to suit 
the fancy, and made of 
whatever wood may be 
preferred ; if of pine 
or bass-wood, it may 
be stained. The upper 
shelf or rest (fig. 1) for 
the rods is a semi¬ 
circle fastened by 
screws inserted at the 
back. It need not be 
more than one-half¬ 
inch in thickness. The 
lower shelf (fig. 2) 
should be at least one 
and one - half - inch 
thick, and is a semi¬ 
circle, the diameter of 
which is two inches 
less than the width of 
the back upon which 
_ it is to be fastened. In 
° tiie run of this shelf 
cut a groove sufficiently deep to allow the wire 
(fig. 3) to be sunken to the depth of i inch. The 
wire being bent in circular form, passes t hrough the 
rods or slats, which should be I inch iu thickness, 
at the fastened end, fig. 4, the ends having a thread 
cut upon them, and passing through the back are 
fastened by small nuts. It will be seen that the 
rods are bevelled at the lower end, and a corres¬ 
ponding bevel i inch wide must also be cut on the 
under edge of the lower shelf at intervals, the 
number of bevels corresponding to the number of 
rods required ; the rods when in use should be as 
nearly level as possible, fig. 4. When not in use, 
they are merely turned up against the upper rest 
or shelf, as seen in figure 5. In this respect this 
rack much excels your model in the April number, 
as it is entirely out of the way, and withal the whole 
affair is, when properly constructed, quite a pretty 
kitchen ornament. It is easily and cheaply made. 
Thermometers. 
The weather is said to be the only question upon 
which we can all agree; but a little observation 
will show that this is no exception to the general 
rule of being subject to differences of opinion. 
Heat and cold are but relative terms to be decided 
by each individual. Where one person is cold, his 
next neighbor, under the same circumstances, may 
be warm, and there is but one way of deciding just 
how warm or cold it really is, and that is to leave it 
to a third party which is without feelings, and upon 
whose decision we can all agree. Such is a ther¬ 
mometer. How often in the times of extremes of 
temperature we may hear the expression : “ I only 
wish I knew how hot it has been to-day ! ” or “ I 
wonder how cold it was last night 1” Aside from the 
simple pleasure to be derived from having a ther¬ 
mometer, it is of great use in giving us a true 
knowledge of the heat of our rooms, at any mo¬ 
ment, thus aiding us in keeping them of the proper 
temperature—of about 68°. It is a good plan for 
young people to be taught to do something at a par¬ 
ticular time, and to make and put down daily obser¬ 
vations of the temperature will encourage regular 
habits, while the record will possess sufficient in¬ 
terest to compensate for the trouble. Thermometers 
are now so cheap, that everybody may possess one ; 
those of low price are quite as likely to be accurate 
as those made with an ornamental mounting. The 
excellence of the instrument depends upon having 
the tube of equal bore throughout, and the care, 
with which the degrees are marked upon the scale. 
