■436 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[October, 
TIKE M©U§EIEI(0m 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
A Foot-Rest and Slipper-Box. 
Most men like to put their feet upon a support 
that will bring them some distance from the floor, 
when they are to take the most solid comfort that 
a sitting posture can give. A rest for the feet 
makes a tired man more 
at ease. In view of this 
fact, and that chairs are 
not fitted for this foot 
service, but are liable 
to be scratched and in¬ 
jured, various kinds of 
foot-rests have been 
made, some of which 
are very elaborate and 
expensive. We have a 
foot-rest in use which 
we made ourselves, and 
Fig- 1-—the box. though not in the high¬ 
est style of household art, is at the same time 
neat and useful. It is made as follows: A 
pine box about 16 inches square was selected 
and taken apart. New lumber might have been 
used had it been at hand, and no old boxes in 
the cellar. The side pieces were sawed as indicated 
by the dotted lines in figure 1, and when brought 
together again gave the box a somewhat pear- 
shaped and pleasing outline. The bottom was 
then cut down and fitted in, and the cover fastened 
on by two, small iron 
hinges. This completed 
the new box, or foun¬ 
dation, as one might 
say. The covering was 
then put on, which may 
consist of any kind of 
cloth to suit the taste. 
The top, or cover, 
should be thoroughly 
padded, as upon this 
the feet are to rest. The 
sides may also be filled 
out a little, to give the 
whole a plump and Fig. 
pleasing appearance. 
Finally, small casters are fastened on the bot¬ 
tom by means of which the Rest may be moved 
readily about the room. This Foot-rest serves a 
good purpose as a stool, and the interior of it is a 
handy place for putting away the slippers when 
they are not in use. In looks it is not objection¬ 
able as an article of furniture ; but as a rest for the 
feet after a hard day’s labor it is something that 
would be greatly missed if it should be taken away. 
Are Your Closets Ventilated? 
There is nothing so handy in a house as an 
abundance of large, roomy closets; but because 
they are handy and extremely useful they are apt 
to be abused. There are many things, which, as 
a matter of course, are always put into a closet, 
of which the articles of outward wearing apparel 
make a large part. There are also things which 
ought not to go into a closet, i. e., a closet adjoin¬ 
ing, or closely connected with, a living or sleeping 
room. Of such are all soiled under-garments, the 
wash clothes, which should be put into a large 
bag for the purpose, or a roomy basket, and then 
placed in the wash-room or some other well aired 
room at some distance from the family. Having 
thus excluded one of the fertile sources of bad 
odors in closets, the next point is to see that the 
closets are properly ventilated. It matters not how 
clean the clothing in the closet maybe, if there is no 
ventilation that clothing will not be what it should 
be. Any garments after being worn for a while 
will absorb more or less of the exhalations which 
arise from the body, and thus contain an amount of 
foreign—it may be hurtful matter—which free cir¬ 
culation of pure air can soon remove ; but if this 
is excluded, as in many close closets, the effluvia 
increases, and the clothes, closets, and adjoining 
rooms in time possess an odor that any acute sense 
of smell will readily detect. Every closet in daily 
use in which the night-clothes are hung by day and 
the day clothing by night, should have an airing as 
well as the bed. If the closet can be large enough 
to admit of a window—and it is in some cases—an 
ample provision for sunlight and a circulation of 
pure air is provided in the window, which should 
be left open for a short time each day. In the case 
of small closets a ventilator could be put over 
the door or even in it. In many cases such pre¬ 
cautions for pure clothing are not practicable, and 
the next best thing is, to see that the door of the 
closet is left open for a half hour or so each day, at 
that time when the windows are thrown up and the 
large room is purified with fresh air from out of 
doors. In this way: first, by keeping out clothes 
intended for the wash ; and second, daily changing 
the air, the closets may be comparatively pure. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Baby's Bow Begs. 
These need not cause anxiety in all cases. If the 
child is healthy, and has good, nourishing food and 
pure air—the two great essentials for making good 
blood—it will probably outgrow its bow legs natu¬ 
rally enough as its strength increases. Rubbing 
the legs with your hand at night and in the morn¬ 
ing may help to strengthen and to straighten them, 
holding them straight as you rub them. If the 
case is pretty bad, the two legs may be bound to¬ 
gether with comfortable bandages during sleep, 
rubbing them well before and after binding them. 
If the child is still quite young, it may be kept 
from standing on its feet for a few months, giving 
Nature time to straighten the crookedness while the 
limbs are growing stronger. A carriage and a high 
chair are helps toward carrying out this plan. 
All the things that I have mentioned as curative 
agencies may well be used as preventives. A 
healthy child, with wholesome food, and pure air 
to breathe, if kept from standing and walking 
while too young and weak, will not have bow legs. 
Scrofulous children are more likely to suffer in this 
way, and those that are very fleshy. Don’t take 
pride in your fat baby. Excess of fat is really a 
disease, instead of a sign of health. Fatten your 
pigs as much as you fancy, but do not deliberately 
fatten your children. Give them plenty of good 
growing food, and they will be plump enough for 
symmetry and not too heavy for comfortable activ¬ 
ity. It is no wonder that the little legs bend under 
the heavy weight of some fat little toddlers. Such 
children should not be encouraged to stand or 
walk until they have grown strong enough to do so 
of their own accord, and then should not be al¬ 
lowed to walk too much. 
I hear of many cases where quite badly bowed 
legs have gradually straightened themselves with¬ 
out artificial help. Others think their children 
would never have outgrown the defect if they had 
not resorted to bandages or splints. Some have 
splints fitted to the ankles and bound around them, 
but I think it can be necessary to resort to this 
measure only in very confirmed cases. I have 
heard of one little girl who was very badly bow- 
legged when three years old, but had entirely lost 
the defect a few years later. Her mother began to 
rub and bandage her legs together every night, and 
kept this up a few months until a cure was 
wrought. It will not do to put a baby into a jumper 
too young, nor to let it stay in too long a time. 
Probably eight or ten months is an early enough 
age for this exercise. If the child remains too 
long in the jumper its legs become weary, and if 
not strong they bend under its weight. 
They grow stroug under the exercise, but they 
are liable to grow crooked also. A safer exercise, 
though not as neat and pretty, is creeping. This is 
Nature’s way of strengthening the limbs prepara¬ 
tory to walking, and 1 should be sorry to have it 
omitted from the list of baby’s accomplishments. 
"Wanted—Good Graham Flour. 
A year ago the American Agriculturist told its 
readers that much of the graham flour sold 
throughout the country was a poor compound of 
various mill stuffs, instead of the genuine “ gra¬ 
ham ” of pure unbolted wheat meal. 
“If it is bran that they want, give ’em bran,” I 
heard a house-keeper say, who really did not care 
to have her family like the graham. This seems to 
be the motto of the millers also. I sifted some of 
their graham lately, and just half of the mixture 
that had been bought as “ winter wheat graham ” 
was pure bran, and very coarse bran, too. I am 
free to say that this is not what I want, and I am 
unwilling to give it to my children. In our West¬ 
ern cities and towns, where beautiful wheat 
abounds, and where the nicest of white flour is 
made, it is almost impossible to get genuine gra¬ 
ham flour. I suspect that the “ new process ” of 
grinding works against the graham interest. The 
high grinding takes off a cleaner, coarser bran. 
Originally, we were taught to eat the bran because 
so much of the most nourishing part of the wheat 
—the gluten—was clinging inseparably to it. The 
bran by the new process is stripped so clean it is 
good for little on its own account except for those 
who need anti-constipating food. As waste mat¬ 
ter, taken with other concentrated food, it keeps 
the bowels in good condition, and so is almost es- . 
sential to people who have sedentary employments. 
The bran, to be sure, contains elements needed in 
the human body, but excellent authorities assure us 
that it usually goes through the body undigested, 
and if coarse and excessive, is apt to scour along 
with it nutritious material which would remain 
and nourish the body but for the mechanical ac¬ 
tion of the bran. I think it is best to sift out most 
of this bran, all of the coarse bran, if you are 
cooking for healthy people and children. Our 
sieves leave a deal of the fine bran and all of the 
gray gluten. It is aggravating, though, to be so 
swindled, and I think we ought to make s. buzzing 
about the millers’ ears. Examine their so-called 
graham, and you find that it is mostly bran and 
“shorts” (or “canaille,” or “middlings”—three 
different names for the same thing, as I understand 
it,) with a little corn meal (usually the white kind), 
and a little cheap, fine flour. When this is the 
best I can get, I sometimes mix it with good white 
flour, half and half, thus diluting the bran enough 
to make it palatable. Even so, it is better than to 
live on white flour alone. Sometimes I sift half of 
the graham and add a little fine flour, and some¬ 
times I sift it all and use it alone. 
Mixing' in the Bran. 
I complained to a grocer lately of the branniness 
of his graham flour. He said others had found 
the same fault, and he “ guessed the millers did 
put in too much bran lately ! ” as though bran had 
to b e put into graham ! Another grocer told me it 
was impossible for him to get better. He said tha’ - 
they could get what he called very nice graham, if 
the millers would let them go to the mill and take 
the wheat when first ground, before any bolting 
had been done. But the millers tell him that it 
won’t do. They have to take an extra quality of 
wheat to make graham—something nicer thau they 
use to make gilt-edged flour, probably ! I feel like 
declaring emphatically that “ I know better ! ” It 
happened to me once to live close beside an excel¬ 
lent mill, which ran its big machinery night and day, 
except on Sunday. I saw the freight cars left beside 
it every day and loaded with barrels of best quality, 
new-process flour, and shipped to Eastern mar¬ 
kets. I had one sack of graham flour let down 
warm into the bag, just as it was ground, before it 
had passed a single bolt (or sieve), and this was the 
best graham flour I had seen in the West. There 
are firshclass groceries, however, where such gra¬ 
ham can be obtained, and we are usually so fortu¬ 
nate as to get it. Lately 1 have been sojourning :n 
different places, and sympathized with the com¬ 
plaints of my friends. 
Fine “ New-Process ” Flour. 
I wonder if there has not been some mistake in 
the general abandonment of the old styie of grind¬ 
ing. It costs an immense sum to put in the new- 
process machinery (to buy the patent or some¬ 
thing), so that the very fine and white patent flour 
has a high price put upon it. This is what the 
millers seem mainly anxious to sell, and it is 
