316 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
THE MTUSEIHIOLl. 
gggT For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
An Embroidery Frame. 
For large pieces of embroidery-work, a frame 
that will hold the work up in froDt of the worker 
is not only a great convenience, but almost essential. 
The engraving here given shows such a frame, 
which is cheap and easily made. It consists of two 
standards, or legs, with curved cross-pieces at their 
bottoms to give it a firm footing, and two horizon¬ 
tal bars to hold the standards together, as shown 
in the engraving. The frame, made of four wooden 
strips, is held to the standards by two wooden pins 
passing through the tops of the standards and the 
middle part of the ends of the frame. By this ar¬ 
rangement the frame can be swung around with 
ease and the work placed at any convenient angle. 
A SELF-SUPPORTING EMBROIDERY FRAME. 
To those accustomed to use the simple lap frame, 
or any other, it is not necessary to state that it is 
best to stitch a strip of strong linen, or tape, along 
the woof ends of the material, which must then be 
sewed firmly to the webbing on the frame. All this 
work of putting the foundation on the frame should 
be done before that is adjusted to the standards ; 
this latter can be easily done by pushing the pins 
into the places made to receive them in the frame. 
-- ^ 
Home Topics. 
BT FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Care of Children’s Teeth. 
A mother of several children lately told me some 
of her experience. A few years ago she thought 
that her oldest boy’s teeth in the front of the lower 
jaw were decaying badly. This was a disappoint¬ 
ment to the mother, who had fed her children care¬ 
fully on nourishing and wholesome food, as a gen¬ 
eral rule, keeping both pickles and confectionery 
from them. Studying the matter over, she jumped 
to the conclusion that what she had read concern¬ 
ing the mischief-making properties of the tomato 
must be true, especially as her husband, who was 
very free in his use of tomatoes in their season, had 
a peculiar trouble with his teeth. She had ob¬ 
served that the children’s (especially the boy’s) 
teeth grew white and clean when there was a plenty 
of ripe tomatoes, and she thought the acid of the 
vegetable probably went too far and acted upon 
the enamel of the teeth. But when the boy, then 
fourteen years old, went to a dentist to have his 
teeth filled, lo ! there was no filling to be done. 
“ Tour boy has a splendid set of teeth,” the dentist 
told the mother. “ There is not a cavity in them. 
Unusually good teeth for a boy of his age.” And 
the dentist had no doubt that the teeth were better 
than they would have been if the owner of them 
had munched candy and pickles, as children usually 
do. “ They must be cleaned, and that without de¬ 
lay,” he said. So the tartar which had gathered 
and crusted gradually at the crown of the teeth was 
removed by the dentist, and with it all appearance 
of decayed teeth. Now the boy has nothing to do 
but to keep his teeth clean in order to avoid den¬ 
tistry bills in future. The younger children are 
warned to avoid the older brother’s trouble by the 
daily use of tooth brushes. From their father’s 
ease they learn to avoid the opposite extreme. 
His teeth are hopelessly discolored, and a few are 
habitually loose, but the useful tomato is no longer 
suspected as the cause. He had an opportunity to 
read some in a work on Dentistry, and came to the 
conclusion that hard “ scouring ” of his teeth with 
gritty substances, when he was a young man, had 
worn away the hard enamel of his teeth so that the 
strong coffee he drank (during his soldier life 
especially) penetrated and permanently colored his 
teeth. I dislike to hear of scouring the teeth. 
When they have been neglected this may be neces¬ 
sary to get them once clean. The dentist has 
peculiar tools for removing tartar crust, but the 
yellow deposit on children’s teeth can be cleaned 
away as the dentist does it, by any one. Take finely 
powdered pumice stone and a little clean soft pine 
stick to rub with. Dip the pine stick into water 
and then in the powdered pumice, and rub the 
teeth gently. Afterwards wash them with soap 
and water, using a tooth brush. It is well to use 
a little fine clean soap occasionally for cleaniug the 
teeth, but plenty of pure water (a little warm in. 
cold weather) will usually suffice for cleansing the 
teeth of persons of good dietetic habits. To make 
good teeth in the first place, beginning when we 
can begin, and allowing for “ ancestry,” the mother 
should eat plain and nutritious food, a varied diet 
well supplied with bone material, as the grains are 
when it is not bolted or sifted out, and lean meat. 
For young children milk should be freely used, and 
graham and oatmeal also. [We are glad that so 
sensible and practical a person as Faith Rochester, 
hits this tomato nonsense on the head. Some two 
years ago a paragraph appeared somewhere to the 
effect that much of the trouble with teeth was due 
to the free use of tomatoes. This was copied in all 
the papers, and thousands of persons gave up the 
use of tomatoes to save their teeth. We at once 
stamped this notion as nonsense, and are glad to 
have our denial of the injurious effects of tomatoes, 
made on general principles, supported by what 
comes very near being direct evidence.— Ed.] 
Clean Floors. 
I admired my neighbor’s bare floors until 1 found 
how they were made so spotlessly clean. “ With 
soap and sand and a scrubbing brush,” she told 
me.—“ Applied by a woman down on her knees ?” 
I asked.—“ Yes,” she replied. “ You can have 
your’s look like mine if you use the same means,” 
No, thank you. Neither I nor my daughter shall 
put ourselves to this drudgery, and I shall not re¬ 
quire it of any woman. Physicians say that the 
position assumed in order to scrub a floor with a 
brush and cloth makes the labor so done a positive 
injury to the woman, often resulting in very bad 
cases of female disease among working women. If 
floors must be scrubbed with soap and sand, a long 
handled brush or a broom should be used for the 
purpose. But all this hard scouring is unnecessary 
labor, if paint or oil be properly applied to the 
boards of the floor. Then only warm water or a 
weak suds is necessary for cleaning, and a nice 
long handled mop is the proper implement. 
Starvation in the Midst of Plenty. 
On the farm there ought to be plenty to eat for 
both man and beast. There is, usually, but they 
do not always get each a full share of nourishing 
food. The wheat alone contains all the elements 
necessary to maintain the growth and strength of 
the body. But when wheat is ground and bolted 
and made into ordinary fine flour, it is deprived of 
much of its most strength-giving properties. The 
fine flour is mostly starch, and starch alone can 
never make a very good “ staff of life ” to lean 
upon for strength. If the bran can only be made 
reasonably fine, it is better in our bread than out of 
it; but there is a great deal of graham (in western 
groceries at least) so full of coarse scales of bran 
that it is unfit for daily food, unless it is sifted 
through a common sieve. The portion of the wheat 
next the bran and mostly removed by the miller’s 
bolting, is the most nourishing part of the wheat. 
To take this from the wheat and give it to the 
cattle is to starve our children in favor of the cattle. 
What are the other staples of the farmer’s bill of 
fare ? Potatoes and pork. Potatoes are good food 
in their kind and degree, but not alone. Like most 
vegetables they furnish some of the mineral ele¬ 
ments needed in the animal system, but they are 
mostly starch and water. They should only be 
used to help make a pleasant variety, and not, as is 
too often the case, as the main dependence. Chil¬ 
dren are sometimes half-starved on them, though 
they appear fat and so are considered healthy. 
Starch belongs to the carbonaceous foods, as do 
sugar and grease. All of these help to produce fat, 
but afford little strength. So the “ fine, healthy- 
looking child,” as ignorant people describe the 
big-cheeked, fat baby, may be tired and feverish, 
craving it knows not what, and an easy prey to 
disease, for lack of good nourishment. Potatoes 
for children should be well mashed and dressed 
with good milk, instead of butter and fat meat. 
Potatoes and beef go well together, each furnish¬ 
ing something that the other lacks. 
Concerning pork I have little to say. We never 
use it in our family. Those who raise their own, 
may feel so sure of its healthiness as to eat it with¬ 
out misgiving, but I wonder how any one who de¬ 
pends upon the common market supply can relish 
pork. It is always poor food for children, or for 
any one inclined to be billious, and especially bad 
for those who are at all tainted with scrofula. 
Variety in the Daily Food. 
Though good wheat, or good beef, or good milk, 
may each furnish a perfect food, or contain all of 
the elements needed to support life, it is not best 
to depend upon any one article of food alone, ex¬ 
cept in the case of nursing babes, and then the 
mother should have a suitable variety. To obtain 
a variety, some house-keepers only go a round of 
different kinds of pie and cake, all equally bad per¬ 
haps ; thinking that if the pantry is well supplied 
with these thing's, little other cooking is necessary. 
It is a great mistake. Cake and pie do not supply 
much actual food, and the good material that is 
used in them is put into such shape that the 
stomach is wearied and worn-out by the effort to 
digest them. This accounts for much of the tired¬ 
ness complained of by women and girls. They are 
half starved, because their food is poor. The use 
of much poor trash called “ dainties ” (I don’t 
abuse these things because I dislike them ; I have 
a “ sweet tooth,” and know my own weakness well 
enough to understand the weakness of others), 
spoils the appetite for substantial food. The stom¬ 
ach is feeble for lack of good material in the blood 
(made constantly of our food and air) to repair its 
waste, aud it takes food unwillingly because it is 
tired with overwork—overwork upon the concen¬ 
trated conglomerations of rich cake and pastry. 
An error easily fallen into in such a case is to give 
up one thing after another because it “ hurts ” us, 
until the stomach becomes so weak it can hardly 
bear anything. It is slow starvation. We must 
not only “ cease to do evil; ” but must also “ learn 
to do well ”—not only give up unwholesome food, 
but eat plenty of that which is wholesome. 
The proper variety is one made up of fruits, 
vegetables, grain, and animal food, the latter con¬ 
sisting of healthy meat, eggs or milk in its various 
forms. With palatable graham or oatmeal prepara¬ 
tions, especially where milk is freely used, meat is 
seldom craved or found to be necessary to high 
health and strength, but when starch, sugar, and 
fat preponderate, as in the common fare of white 
bread and butter, potatoes, cake, pie, and a little 
sauce—beef (especially steak) often seems an ab¬ 
solute necessity to one who has to put forth 
strength. Coffee can not possibly supply its place. 
It does not give strength, but only stimulates it, or 
calls it out, making one feel strong while under its 
influence. Nourishing foods really strengthen us. 
You would hardly believe, until you try it, how 
heartily a plain and nourishing variety of food is 
enjoyed by those who live with reasonable sim¬ 
plicity. It is easier in every way. All feel much 
better and more good natured, with no unreasona¬ 
ble cravings for confectionery, pickles, or stimu- 
lants. It lightens the care of children wonderfully. 
It makes the cooking more simple and easy, and, 
last but not least, it saves the doctor’s bills. 
