OOBE’S BUBAL HEW-I 
gomcstin (Bcoitomii. 
PROTEST AGAINST BUCKWHEAT CAKES. 
As the subject of “ Buckwheat Cakes” is j 
being so freely discussed, I would also like to | 
gay a few words before the subject passes 
from your columns. The many recipes^given 
m e all excellent, I think, especially the one 
with the “sour milk,” soda, &c.; but one ' 
ingredient I would leave out of each one— i. 
e., the bucku'hr.at /—as I consider it unhealthy 
and unfit for food, and substitute Graham 
flour, cane.ll or some mixture of grains ac¬ 
cording to taste. I have known-of repeated 
cases of erysipelas caused by the use of buck¬ 
wheat. I learned by sad experience the dele¬ 
terious cfEect« of buckwheat on the system. 
First, by a feverish state, when the life cur¬ 
rent surged through the veins like hot lava, 
with aching of the joints, finally culminntr 
ing in a violent attack of erysipelas in the 
face, which only yielded to an application of 
raw cranberries applied to the surface. Since 
then (over five years ago) f have often had 
crisp, tempting looking cakes placed upon 
my plate, and have left them untouched ! I 
am well aware what an array of “"Young 
Housekeepers” I shall have against me ; nev¬ 
ertheless, could I induce one individual to 
abandon the use of buckwheat, I would feel 
well paid for writing this article. 
Orleans Co., N. Y. Mrs. M. D. Buxton. 
We do not agree with Mrs. Buxton that 
buckwheat is unhealthful food. Possibly it 
may lie for some people ; bul. wqliave eaten 
buckwheat cakes daily from three to six 
mouths each year sinca we can remember, 
and never was troubled with erysipelas or 
any other blood disease. Our observation is 
that those who are so troubled, as a rule, eat 
buckwheat cakes swimming, almost, in the 
lard of fried pork, or some other greasy sub¬ 
stance—Buflicient in itself to develop the dis¬ 
ease of which our correspondent has such a 
horror. The fact is, wo have known quite as 
many people to he afflicted with erysipelas 
who never eat buckwheat cakes, as wo have 
ever found so afflicted among those who do. 
Buckwheat. Cakes.— I have not iced several 
articles in the Rural from ladies showing 
how to make buckwheat cakes; hut, none 
have the right idea for good cakes. You 
may think mo egotistical ; but, “the proof 
of the pudding is eating it.” Take milk and 
water equal parts—with a teacup of hop 
yeast, and flour to a proper thickness. Mix 
over night for breakfast. Add half a teaspoon 
of saleratus before, baking. In the absence 
of milk, use a little sugar or sirup, which 
gives the cukes a brownish color and better 
flavor. Leave sufficient batter for next rising, 
covered with cold water during the day, to 
prevent souring. At night, pour ofE the 
water, and add fresh milk, water and flour, 
which may be repeated each day. Serve 
hot from the griddle. Never hake before¬ 
hand, and sweat them between two plates 
which spoils them eatiroly. Turn with a 
paddle, not with a knife, which breaks them 
in pieces on the griddle.— Mrs. Sarah Maf- 
fatt. 
More, About Buckwheat Cakes.— What an 
overhauling the buckwheat cakes are taking, 
to lie sure ! and everybody who makes 
them, knows that their way is better than 
any other. I have not quite conceit enough 
to think that ; but I can make them to suit 
myself and submit any recipe to “young 
housekeeper,” with the request, that when 
she has tested the different recipes, she will 
report to the Run \t. sisters, which way suits 
her best. One quart warm water, one quart 
buckwheat flour, cue heaping teaspoonful 
salt, one large tablespoonful of yeast; mix 
them the last thing before bed-time if that 
is “ever so late” as three or four hours is 
long enough time for them to rise. They 
will be as light as can be, if the yeast is good. 
Just before baking, dissolve and stir into 
them a half teaspoonful of soda. Bake as 
quickly as is possible without burning them, 
bake them till delicately brown, spread 
evenly on a plate, cover them with a light 
tin, put them in the warm closet and keep 
them there until the last ones are cooked, 
then take them to the table and have your 
share with the rest, instead of cooking while 
they eat.—c. J. s. 
-- 
RECIPES FROM MRS. H. S. BROWN. 
Mines Pies.— I bowl of meat, 2 bowls ap¬ 
ples, chop ; a cup of the fat taken from the 
liquor the meat was boiled in ; season with 
pepper and salt to suit the taste ; add two 
cups of sugar, cup molasses, % a nutmeg, 
1 teaspoon mace, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 do. 
cloves, also alspice, half a pint brandy ; wet 
up well with good cider, then when you 
make the pies strew thick over the top with 
good raisins ; make a short crust and you 
will have pies good enough for any one I 
don't care who. 
Good Crullers.—Three eggs, 2 cups" sugar, | 
cup butter, 1 cup sweet milk, 2 teaspoons , 
cinnamon, 1 small teaspoon soda, 2 of cream 
tartar, or three teaspoons of Cleveland’s 
baking powder. 
Pickled Cdbbaye. —Select solid heads, slice 
fine, very fine, put in a jar, then cover with 
boiling water; when cold drain off the water 
and season with sliced horse radish, salt, 
equal parts of black and red pepper, cinna¬ 
mon and cloves whole; cover with strong 
vinegar. This is, handy, always ready and 
good.— Mrs. H. S. B. 
»-- 
DOMESTIC BREVITIES. 
To Color Azure Blue. —I know the follow¬ 
ing recipe to be good. It will not fade on 
cotton. For three pounds of goods, use of 
copperas 4 ozs ; prussiate potash, 2 ozs ; oil 
vitriol, 1 oz ; dissolve the copperas in two 
pails of soft water; aud scald the goods in 
this solution two hours, then take out and 
rinse in cold water. Empty the kettle and 
[ml, in two pails of clean water. Dissolve in 1 
it the. prussiate of potash ; hoil the goods in 
this solution twenty minutes; takeout and 
stir in the oil of vitriol. Again put in the 
goods and let them remain until as dark as 
desired. Rinse thoroughly in cold water and 
let it dry ; afterward wash in soap suds and I 
this color will not fade.— Bernice. 
Recipe /or Crj/staUziuij Grasses.—Get one 
pound of alum, dissolve in one quart, of water 
scalding hot; pour into a wide crock and 
put your grass inside holding the stem in 
your hand for ten minutes, then turn them j 
over and reBt or wait for five or ten minutes 
more ; turn them again and so on until tin- 
water is nearly cold ; then lay them out to 
dry. The water can bo heated again and 
used iu the same way for smaller grasses. 
The. largest should be used first. Grasses 
treated in this way and mixed with some 
that, have not been so treated, make a very 
nice boquet.—n. v. 
A Good Way to Cook Onions. —It is a good 
plan to boil onions fn milk and water, it di¬ 
minishes the strong taste of that vegetable. 
It is an excellent, way of doing up onions, to 
chop them after they are boiled, and put 
them in a stew-pan with a little milk, butter, 
salt and pepper, and let them stand about 
fifteen minutes. This gives them a flue 
flavor, and they can bo served up very hot. 
Asks [low to Mount Chromos. —As I have 
| a couple of unmounted chromos, it occurred 
to mo that some of the Rural readers might 
be able to tell mo how I could mount and 
varnish them ready for framing, and save 
the expense, and perhaps risk, of trusting 
them to unskillful hands.—J ennie Page. 
Hggti(rai( ^Information:. 
EATING BETWEEN MEALS. 
I did not. see the remarks of Mr. M. Lang, 
liyegate, Vt., till to day, Jan. 23d. It is not 
my desire to enter into an argument about 
eating, but will, if you will allow me, make 
a few statements of my opinion and actual 
knowledge of the subject. Mr. Lang was 1 
disgusted with himself and others for eating 
between meals. Now, I feel really ashamed 
of people who often go a long time without 
eating that they may gorge on the good 
things at the stated meals. I am n real, 
working farmer, and cannot eat between | 
meals, except ing on Sundays, and seldom | 
feel inclined then ; but I never crave for food 
as some do with a view of “enjoying a 
.meal," and I feel disgusted with any one 
who thinks of what they are going to have 
for dinner and who make “ a god of their 
stomach.” 1 have known people to count 
on a meal, as if eating was the chief aim in 
living, and these same gluttons will grudge 
children plain food when hungry. My 
mother was a common tenant - farmer’s 
daughter, and was married to a farmer’s 
son, and they rented a farm aud commenced 
life, having myself a year after marriage and 
one every year till there were seven. My ! 
good parent had some city relations and 
other cousins and friends who had a great 
notion that children be fed hy rule, &c. 
Well, I remember the bread and milk for 
breakfast, the long time till dinner, the 
milk and water at tea time, with “bread 
and scrape” (butter scraped on and almost I 
scraped off again) : result, slow growth, no 1 
flesh, and two died after the first sickness, 
being too weak to bear the poisonous medi¬ 
cine given by doctors. Afterward we lived 
better, and had lunch (bread and cheese) and 
had tabic beer instead of toast and water, 
and we grew faster aud were stronger. I 
reckon my children to he the heaviest in 
comparison to their parents’ size of any in a 
general way; but it Is not in fat, it is muscle, 
bone and frame altogether ; anil there is an 
advantage in this high state of health, for 
they can work without feeling tired and can 
cany as heavy a weight as many of their 
own age and carry them in addition. Then, 
those that are grown up can get wet to the 
skin and let their clothes dry ou them, their 
robust health and great vigor of constitution 
carrying them through what would kill tho 
thin, chilly children of those who think they 
know better than nature when to feed them. 
Why, children are animals in one sense, 
and tho animal nature must be supported or 
the mind is lost with the body. O man 1 
who sets himself before nature ! How mis¬ 
erably he fails I for nature intends every 
child bom to live a hundred years ; but the 
interference with nature, the feeding with 
unnatural food, the denying of plain, whole 
some sustenance when the Btomach requires 
it, kills thousands upon thousands every 
year ! 
A number or young rarm live stock are in 
possession of an agricultural gentleman hav¬ 
ing the same opinion as Mr. Lang, as near as 
circumstances will allow, and ho disregards 
nature altogether, feeds them with economy, 
and, if ever so hungry, makes them eat up 
food which he considers to be not good 
enough, for his grown stock ; but by-and-by 
spring comes and grass abounds, when the 
poor little creatures go out with no ugly 
human to prevent them from eating as often 
as they please and as much as their appetites 
tempt them to cat, and the happiness, health 
and beauty of form, &c., begins to reign, 
und nature smiles upon the spectacle with a 
feeling of satisfaction but frowns on the 
man, and he is punished by attempting to 
carry out his ideas in other ways, and tho 
results are destructive to his prosperity and 
ho ends his existence miserably. Ho these 
wretchedly-minded men and women who 
allowance and dole out food to children only 
at tho times those eat who have ceased to 
grow and Consequently can go longer with¬ 
out eating, bring them to such a poverty of 
blood and such weakness of frame that the 
children of poor working people who let 
them cat whenever inclination takes them 
to 1:he cupboard or pantry, could take, up 
as much ns they could lift and walk oil with 
that and the poor little Starveling of tho 
same age as themselves. 
Mr. Lang talks Of deaths ; and it is pitia¬ 
ble in the extreme to know that most of tlic 
poor little creatures dying would live and do 
well If they could oat when hungry and not 
overload their stomachs through long fasting. 
A Working Farmer. 
-♦♦♦-- 
HYGIENIC NOTES 
A ppetitc for Drink 1 nherited. —The Pacific 
Medical and Surgical Journal says :—A strik¬ 
ing instance of this kind has been recently 
brought to our knowledge. A lady, wife of 
the mayor of an Atlantic city, was a con¬ 
firmed inebriate, and in spite of the most 
assiduous efforts made by her husband and 
others to restrain and reform her, continued 
to drink until her life fell a sacrifice to the 
indulgence. Her grandmothers were both 
! intemperate, and both died from drunken¬ 
ness. Several of her brothers were inebri¬ 
ates. She hail one child, a, daughter, who 
exhibited in childhood a marked appetite for 
strong drink, and who drank to intoxication 
whenever she had the opporiunity. The 
child died at the age of six years. During 
I her brief lifo she was known to have been 
I repeatedly drunk. So inveterate was her 
appetite for liquor that she would resort to 
tile most cunning tricks in order to procure 
it—tricks such ns would do credit to the in¬ 
genuity of an adult. 
Potatoes Prescribed as Food. — Several 
| German writers upon i-aces predict that 
nations, far from improving, will deteriorate 
both in physical and mental characteristics, 
if potatoes become a principal article of diet. 
The celebrated Carl Voigt says that “ the 
nourishing potato does not restore t*e wasted 
tissues, but makes oitr proletariats physically 
and mentally weak.” Tho Holland physiol¬ 
ogist, Mulder, gives tho same judgment when 
he declares that tho excessive use of potatoes 
among the poorer classes, and coffee and tea 
hy the higher ranks, is the cause of tho indo¬ 
lence of nations. Liedenfrost maintains that 
the revolutions of the last three centuries 
have been caused by the changed nourish¬ 
ment ; the lowest workmen, in former times, 
ate more flesh than now, when the cheap 
potato forms his principal subsistence, but 
gives him no muscular or nervous strength. 
IPtafa amt 
CHANGES IN UTTING OF DRESSES. 
There are some little changes in tho cut¬ 
ting of dresses that should be remarked. In 
the first place waists are cut longer; the 
piquancy of dress is moderated by a tend¬ 
ency toward more stately styles. The round, 
or Josephine waist, with tlic belt, is very 
often worn, but tho short baseme is tlie pre¬ 
vailing mode. There is the greatest variety 
in the shape of the basque. The back is quite 
short, with deep, underlying plaits. The 
side pieces are longer—generally a Huger 
length longer. They may bo square or orna¬ 
mented with a bow. Tho side pieces in front 
are longer, rounded, or square, and slope up¬ 
ward toward tho scam under tho arm. Shoul¬ 
ders are very short, and tho arm-hole cut 
exactly to fit, leaving the arm perfectly free. 
The appearance of n plait which so many 
dressmakers leave in front, to give greater 
breadth across tho chest, is out of fashion. 
The arm-liolo is cut in toward the front—all 
that Is necessary for perfect, fit. In a good, 
form this is a very decided advantage; in all 
respects it is much more comfortable, and 
saves much wear and tear on the dress. 
Tho neck is cut high; if the ruche or 
Medici frill is not used it should have a 
straight, standing collar, under which is 
placed a crepe lisso frill. 
Low-necked dresses have undergone a very 
decided change. They are no longer cut off 
tho shoulders, but rather heart-shaped, or 
pointed back and front, and filled in with 
tulle niches. For elderly ladies or matrons 
the square neck is worn, hi it is a standing 
crepo lisse niche, very full aiul arranged to 
stand lip, marking sharply tho corners. The 
sleeves of visiting dresses are close, with 
small culls. Tho Mario Antoinette sleeve, 
with ruffles below the elbow, is uot so fash¬ 
ionable. The sleeves of evening dresses aro 
very short; o. silk dress will have but a puff 
of tulle In closed by a silk band. Young ladies 
wear high waists and very short sleeves. 
Skirts are, if possible, worn straigliter and 
flatter iu front. All trimming is flat. If of 
tho same material, it is fashioned in kilt 
plaits or horizontal bands; bands of lace, 
gimp fringes, and mingled passementerie and 
jot are disposed on the front breadth. The 
trimming of the hack, which is yet quite 
bouffant, is not so elaborate as formerly. 
Flounces make tho most effective trimming. 
Tho Cuirass bodice is still retained in favor. 
It is generally made of velvet, aud sleeveless. 
Its beauty consists iu its perfect fit, and 
should look as if molded for the person. 
Oftou tho different, pieces fall in long, open 
| tabs down tho skirt. 
Velvets used iu making bodices of this de¬ 
scription are often in alternate stripes on 
satin. Others aro embroidered in gay col¬ 
ors, or embossed velvet on silk back-grounds. 
Tunics are longer and simpler in their con¬ 
struction. For welling wear, tunics of silk 
of one color, with a bias fold of some con- 
trusting tint, have the print falling on one 
side slope, over the front, without fullness, 
to the sashes in the hack, which are of both 
shades. Garniture of flowers, vines ami au¬ 
tumn leaves often border the fold. 
On black tulle evening dresses, gilt passe¬ 
menterie is largely used. There is an effort 
to introduced on cashmeres, hut it is too pro¬ 
nounced for quiet tastes, hi many estab¬ 
lishments tulles and tarletans, embroidered 
in bouquets, with silk floss, and gilt and sil¬ 
ver, are intended for tunics for evening wear. 
They are inexpensive, but exceedingly deli¬ 
cate, and cannot last many wearing* in a 
crowded room. 
j Toilets of muslin and lace arc always fresh 
and pretty, but there are signs that they 
will be superseded by tarletan and tulle. 
For very young ladies, however, they will 
always be the most suitable costume. 
NOVELTIES. 
The newest veil is Brussels net, dotted 
with jet beads. The lace is left unhemtued, 
merely covers the face, and is not trimmed 
with lace. 
i White muslin ties, trimmed with deep lace 
and embroidered medallions, are coming 
into favor. 
Combinations of straw-color, garnet and 
scarlet enter into the most stylish evening 
costumes; also light green and pale rose, 
pale blue and pink. 
All costumes for the country are made to 
entirely clear the ground. Visit ing costumes 
are demi-train. 
Red gold is the most fashionable color for 
jewelry. Long chains are preferred to 
chatelaines. Oxydized tinargrelles attached 
to the chatelaines are very generally used. 
Ladies are wearing shoes with projecting 
\ soles similar to men’s. Square toes are 
made hy tlie best shoemakers, and low, 
broad heels. 
