598 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 27 
♦ Woman and | 
| The Home. ♦ 
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦I 
FROM DAY TO DAY. 
There are two places in England 
where women may receive instruction 
in gardening, the Royal Botanic Gar¬ 
dens at Kew, and the Horticultural Col¬ 
lege atSwanley, Kent. A young woman, 
Miss Gulvin, who finished her gardening 
education at Kew, is the first of her sex 
to receive a position as head gardener. 
She has charge of a private establish¬ 
ment in Wales, having under her charge 
vineries, orchard-houses, fruit, flower, 
and vegetable gardens. She has under 
her direction one young woman assist¬ 
ant and four men. Miss Gulvin modestly 
says, in a letter to the Journal of the 
Kew Guild : “ I think that, when men 
see that our intentions are serious, and 
that we are not afraid to work, they re¬ 
spect our efforts to find employment out¬ 
side the very restricted boundary within 
which, until recently, woman’s work was 
confined.” Miss Gulvin appears to make 
a specialty of vegetables, and has been 
a prize-taker at local shows. 
* 
The waist ribbons this Summer are 
decorated by a big butterfly bow that 
looks delightfully simple until one tries 
to tie it according to the light of Nature. 
Then one realizes that it requires educa¬ 
tion. At all the large stores, there is a 
clerk whose duty it is to tie bows for cus¬ 
tomers buying ribbon. We asked one of 
these young women if she would tie the 
bow slowly so that we could see how to 
do it. 
“ It's very simple,” she said. “ First 
you tie an ordinary double bow-knot 
quite small and rather loose ; then you 
take some more ribbon, pass it in and 
out through the tie in the center, on the 
under side, making two more loops. 
Then you take the first two loops,.and 
pull the knot small and tight in the 
center. If you want six or eight loops 
instead of four, you make them in the 
same way. Some of these bows used for 
hat-trimming and fancy work have the 
loops cut diagonally, to make a lot of 
pointed ends.” 
* 
In suggesting some kitchen conven¬ 
iences, a writer in Harper’s Bazar ad¬ 
vises that, where the kitchen sink is 
provided with a pump for cistern water, 
a short length of rubber hose be fitted 
over the spout of the pump, thus saving 
the heavy lifting that injures so many 
women. Another thing to bear in mind 
is that the sink should have a broad 
shelf for soiled dishes at the right, a 
grooved drain-board at the left, and a 
dx-esser above for the clean dishes. This 
simple arrangement is a great economy 
of force. We all admire a big kitchen, 
but it will be found that the French 
cook in a large hotel has just room 
enough to stand in, with a big range, a 
table, and plenty of shelves for dishes 
and utensils. He takes no unnecessary 
steps in his work. Naturally, where 
other work than cooking must be done 
in the kitchen, room is required ; but 
conveniences for each branch of the 
work should be arranged with the idea 
of saving labor. 
* 
It is a very easy matter to bring one’s 
sailor hat into harmony with different 
belt ribbons by altering the band. 
Readymade hat bands, which are ad¬ 
justed by a slide, are sold, both for mas¬ 
culine and feminine use, but it is more 
economical to buy heavy ribbon of the 
right width, and then adjust it. Cut the 
ribbon half an inch smaller than the 
circumference of the hat, and make a 
tiny firm hem at either end to keep it 
from raveling out. Fasten firmly apiece 
of flat elastic at either edge of the rib¬ 
bon, to join it together. It may then be 
slipped around the crown of the hat 
without any trouble. A flat bow should 
be made, and fastened to one end of the 
band ; a single pin will hold it firmly in 
place at the other end, when the band 
is put on. A very new fancy is for a hat¬ 
band of bright red velvet, though velvet 
seems somehow out of place on a sailor 
hat. A great many women are now 
wearing Roman - striped scarfs with 
fringed hanging ends on their sailor 
hats, but we never admire them ; they 
always have an untidy look. 
CANNED TOMATOES. 
“Some housekeepers say that they can’t 
put up tomatoes so they will keep,” Mrs. 
Briggs said one afternoon when she and 
another neighbor had dropped in for a 
little chat. “ For my part, I don’t see 
how they can help it. ’Tis very seldom 
I lose a jar, and I have the least trouble 
with them of anything.” 
“ Well, then I wish you would tell me, 
exactly and minutely, how you do it,” 
said Mrs. Carwell, “ for I am one of the 
incapables who cannot make them keep.” 
Mrs. Briggs meditated a moment, then 
said, “In the first place, you want sound 
jars, and caps that will screw down snug 
to the rubber. Sometimes a cap will fit 
one jar and not another; so when I 
empty a jar, I wash it, and then when it 
is cold, screw on the cap, so that when I 
use it again I know it is all right. Then 
you want to be sure to have soft, pliable 
rubbers, even though you have to buy 
new ones every year. 
“Now, supposing you have a half 
bushel of tomatoes to can, this is what 
you want to get ready to do it with. 
“ A good fire ; an iron kettle half full 
of boiling water on the stove, and at 
right angles to it, leaving room between 
for the preserving kettle, a milk-pan 
half full of water with an asbestos mat 
between it and the stove. On a table, 
near by, the jars with their caps off and 
rubbers on all ready for use ; an agate¬ 
ware gill-dipper, a wrench, a clean cloth, 
a large earthen bowl, and a spoon. On 
a chair, near the stove, the preserving 
kettle, and a pan and small, sharp knife 
for skinning the tomatoes ; also, a low 
rocking-chair to sit in, and in your hand, 
a large steel fork. 
“ Put as many tomatoes in the ii-on 
kettle as will go in and be covered by 
the water, and let them remain for, per¬ 
haps, three minutes. Take them out 
into the empty pan with a fork, and put 
as many more into the kettle. Then sit 
down, with the pan in your lap, holding 
each tomato on the fork as you take off 
its skin, and if you are anyway spry, the 
tomatoes in the kettle will be scalded 
just right by the time the skins are off 
the first batch. Continue this until the 
preserving kettle is full; then set it on 
the stove, stirring occasionally to prevent 
sticking, while you scald and skin the 
rest of the tomatoes, putting them in the 
earthen bowl, which you have placed in 
the chair beside you. 
“ By the time the skins are all off, the 
tomatoes in the preserving kettle will 
be bubbling, but that isn’t enough ; they 
need to be boiling hot, through and 
through, and when you are very sure 
they are, let them boil five minutes 
longer, so as to be on the safe side. You 
want to take off the scum, and if the 
tomatoes seem to be more watery than 
you like, you can dip out some of the 
liquid. 
“ Next, draw the pan of water on the 
stove close up to the kettle, and slide a 
jar into it so that the hot water touches 
both inside and outside of the glass at 
the same time ; twirl it around, pour out 
the water, and stand it up in the pan. 
Then with the dipper, fill the jar full of 
the hot tomatoes, level full, mind you ! 
Draw the clean cloth lightly across the 
top to remove bubbles, and wipe the 
rubber so there will be no seeds or to¬ 
mato left on it; then quickly screw on 
the cap, as tight as you can with the 
hand, lift the jar to the table, and pro¬ 
ceed with the next. 
“ When the kettle is empty, wash it, 
if any of the tomato has caught on the 
bottom, and then empty into it the con¬ 
tents of the bowl, and again set it on the 
stove. In abqut half an hour after the 
jars are filled, tighten each cap with the 
wrench. If the tomatoes sizzle out from 
under the cap, you may know that they 
won’t keep, and can unscrew it at once, 
to reheat and put in a different jar. 
“ Lastly, keep the jars in a dai’k, cool 
place.” 
“ What makes them sizzle ? ” Mrs. Car- 
well asked. 
“ Sometimes it is a defect in the jar ; 
more often, I think, it is because the 
cap hasn’t a true edge.” 
“ Why liasu’t it a true edge ? ” 
“ I think, but am not sure, that it has 
been bent by inserting a knife under 
it when the jar was last opened.” 
“ Oh ! ” said Mrs. Carwell, “ I always 
do that. I don’t see how you are going 
to get them open any other way.” 
“ Sometimes you can’t, but more often 
you can. If I dip the cap into hot water 
nearly up to the glass, hold it there for 
a second or two, and then use the wrench, 
I generally find I can start it. If you 
must use a knife, I think it is better to 
insert it between the rubber and the 
cap.” 
“ Well, if you are infallible, Mrs. 
Briggs, there are reasons enough why 
my tomatoes never kept. I haven’t ever 
taken any account of sizzling, I never 
filled my jars quite level full, I never 
wiped off bubbles or seeds, I never hux-- 
ried to put on the caps, I never screwed 
them up tighter ; 1 was never particular 
about keeping them in a cool, dark 
place, and always liked so well to see 
the tomatoes look whole, that I let them 
come only to a boil. This year, I will 
prove your methods.” 
ELIZABETH ROBBINS. 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN NEW MEXICO. 
The United States Department of Agri- 
cultui’e has been making nutrition ex¬ 
periments in New Mexico, the results 
being published in Bulletin 54. Fig. 278, 
from this bulletin, shows the domestic 
science laboratory of a Mexican house¬ 
wife. The house shown is built of adobe 
or sun-dried brick, with an earth floor, 
and a flat roof of sticks and brush, 
covered with mud. The bee-hive erec¬ 
tion of clay at the right is a primitive 
oven, in which some of the cooking is 
done ; most of it, however, is done over 
an open Are in one corner of the room. 
The diet of the Mexican laborers is 
almost entirely vegetable, consisting 
chiefly of frijoles or beans, red peppers 
(chili) and tortillas. The women in the 
picture are busy making the tortillas, 
thin corn cakes. They are made from 
the small blue corn, which the women 
pound in stone mortars. Very little 
meat is used, but lard and other fats are 
quite freely provided. The Mexican 
family whose dietary was studied con¬ 
sisted of two adults and one child, and 
their entire income was not over $100 a 
year. There was very little waste in 
the dietary, bv.t it was deficient in fat 
and muscle-makers. We wouldn’t re¬ 
commend a diet of frijoles, chili and 
tortilla to any one with strong ambition. 
We read recently of a wealthy English¬ 
woman who had a morbid horror of cor¬ 
pulence. She was the mother of seven 
daughters, and while these gii'ls wei'e 
growing up, it is asserted that their food 
was carefully weighed at every meal, that 
they might have sufficient nutriment for 
growth and sustenance, without any 
surplus to form fat. The girls all gi-ew 
to be unusually fine specimens of woman¬ 
hood, and they are all prominent socially. 
Perhaps, in the coux-se of time, we shall 
all diet our children for brains, health, 
and beauty. It is quite interesting to 
speculate on the possible improvement 
of our Mexican neighbors, if the peons 
were able to secure a more generous diet 
than corn, beans and peppers. 
EDUCATION FOR DOMESTIC LIFE. 
In the August number of the Popular 
Science Monthly, Prof. Mary Roberts 
Smith, of Leland Stanford University, 
urges the need of systematic training for 
domestic life. Prof. Smith observes that 
those who insisted upon the value of a 
higher education for women, thought it 
sufficient that they should have the same 
opportunities as men. This experiment 
has been tried now for a generation, and 
it is found that all women do not need 
the same kind of training as men, any 
more than all men need a purely classi¬ 
cal or a purely scientific education. In 
other words, individualism is breaking 
up all the accepted lines of education for 
women as it has for men. As a result, 
differentiation of courses within the 
higher training is demanded to meet the 
practical needs of a life in which no two 
individuals can possibly do precisely the 
same things. The fact that one-third of 
all the women in the United States are 
married sets them aside as needing a 
peculiar training for their profession. 
In domestic life, women need at least 
two things : first, the greatest general 
culture attainable to enrich the home 
life and to retain the sympathies of 
children, as well as to store up for them¬ 
selves x-esources in hours of difficulty, 
loneliness, or sorrow ; second, they need 
an education adapted to the everyday 
business, especially to the emex-gencies, 
of domestic life. No education is com¬ 
plete or, indeed, of great permanent 
value that does not teach how to live 
contentedly and to economize nerve en- 
ei’gy. To be contented, one must feel 
sure that one is in the right place, and 
must have spiritual and intellectual re¬ 
sources to tide over life’s emei-gencies 
whose end one cannot see. To be eco¬ 
nomical of nerve energy, one must learn 
a finely-balanced self-control and a 
lax-ge - minded discrimination between 
the values of competing duties and at¬ 
tractions. 
Again, the average mother needs a 
thorough grounding in elementary physi¬ 
ology and hygiene. Five per cent of all 
children born in the United States die 
under five years of age. When this 
occurs, the waste of human energy, both 
before and after birth, is something 
appalling. Prof. A. G. Warner estimates 
that it costs about $100 in loss of labor 
