24 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
THE H©irJ§EH©L®„ 
jggT’ For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Household Plants—Why not a Palin'? 
The term “Household” in preference to 
“House” plants is used on purpose. We 
have seen, and no doubt the reader can recall, 
plants which seemed as much a part of the 
owner’s household effects as any 
article of furniture. Such a plant 
is kept in the family year after 
year; it is among the earliest rec¬ 
ollections of the children, and when 
the household is broken up, it goes 
as an heirloom in the division of 
the estate to a son or daughter, who 
cherishes it for the associations con¬ 
nected with it. Formerly a Lau- 
restinus or Pittosporum was the 
favorite plant, or it may be an 
Orange or a Lemon tree, of which 
the mother had planted the seed 
when a girl. Sometimes an Olean¬ 
der answered the purpose, which 
coidd be put in the cellar on the 
approach of winter, to be brought 
out in spring for its annual summer 
bloom. We do not now see plants 
of this permanent character so 
often as formerly. It may be that 
the substitution of coal stoves for 
open fires has made it more difficult 
to keep them, or it may be that 
the greater ease with which more 
showy plants of brief duration can 
be procured, has led to the neglect 
of those of a more permanent char¬ 
acter. The plants we have men¬ 
tioned are ■well suited for the pur¬ 
pose, and, as they occasionally 
bloom, are more interesting to many than 
those which do not flower. To our notion 
elegance of form in the plant itself is vastly to 
be preferred to a brief yearly flowering. We 
know of nothing that we should prefer as a 
household plant, one that is to be a companion 
year after year, to one of the half-hardy 
palms. A graceful palm, each leaf of which 
is a study of the beautiful in form, is pleasing 
every day in the year. One advantage is its 
slow growth, and its appropriateness where- 
ever it may be placed. It may stand at the 
window or in a corner of the room, or it 
may find its winter quarters in the hallway, 
or on a stair landing. Any place where it 
will not freeze, and where it has a share of 
light will answer. In summer it may orna¬ 
ment the veranda, or it may grace the lawn, 
either by itself or as the center of a group. 
Those with fan-shaped leaves, like the South¬ 
ern Palmetto, or the European Fan-Palm 
(Chamcerops huviilis) are among the more 
hardy kinds, but they spread and take up 
more room than some others. Palms of the 
genus Phoenix, to which the Date Palm be¬ 
longs, are much used in Europe for home 
decoration ; they are of exceedingly graceful 
habit, and do not spread so widely as some 
others. The one given in the engraving, to 
show the general appearance of these palms, 
is Phoenix sylvestris, often called the “Wild 
Date.” The true Date (P. dactylifera), makes 
a good house plant; we have known them to 
be raised from the stone of the imported 
fruit, and after some years become quite ele¬ 
gant specimens. If one wishes a palm, and 
can afford to wait, it can not be had cheaper 
than to plant some date stones, which we have 
known to grow even in the open ground. 
Not many florists keep a stock of palms, 
though some, foreseeing the growing taste fox- 
such plants, are prepared to meet it. Small 
specimens of desirable species may be had 
at 50c. to $1; really fine plants may be had 
for $5 and upwards. One, in purchasing a 
pahn, will do well to rely upon the florist to 
select the kind best suited to home culture, 
as it is not the rarest and most costly that is 
best sixited to the treatment it would i-eceive. 
Our Graham Flour. 
BY A MINNESOTA HOl’SEKEEPER. 
There is a low gi-owl here and there over 
the quality of the Graham flour most com¬ 
mon in the market, but few seem to care 
very much about it. I dislike to be almost 
the only one to scold in public about the out¬ 
rageous swindle pi-actised upon the buyers 
of Graham flour, but it does seem to me that 
protest ought to be made. Things have come 
to such a pass that the only genuine Graham 
flour I can get has to be brought from Ohio, 
and I have to pay six cents a pound for it, 
since the recent rise in all wheat breadstuffs. 
It has grown more and more difficult to get 
unbolted flour from Minnesota wheat. It is 
offered at four cents a pound (three cents 
until lately), but I do not want it at any price. 
My neighbor sends to New York and buys 
flour manufactured by the “ Health Food 
Co.” from our Minnesota spring wheat. It 
is called “ cold blast whole wheat flour,” and 
purports to be the whole wheat minus the 
thin clean woody bran. It seems to me 
exactly what we might get right hex-e at 
home very much cheaper, if we could get 
genuine unbolted flour made by the “new 
process,” and sift out the bran ourselves, or 
if the millers would give us this and keep 
their bran. The new process of milling gives 
us much more nutritious white flour than we 
used to get by the old process. “Grinding 
high,” instead of setting the stones close to¬ 
gether, peels off the bran without any appre¬ 
ciable gluten attached to it, so that the bran 
cannot now be very nutritious food for cattle, 
it, seems to me, and I do not see how it adds 
value to Gi’aham flour, except when bran is 
needed as a mechanical irritant to torpid 
bowels. As wheat was formerly ground, and 
is still in many eastern mills, much of the 
grain remained attached to the bran. 
The middlings purifiei-s take the canaille, or 
shorts, and remove therefrom both starch and 
gluten, which, added to the fine white flour 
of the interior of the wheat kernel, make a 
greater bulk and a more nutritious quality of 
fine flour than could be produced by the old 
process, or without the middlings purifiers. 
Much used to be said by health reformers 
against superfine white flour as a steady 
article of diet, but the white flour of the 
pi-esent is much more nutritious than that in 
use several years ago, owing to the addition 
of gluten caused by the use of the middlings 
purifiers. 
But “the worst thing about this new pro¬ 
cess is that it spoils the Graham.” This is 
what a proprietor of one of our best mills 
told his wife—and she told me. I wondered 
why, but I think I understand. It is very 
evident that the Graham flour we get now 
from our home mills has been x-obbed of the 
starch portion, and I more than suspect that 
it is mostly a mixture of bran and the refuse 
of the middling (or shorts) after these have 
been “purified,” and the better portion added 
to the fine fioxxr. Sometimes pure white 
flour may be added, sometimes corn meai, 
j and sometimes (I should think) the- sweepings 
of the mill! 
No, I don’t want it. But I do want good 
Graham flour, however good the white flour 
may be. I believe we should have a better 
article of diet for oixr daily bread (if it is really 
to be a “staff of life”) in flour made by 
grinding high, and so peeling off a clean 
bran, and only the woody bran sifted out. 
Good Graham is a very convenient thing 
to have in the house. I have to make, a 
great deal of bread to feed my family, and 
this business is made much more easy by 
making a part of the loaves from Graham 
(all but the sponge set over night—this from 
fine floux-) as there is no kneading about it, 
the light sponge being only stirred thick (and 
thoroughly) with Graham and a little sugar. 
Then there is the mush, so convenient to make 
in a hurry and so good for the children. And 
gems ! Since we have been getting the Ohio 
Graham we have gone back to plain water 
gems, and they seem so delicious that we 
make them from choice, even when we have 
good buttermilk in the house. Nothing in 
the world beats Gralianx flour and water made 
in a soft batter, dropped in liot-buttered gem 
irons, and baked in a hot oven. For a long 
time these had been for me a “ lost art,” but 
I see now that the Graham (so-called) was 
in fault. When we first came to Minnesota 
we could get excellent Graham (our hard 
spring wheat unbolted) from country old style 
mills, and I dare say there ai-e places where 
it could yet be obtained, but I know of none. 
Cosxsider tHc f iiilil i-c-ii.— While I am 
writing this two little boys with thick shoes 
on, are galloping on canes back and forth 
through this room and the kitchen, playing 
horse. They are pretty noisy, but I think 
I can stand it for a little while. It is a rainy 
day, and they need exercise. I know a little 
