356 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
WAY 2§ 
in solid color; the figured frieze in the same 
tint having a border of gilt. 
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT. 
J. H. G. 
Domestic economy as a science is being 
rapidly developed. Its growth during the 
past decade has been marvelous and yet it has 
scarcely gotten beyond the theoretical and 
experimental stage. Some years ago the 
writer had the temerity to say that he did not 
know a single young lady, who could jUss a 
fairly creditable examination (similar to that 
required by the Civil Service examiners), in 
household science. The statement aroused 
the feminine ire of the Rural’s readers; but 
it was not controverted and I will venture to 
repeat the assertion that there are a dozen 
questions relating to the sources, relative val¬ 
ue, and efficiency of our every-day food which 
no one of my aquaintance and but few of the 
Rural’s readers could answer. 
I think no one will question the statement 
that there are less science and less art in the 
kitchen, than in any other room in the house 
and yet the kitchen is the place where they are 
needed most. There is scarcely a single 
branch of science which is not in some way 
connected with, certainly none but what is 
largely dependent upon, the kitchen. Agri¬ 
culture, horticulture, botany, chemistry, phys¬ 
iology, hygiene, in fact a knowledge of about 
all the sciences is required to make the kitch¬ 
en what it should be. Even theology, if we 
may believe Dr. Talmage, is related to the 
kitchen, for he says that nothing short of a 
miracle can permanently convert a hungry 
man or a dyspeptic. Domestic science and 
art, while thej- are related to nearly all other 
sciences and arts are being rapidly separated 
and made specialties. A few leading women 
have done much to bring about a proper ap¬ 
preciation of them, and have made their study 
popular. But very little however is being done 
in the way of practical economy in the house¬ 
hold among the masses. 
Perhaps the most lamentable result of the ig¬ 
norance of the average housewife is shown in 
the enormous waste of food and food products 
both in city and country. In meats,for instance 
most any butcher will tell you that the demand 
for the higher priced cuts is increasing even 
among the poorer class and that the difference 
in price between different cuts, often as much 
as 15 cents per pound, is not based upon their 
relative value for food, but rather upon the 
name and appearance of the cuts. I learned 
long ago that a “poor” cut from a good beef 
was vastly better than a “fancy” cut from a 
poor beef, and did not as a rule cost more 
than half as much. In these days when near¬ 
ly all meat is purchased of the butcher, and 
usually over the tailboard of the butcher’s 
wagon, a knowledge of the different cuts and 
quality of meat is of the greatest importance. 
Perhaps the greutest waste occurs at the 
butcher’s wagon, but the loss does not end 
there. As Edward Atkinson says: “If the 
people of this country would knock the bot¬ 
tom out of the American frying pan, they 
would have one-third more money to spend 
for rent than they now have.” Meats are 
overdone, underdone, and fried into a bard, 
indigestible and unpalatable mass; it is the 
exception rather than the rule when they are 
cooked so as to retain their nutritive quality 
and still be really palatable. Then in the 
disposal of the remains tand as a rule the 
poorer the cooking the more the residue) in 
but few cases are they utilized economically. 
It is usually supposed that abash covers up the 
multitude of sins in the original cooking. It 
does consign them to a mysterious oblivion 
but it is not expiation by any means. The 
waste and consequent loss are only partially 
atoned for, and the extent of even this form 
of atonement is largely reduced by the sub¬ 
sequent gastronomical sufferings of the family. 
Next to meat, the greatest waste is in vege¬ 
tables. It is a fact well known to scientific 
cooks that there is as much difference in the 
quality and nutritive value of even the same 
kind of vegetables as there is in meat. In 
this matter there is more discrimination 
shown in the country than in the city. With 
by far too many housekeepers, however, both 
iu ttie city and country, a potato is a potato, 
whether it be a White Elephant or an Early 
Rose. Very little, if any, distinction is made 
when purchasing or selecting potatoes. If 
tney are smooth and fiee from eyes, bright- 
looking and of good size, they are sure to find 
a ready market, no matter what their quality 
may be. My own experience, by the way, 
has been that the dark potatoes are the most 
nutritious, even if they are not always the 
most palatable. As it is with potatoes, so it is 
with almost all other kinds of vegetables. The 
average purchaser is governed chiefly by the 
outward appearance, hence the producer 
seeks only to raise vegetables which are of 
large, or at least uniform size, and with an at¬ 
tractive outside. As with meat, the waste 
with vegetables only begins with the purchase. 
It is safe to assume that there is nutriment 
enough thrown away in the form of vegeta¬ 
ble parings over and above what was abso¬ 
lutely necessary to supply all the poor houses 
in the land. Not only are the parings extrav¬ 
agant, but vegetables are boiled when they 
should be baked or steamed, or vice versa , or 
they are cooked until all the taste is cooked 
out of them, or they are taken off the Are too 
soon, and they are hard and unpalatable. 
Vegetables are often re-dished, or served cold, 
but not nearly so often as they should be. It 
is so much easier to consign such things tp 
the chicken yard or the ash-pan. 
In the matter of pastry, the waste is even 
more lamentable. With very much of it. the 
waste is equally great, whether it be eaten or 
thrown away. It fairly nauseates one to 
think of the time, money and lard put in the 
form of pie-crust, only to make misery or fill 
the ash barrel. I like pies—if they are so 
made ■as to disguise the crust—but this form 
of cookery seems a rare,if not a lost art. The 
average “pie” suggests little else than dyspep¬ 
sia, nightmares and general misery. Aside 
from dumplings, which are often only “pies” 
in disguise, there is less waste in desserts than 
in other forms of food. 
Perhaps the greatest waste of all, however, 
is in the things which are not properly classed 
among the necessities—the luxuries of 40 
years ago. The quantity of sugar annually 
wasted would make every small boy in the 
land sticky and happy, if made into good and 
pure candy. If I could have the sugar left in 
the bottoms of the tea and coffee cups, and 
thrown out with the dish water, I could soon 
break up the Sugar Trust, and retire in afflu¬ 
ence. With tea and coffee the waste is as 
great, if not greater, only a small proportion 
of the strength of either being utilized. 
With the condiments and other extras of 
the modern kitchen, and the adulterations 
made possible by the ignorance and indiffer¬ 
ence of the housewife, the waste and loss are 
perhaps as great as in any other one thing. A 
recent advertisement of a well-known baking- 
powder states that the alum baking powders 
can be made for five cents per pound, while 
they sell for 50 cents, with a “prize” orcbromo 
thrown in. With soaps it is a well-known 
fact that some of the leading brands sell for 
more than twice their cost, but aside from 
their original cost, the quantity of soap need¬ 
lessly dissolved and thrown into the barn¬ 
yard, or permitted to run into the sewer is 
simply enormous. The waste which results 
from buying glucose for sirup and sugar, 
ground crackers for pepper, sawdust for mus¬ 
tard and horse-radish, beef-fat for butter, 
and cotton-seed oil for lard, is beyond all cal¬ 
culation. In things which are used about 
the house the waste is proportionately as great. 
As a practical example of this, three lamps are 
burning in the room as I write, while one 
would be amply sufficient. 
The fact is not understood as it should be, 
that domestic economy and domestic science 
are not always one and the same thing. A good 
cook or particular housewife is not necessarily 
an economical one, and the fact should not 
be forgotten that it is not economy to spend 
50 cents’ worth of time and strength to save 25 
cents’ woilh of food. Paradoxical as it may 
seem, the two chief obstacles in the way of 
true economy are savmg and wasting. Judic¬ 
ious expenditures are usually more economical 
than injudicious saving. When we consider 
the truth negatively stated of the old maxim 
“waste not want not,” and the enormous 
waste which prevails all over our land, is it 
not surprising, not that there is so much pov¬ 
erty, but rather that there is not more of it? 
We owe it to ourselves as individuals to save 
all we can, but there is a higher and vastly 
more important obligation resting upon us, 
which is to save for the community. If all 
the property in the land were distributed 
equally, it would not make any of us very 
rich, and if we have more than we need of 
anything, we may be assured that some one 
needs it. Nothing should be wasted that can, 
by any possibility, be utilized. Grasping 
greediness and careless profligacy are both 
forms of wastefulness. One wastes by hoard¬ 
ing, the other by throwing away. True 
economy is judicious expenditure, Christian 
unselfishness. 
-. 
LIFE IN KANSAS. 
ALEXANDER HENRY. 
If the Rural would spare me a small space 
I would like to give my opinion of life in the 
West. I have read both “Grandmother’s” 
and Mrs. Brandt’s articles with interest, and 
think “Grandmother’s” remarks apply in this 
part of the country better than anything else 
I have read. Mrs. Brandt says: “Grandmother 
must be thinking of when she was a girl. We 
all have wood houses here.” I have never 
been in Dakota, but in Western Kansas there 
is not one wooden house in a dozen. Grand¬ 
mother describes the dugout exactly. There 
are not many snakes here, but both sod-house 
and dugouts are the homes of centipedes, and 
we are not surprised to find a four-inch bed¬ 
fellow at any time. Mrs. Brandt spoke of 
riding. In Kansas it would take all your 
strength to hold on to the horse. It is true 
the sunsets are beautiful, and the storms not 
only grand but terrible. 
There is another thing that both writers 
mentioned did not touch on: the scarcity of 
fuel. Only those living in towns, burn coal, 
and wood is equally scarce, the usual fuel 
being cow-chips gathered from the prairie. I 
am not trying to discourage anybody, but I 
don’t want girls to think that merely because 
a man has a claim in Kansas they would do 
well to marry him. With no timber or coal, 
hot winds and drought in summer, and bliz- 
zar^P and prairie fires from October to April, 
Western Kansas can never make a very plea¬ 
sant home. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
Our happiness arises from what we are, 
not where we are, says the Christian Union. 
If we take Christ at his word when he says, 
“I am with you always,” then we can rejoice 
in him always... 
Alexander, who is reported to have been 
an exceedingly swift runner, was once solicit¬ 
ed to run in the Olympic games. He an¬ 
swered: “I will, if kings are mine antagonists.” 
Give me such a saint who will pursue nothing 
on earth unsuitable to his birth from heaven. 
Browning says: “Where Christ brings his 
cross he brings his presence; and where he is, 
none are desolate and there is no room for 
despair. As he knows his own, so he knows 
how to comfort them, using sometimes the 
very grief itself, and straining it to a sweet¬ 
ness of peace unattainable by those ignorant 
of sorrow.”. 
The Independent says: “He who places his 
mind and heart supremely on any earthly 
good dooms himself to a supreme disappoint¬ 
ment. That good, even if he gains it, will 
leave him or he will leave it. It is at the 
best but transient, and will soon be of no 
value to him. On the other hand, he who is 
‘rich toward God’ has a treasure that ‘never 
faileth.’ He, and he only, is the truly wise 
man.”. 
Honor to the house where they are simple 
to the verge of hardship, so that there the 
intellect is awake and reads the laws of the 
universe, the soul worships truth and love, 
honor and courtesy flow into all deeds.— 
Plain, straightforward morality and every 
day righteousness are better than all emotion, 
and dogmatism, and all churchism, says the 
world, and Christianity says much the same; 
but plain, straightforward righteousness and 
every-day morality come most surely when a 
man is keeping close to Christ. 
Titcomb says: “Meet every man honestly, 
seek to know him, and you will find that in 
those points in which he differs from you 
rest3 his power to instruct you, enlarge you, 
and do you good”. 
The greatest life is that which has been the 
most useful, and has been able to perform its 
allotted tasks cheerfully and well. 
Ruskin says: “They are the weakest-minded 
and the hardest-hearted men who most love 
change.”. 
Beecher says: “The world awakes. The 
smell of the soil is in the air. The sullen ice 
has slunk to the north of every rock and fence. 
There come voices from long-hidden birds.”.. 
Mrs. May Wright Sewall opportunely 
says: “If one is seeking the causes of the nu¬ 
merical decrease and the physical degenera 
tion of American families, let him not look to 
the fractional one percent, of the college-bred 
women, but to the 88 per cent, of tobacco- 
chewing, cigarette-smoking men. The dwarf¬ 
ing, devitalizing effects of tobacco being re¬ 
moved, it will be time enough to consider to 
wbat degree the higher education is reducing 
the numbers and enfeebling the capacity of 
the Anglo-Saxon stock.” 
Domestic (Sccmoimj 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
HEARD BY THE WAY. 
All winter I have been saving the paper 
bags that came into the bouse for bagging 
grapes this spring. mrs. a. c. 
We stew our rhubarb, but we always pour 
hot water over it first, allowing it to stand an 
instant before turning it off. This, we think, 
removes the “rank” taste that is so often 
noticeable in stewed rhubarb. 
MISS NETTIE W. 
I bought the reversible matting, as it can 
be turned when soiled without showing the 
knots and ends. It costs but 10 cents the yard 
more than the ordinary matting and is well 
worth the difference. mrs. h. w. c. 
My husband has the happy faculty of see¬ 
ing the comical side of our mishaps, and many 
a time when things looked “blue,” work 
lagged and the wheels refused to go in any 
direction, he has made some lucky hit that 
was so funny we laughed till our sides ached. 
_ MRS. N. 
A “puff in the sleeves” has become almost 
a proverb in our house when the little girls 
are growing fast and bishop sleeves render 
this lengthening at once convenient and fash¬ 
ionable. a. L. J. 
I became so annoyed by not being able to 
find a cork when wanted, that I invested 25 
cents,a year or so ago,in corks of various sizes, 
and I believe I never spent 25 cents that gave 
me more satisfaction. mrs. g. d. 
Well, I am going to buy a striped crinkled 
seersucker for a skirt for ordinary wear. It 
will save my white skirts and, being crinkled, 
will not need to be ironed when washed. 
_ MISS B. 
I have received more real, lasting help from 
the Rural than from any one paper 1 ever 
read. It seems to me like my Bible, in one re¬ 
spect. On reading some deep sentences, try¬ 
ing to grasp their meaning and put them to 
use, my mind is broadened and widened and 
deepened, and I feel fitted to better meet the 
responsibilities of this one life, at least. 
MRS. L. H. NILES. 
I have been busy all the morning going 
over my fruit cans, washing, drying and air¬ 
ing them preparatory to the canning cam¬ 
paign. Although always careful to wash and 
dry them thoroughly after using their con¬ 
tents, I find they need air and sun before refill¬ 
ing. _ MRS. c. 
I often wonder when I hear girls say: “I 
am sure I don’t know how ma makes bread; I 
have tried to make cake,” or boast that they 
never iron their own clothes, what sort of 
wives they will make! And yet it is the girls 
with the lily-white hands who please best, and 
are thought genteel. Why need we wonder if 
the maid-of-all-work attempts the same gentil¬ 
ity and despises her work. mrs j. 
A TALK TO TALKERS. 
Don’t talk too much or too loud. It would 
be a good thing if every parent or guardian 
would try to impress this upon children early 
in life. Of course, we often fall into the habit 
of talking loudly and do it without realiz¬ 
ing it. 
If one belongs to a large family one has to 
yell sometimes in order to be heard above the 
din of the children’s clatter. Then, very often, 
grandpa or grandma is pretty deaf, and again 
it becomes necessary to yell in order to be 
heard; but ordinarily, it is not necessary, yet 
how many of our boys and girls do it! I have 
done it lots of times, and brought mortifica¬ 
tion upon myself thereby. Once, I remember, 
while still a school girl, some of my class¬ 
mates and I were going out to Belmont, a 
beautiful summer resort not far from my 
home, to hear the music and spend a pleasant 
afternoon. One week the music was furnished 
by a brass band, and the next by an orchestra 
I liked the band best. The afternoon in ques¬ 
tion we were all packed in the stage like sar¬ 
dines, and of course, talked and chattered as 
only school girls can. At last I said: 
“I wish you had waited till next week, or 
else had come out last week, girls!” 
“Why?” they all asked in chorus. 
“Because the band is ever so much nicer 
than the orchestra, and this is the orchestra’s 
week. I hate squeaky fiddles!” 
“Well,” said Sue, “I suppose we can stand 
it?” 
“Oh yes!” I replied, “it isn’t so dreadful, 
and even if it isn’t so very fine we can have 
a good chance to see what’s going on, and talk 
about it, too, without being heard, for the 
music will drown our voices.” 
Then we all giggled—a regular idiotic school¬ 
girl giggle. We didn’t mind in the least the 
fact that there were three or four gentlemen 
in the stage besides our own party. When we 
reached the mansion we all scrambled for 
seats in the front row. In a few moments the 
When Baoy was sick, we gave her Castoria, 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castoria, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castoria, 
When she had Children, she gave them Castoria, 
