1878.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
305 
SEIHdSIL®. 
SST" (For other Household Hems, see “ Basket ” pages.) 
Table Decoration. 
Within a few years great advance has been made 
in the art of table decoration, and the horticultural 
societies abroad offer prizes for the best specimens 
•of this department of the florist’s art. Stands 
for the searching, and they can be largely used in 
aueh work. The leaves of carrots, parsley, and 
the common yarrow are not to be rejected. The 
young growth of grape and hop vines, with the 
spray of asparagus, will, under a skillful hand, 
work into pleasing forms, and the common green- 
brier may be turned to good account. The green 
groundwork being secured, then flowers maj r be 
sparingly worked in. If no flowering vines are at 
hand, those that do not bear flowers may be made 
to do so by binding to them carnations and other 
flowers that hold well without water by means of 
PRIZE DESIGN FOR TABLE DECORATION AT THE ROTAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, ENGLAND. 
usually of glass are made for the purpose of hold¬ 
ing flowers for the table, and where living plants 
are used the pot is placed beneath the surface of 
the table. The regular leaves of an extension table 
are replaced by common boards cut so as to allow 
the stem of the plant to pass through, while the 
pot stands upon a stool or something provided for 
the purpose. Several table-cloths are used, and 
lapped around the stems of the plants that come 
through the table. We give an illustration from 
the Garden of one of these prize decorations to 
show to what refinement the art is carried, and to 
be suggestive to those who would like to under¬ 
take something of the kind. For the family table 
a simpler decoration is more appropriate. A few 
flowers put loosely into a glass are in much better 
taste than a large, heavy, crowded bouquet. In 
any decoration, whether for a private or a public 
table, heaviness should be avoided, and lightness 
and grace characterize every design, whether large 
or small. The matter of home decoration is easily 
managed, and may be dismissed by saying—the 
simpler the better. It often happens that parties, 
festivals, and other social gatherings take place 
during the season of flowers, at which refreshments 
are served. Those having charge of the table ar¬ 
rangements naturally desire to decorate with flow¬ 
ers, and usually make the mistake of having these 
in great quantity without bestowing any care upon 
the arrangement. A crowded bouquet in any place 
is less pleasing than a loose and graceful one, and 
this is especially the case in table decorations. 
Where persons are to be seated at the table it is 
especially important that the decorations should 
not be so heavy as to obstruct the view from one 
side to the other. Light, feathery foliage'and deli¬ 
cate vines should form the chief material of all 
table decoration, and flowers may come in for 
color, but not, as is too often the case, to make up 
the mass. One with a little ingenuity and skill 
can make up tasteful decorations from very ordin¬ 
ary materials. If elevated stands like those shown 
in the engraving are wanted, and glass ones can 
not be procured, let the tinman make the portions 
to hold the flowers (to be filled with wet moss), 
and support them on glass rods. Even wooden 
supports may be used if quite clothed with vines. 
In the country an abundance of ferns may be had 
a very fine iron wire. By the exercise of a little 
ingenuity a table for a summer festival can be 
made beautiful by the use of common and inex¬ 
pensive materials. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Good Yeast and Sweet Bread.—You can not 
make good bread with poor yeast. To have good 
yeast in hot. weather, it must be made new very 
often, and it must be kept very cool after it is made. 
A good bread-maker of my acquaintance keeps the 
yeast-cakes, that one can buy in packages at any 
grocery, in her house just for making fresh yeast 
every time. Those yeast-cakes are sweet, but are 
hardly lively enough generally to use directly in 
the bread-making. They serve well for making 
yeast—one cake for about three pints of yeast, 
which is enough for most families to make each 
time. Baker’s yeast is often sour, though lively. 
No one can make sweet bread with sour yeast, 
unless sugar is added. No; soda never sweetens 
anything. Alkalies neutralize acids, but they can 
only do that. They never make sour things sweet. 
If your bread has turned sour from too long stand¬ 
ing, you can do away with that sourness by a judi¬ 
cious use of alkali; but the sugar that was once 
naturally in the dough had all departed before the 
bread was really sour. If I am so unfortunate as 
to have to use soda in my bread, I put iu a table¬ 
spoonful of sugar with it when I go to knead it. 
These columns have readers who shake their 
heads at the very mention of yeast bread. They 
think it is poison ; but it will be a long time, I 
think, before they produce in our minds any very 
strong abhorrence of light, tender, sweet yeast 
bread, such as one in a thousand among bread- 
makers knows how to produce. Fortunate are the 
housekeepers who have plenty of sweet unskimmed 
milk to use for mixing bread. Skimmed milk will 
not answer the purpose. It is little (if at all) bet¬ 
ter than water. New milk, with its unrisen cream, 
shortens the loaf. No regular “shortening”— 
lard, butter, or even cream—can do the work 
equally well. When I can not afford to use new 
milk I prefer to use water without any shortening. 
Half-a-dozen potatoes, boiled and mashed fine an< 
mixed with the bread sponge, help to make th< 
bread moist and tender. Another way much liked 
by some is to make corn meal gruel—about a quart, 
let us say, for four loaves—and scald a portion oi 
the sifted flour with this; then make the batter 
cooler with cold water, and add flour until the 
sponge is thick enough, then the yeast. The ad¬ 
dition of corn meal is much relished by some, and 
there is no better way to introduce it into the bread. 
I used sometimes, to buy in the city baker’? 
“ home-made bread,” which 
6eemed to be just “baker’s 
bread ” improved by the 
addition of corn-meal. 
A Word Farther About 
Graham, Gems, etc.— 
When people use Graham 
flour only occasionally, us¬ 
ing white flour almost en¬ 
tirely, it is better not to sift 
the Graham flour. All of 
the bran is probably needed. 
It is a dear way to buy bran, 
too—to buy Graham flour at 
the usual prices, and sift 
out the bran to throw away 
or to feed the horses. 
“Of what use is your 
Graham flour if you lake 
out the bran ? ” some one 
asks. But you can not take 
out near all of the bran—at 
least, not with an ordinary 
sieve. This morning I 
made some Graham gems 
for breakfast. The flour 
professed to be made of 
“ the best winter wheat.” The children have 
“ begged off” so about Graham gems lately (and 
I have shared the feeling in less degree) that 
I seldom make them without either using half 
white flour or sifting out the coarse bran. This 
time I sifted the flour for a dozen gems. There 
was almost a pint of coarse bran, and about half of 
those bran particles were large enough to cover any 
printed capital letter in this paragraph. Whatever 
the diseased stomachs or inert bowels of sedentary 
men and women may need in the way of “waste 
matter,” I can not believe that little children and 
people in average health and actively employed 
need to be kept upon any such amount of waste 
matter. So far as I have observed, children who 
can have their choice never choose unsifted Gra¬ 
ham flour bread when they can get “ white bread.” 
The theory about the wheat kernel—how it con¬ 
tains all the elements of the human body in the 
same proportion—seems all right, and I believe 
that no better article of diet can be found than 
whole wheat; but science must wait a little for the 
manufacturers, I think. We will digest this excel¬ 
lent theory, and get ready for its full practice by 
the time that machinery gets ready to give us the 
wheat kernel ground so as to make smooth flour. 
In a few mills already the bran is thoroughly cut 
up and made to disappear, I am toid. 
It is said that some people starve themselves ou 
fine flour, and I dare say it is true. Fine wheat 
flour is almost.devoid of some very important ele¬ 
ments of nutrition. But these elements are foune 
iu other articles of diet. Good meat and milk are 
especially needed where fine wheat flour is the only 
“ bread-stuff.” Where there is plenty of good beef 
and mutton, and plenty of milk for the children, 
there need be no conscientious scruples against 
the free use of fine flour, it seems to me. Those 
who can not afford fresh meat and milk can not 
afford to confine themselves to white bread. Many 
a poor working woman keeps herself thin and 
weak by a diet consisting mainly of fine flour bread 
and tea. Many children arc retarded in their 
growth and healthful development by too close 
confinement to potatoes and bread when they are 
too young to masticate meat and have not enough 
milk. In such cases there would be a great gain 
in the use of Graham flour, even if the coarser part 
