486 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 9 
i Woman and t 
♦ The Home.? 
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 
FROM DAY TO DAY. • 
A Philadelphia firm recently offered 
a $50 bedstead as a prize for the best 
bread offered in competition. A num¬ 
ber of women competed, each offering 
two loaves. It was intended that bread 
left over from the competition should be 
given to some charitable institution, but 
so many interested housewives sampled 
the bread that there was none left. The 
prize was awarded by ballot, all the 
women who tasted the bread voting their 
preference. Of course, the competition 
was an advertising scheme on the part of 
the firm making the award, but it at¬ 
tracted much attention and proved to 
be quite instructive. 
* 
Soldiers’ buttons form the heads of 
the most popular hat-pins now worn, ap¬ 
pearing in all grades of quality. Mili¬ 
tary belt-buckles are, also, much worn, 
and happy is the girl who has a real 
U. S. buckle which has seen service. 
One girl we know clasps a stout leather 
belt around her slim waist by means of 
a buckle which saw service in 1812, and 
many are wearing relics of the Civil War. 
Of course, such buckles are always worn 
with leather belts, never with webbing 
or ribbon, and the bigger the buckle the 
better. Very handsome gold buckles, 
large and square, are overlaid with a 
wreath of laurel leaves, having the Stars 
and Stripes formed in colored enamel in 
the center. 
* 
Auxiliaries to the Red Cross Society 
are being formed now in almost every 
town. As a rule, such associations are 
very informal, the meetings being open 
to every woman who will assist. A 
board of managers is selected, usually 
comprising delegates from all the local 
church societies, and they decide upon 
place of meeting and line of work. Dur¬ 
ing the Civil war, women met to scrape 
lint, but this is now unnecessary, and 
they bend their energies to the making 
of nightshirts and pajamas for hospital 
use, and flannel bands. Boxes of read¬ 
ing-matter and small comforts are also 
packed. It is well to bear in mind what 
soldiers’ necessities are likely to be, 
when packing such boxes. A bottle of 
vaseline or simple cerate will often fill a 
w ant before which improving literature 
is valueless. 
* 
This is the shortcake season and, 
when the delicate biscuit dough is used, 
it is a good plan to mold individual cakes 
with a biscuit cutter, instead of making 
one of the larger size. Two biscuits are 
put together for baking, the lower one 
being brushed with melted butter that 
they may be readily separated. The ad¬ 
vantage of making the individual short¬ 
cakes is that it avoids the troublesome 
cutting, which mashes many of the ber¬ 
ries. The small shortcakes look pretty, 
and are attractively finished off on top, 
either with a conical pile of wdiipped 
cream, or with a meringue. When the 
strawberries wane, we shall vary our 
desserts with shortcakes of raspberries, 
grated pineapple, and peaches, the last 
being a great favorite. A nice straw¬ 
berry dessert recently^ eaten, which does 
not appear to be commonlj' made, was 
strawberry meringue pie. A pie plate 
was lined with rich short crust, which 
was lightly baked, and then covered with 
a generous layer of strawberries. The 
strawberries were covered with merin¬ 
gue, which was browned in the oven. 
The berries were thus uncooked, and the 
dish made a pleasant variation upon or¬ 
dinary shortcake. 
All foods cooked in deep fat should be 
drained on brown paper, as that will 
absorb some of the fat. 
THE BALANCED RATION. 
errors of extremes in the dietary. 
Very frequently, the daily food is 
either too bulky or too concentrated; 
either extreme is objectionable. The 
human stomach is not constructed so 
that it can dispose of large amounts of 
bulky food. The daily ration of a man 
of 150 pounds, at medium labor, should 
not contain over 1 % pound of dry matter, 
or occupy more than 175 cubic inches of 
bulk. Of course we must recognize a 
great difference in the food capacity of 
various individuals. Some persons can 
very conveniently dispose of a much 
larger bulk of food than others. 
The result from consuming too large 
an amount of bulky food was well illus¬ 
trated in one of our human digestion ex¬ 
periments. It was desired to learn the 
quantity^ of potatoes that a man taking 
average physical exercise could reason¬ 
ably consume. A ration consisting of 
six pounds of potatoes, four eggs, and 
one-half pint of milk was tried. The 
ration supplied all of the nutrients de¬ 
manded by the body, but after the second 
meal, it proved a failure. In bulk, the 
ration exceeded the digestive capacity' of 
the consumer. This ration caused in¬ 
tense sweating, and there were indica¬ 
tions of unusual effort on the part of 
the digestive organs to dispose of the 
bulky food. The six pounds of potatoes 
were necessary to supply all of the 
nutrients required by the body. If less 
than six pounds of potatoes were used, 
and the quantity of eggs and milk not 
increased, the body was not supplied with 
sufficient nourishment. A second daily 
ration consisting of 334 pounds of pota¬ 
toes, a pint of milk and eight eggs proved 
to be well balanced, neither too bulky 
nor too concentrated. 
Concentrated Foods. 
Having the foods too concentrated is 
equally objectionable. When the food 
is too concentrated, the waste products 
which accumulate in the digestive tract 
are not sufficiently diluted, and the 
poisonous products of digestion being 
concentrated, act upon the tissues, while 
if the waste products were diluted by 
some indigestible material, they would 
be harmless. In one of our digestion ex¬ 
periments, a ration consisting of eggs 
and cheese was tried. These are valuable 
foods, when properly combined with 
other foods, but when used alone, they 
proved to be too concentrated. About 
97 per cent of both the cheese and the 
eggs were digested. The three per cent 
of indigestible material, occupying a 
small volume, was the physical absorbent 
of the waste products. The concentrated 
poisonous waste products immediately 
began to react upon the digestive organs. 
When some bulky food was added to the 
cheese and eggs, the ration gave excel¬ 
lent results. 
The effect of concentrated and bulky 
rations upon animals is equally interest¬ 
ing. Concentrated and bulky rations 
produce the same effect upon pigs as 
upon men. The digestive tract of the 
pig approaches the nearest in its work¬ 
ings of any' of the animals to the digest¬ 
ive tract of man. In one of our experi¬ 
ments, a pig was fed on pea meal. No 
other food was used. The ration worked 
well for a day' or so, but in a short time, 
the pig began to chew the boards of his 
pen. When sawdust or shavings were 
offered, they were consumed with a 
greater relish than the pea meal. Peas 
are one of the most valuable and concen¬ 
trated foods in the whole list of food 
stuffs. They are very digestible, but 
when fed alone, they gave poor re¬ 
sults, because they were too concen¬ 
trated. The experiment was continued 
for about two weeks, and the result was 
—a dead pig. In another experiment, 
when a bulky ration was fed consisting 
largely of potatoes with a little oil meal, 
the pig in a few days left part of the 
potatoes after licking off the oil meal; 
showing that, as far as bulk was con¬ 
cerned, he had reached the limit of his 
capacity. 
Food Requirements. 
In studying the food requirements of 
the human body, there is a marked simi¬ 
larity to be observed between the work¬ 
ings of the human body and a steam en¬ 
gine. Both require materials for the 
production of heat. In the engine, the 
heat produces steam which is converted 
into mechanical force. In the human 
body, the food produces heat which 
should be expended in doing work of 
some kind. The human body, however, 
requires an additional amount of food 
for repair purposes. The amount of 
food which the body requires can be de¬ 
termined as accurately as the amount of 
fuel required by' an engine to produce a 
given amount of steam. The food, like 
the fuel, should not be too bulky. Straw, 
when burned, produces heat; but it 
would not be suitable fuel for a steam 
engine, on account of its bulk. Many 
foods are not suitable for use in large 
amounts, on account of their bulk, while 
other foods are deficient in bulk. 
Incomplete digestion or assimilation 
of the food by' the body is another fre¬ 
quent source of trouble. There is a 
marked difference in the way in which 
the same food affects different persons. 
Some are made sick by eating fish, others 
cannot consume so harmless a material 
as milk, without experiencing indiges¬ 
tion. Why do foods sometimes act as 
poisons ? This is difficult to explain. It 
is, undoubtedly, due to the production 
of poisonous waste products during di¬ 
gestion. There are frequently produced 
in the body compounds of a poisonous 
nature, similar in chemical composition 
to many of the poisonous alkaloids, like 
morphia and strychnine. These poison¬ 
ous waste products are called ptomaines 
or animal alkaloids. The accumulation 
of various ptomaine products in the body 
takes place in many diseases. When a 
person becomes extremely tired, pto¬ 
maine products accumulate in the sys- 
tem. It is, undoubtedly, true that many 
persons who habitually' experience so 
much of the tired feeling, have more 
than their share of these poisonous 
bodies. 
I do not wish to be understood as say¬ 
ing that all laziness is caused by pto¬ 
maine bodies, but genuine fatigue is. 
An interesting experiment in showing 
the action of ptomaine bodies upon the 
nerve centers was conducted by Soldini, 
in the Italian army, lie extracted from 
the blood of fatigued soldiers bodies 
which produced fatigue when introduced 
into the veins of fresh soldiers. Other 
interesting examples could be given. 
The fact that poisonous ptomaine com¬ 
pounds may be produced by imperfect 
digestion, as the result of injudicious 
combination of foods, is of itself an im¬ 
portant reason why we should give the 
subject of foods a careful study. 
Minn. A’g’l Col. [rrof.] h. snyder. 
(To be contimied.) 
THE WIFE’S SAVINGS. 
We wish to thank The Rural New- 
Yorker for its wise words of comment 
on the. thrifty wife whose unaided and 
unsuspected efforts in the savings line 
resulted in $4,000 worth of birthday 
presents to her husband. I, too, inquired 
with The R. N.-Y., “ What was the hus¬ 
band doing daring these 15 years, and 
where was the conjugal confidence ? ” 
Fifteen years of constant deception and 
prevarication with the occasional neces¬ 
sary falsehood, must have been a poor 
moral training for any man or woman. 
One who has observed the influence of 
habits of this kind, need not be told 
that a permanent warping of the 
character must be the result. The love 
of truth for its own sake would be for¬ 
ever weakened. Her worthiness to act 
as custodian of mutual savings could 
never be reestablished, and confidence 
could never be restored. She paid a 
terrible price for the pleasure of the 
“surprise," though it is but fair to say 
that the honesty of her motive, and her 
pleasure in returning her questionable 
gains to him whose toil they, in part at 
least, represented, must be held as palli¬ 
ating circumstances. 
But why not have worked openly and 
harmoniously with her husband in the 
good work of saving for old age and 
mutual comforts and luxuries ? It may 
be answered that all men would not be 
willing to cooperate in such a plan. 
Possibly, some would not, but they are 
certainly in a minority. In the case 
cited, the husband certainly showed 
himself unusually amenable to the in¬ 
fluence of those about him. permitting 
his wife to “manage” without let or 
hindrance, not only her own but his 
affairs. 
The only possible objection to the 
more excellent way of doing the earning, 
spending, and investing of mutual funds 
with the full assent and cooperation of 
both, would be the possible unwilling¬ 
ness of one to give due weight to the 
wishes and judgment of the other. But 
there are few men who, when a wife 
shows her ability and willingness to 
save, would refuse to take her into their 
confidence when it came to investments 
that concerned her future as well as 
their own. But even in such a case, 
where after long years of patient toil, a 
woman found herself unable to dispose of 
the mutual savings in a way that seemed 
to her advantageous, better submit to 
ill advised transactions, see all that has 
been gained lost or sacrificed, than to 
purchase financial independence at the 
cost of integrity of character. “ What 
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul ? ” 
ELLA II. COOl’ER. 
A SUBSTITUTE FOR FLOUR. 
The question of substituting wheat 
middlings for flour, which was intro¬ 
duced on page 406, is one in which many 
of us are interested. The rapid advance 
in the price of flour has set us looking 
about for a substitute, and from experi¬ 
ence in using white wheat middlings, I 
have found it satisfactory as human food. 
There are many ways in which it can be 
used, and I will suggest a few which some 
one may find useful, especially if there is 
a family of varied tastes to cater to. 
It is a little more work to make three 
kinds of bread in the morning than one, 
but the result offsets the labor ; I often 
have three kinds of bread on my table, 
and seldom only one I set sponge as 
for white bread, at night ; in the morn¬ 
ing, take about a pint of corn meal, pour 
over it sufficient hot water to scald, and 
stir thoroughly to moisten all alike. 
This is set aside to cool, then two cupfuls 
of the sponge are taken out and added 
to the meal, with half a cupful of mo¬ 
lasses and a pinch of salt. Wheat mid¬ 
dlings are mixed in, making quite a stiff 
batter. Dip the hands in cold water to 
pat smooth on top, and set in a warm 
place to rise. It may be served hot for 
dinner, and is especially good for break¬ 
fast sliced off and placed in the steamer 
for a few minutes. It is an easy way to 
get a hot corn bread for breakfast, and 
is relished by all, from the workman to 
the guest. 
Another kind is made at the same 
time by taking sponge, proportion to 
suit, sweetened a little with sugar, and 
mixed with about one cupful of Graham 
to two of middlings. Mix hard, and 
knead in shape, using white flour on the 
board to prevent sticking. Put into the 
baking tin at once, let it rise once, and 
bake. It is best while fresh, as it dries 
sooner than bread made from flour ; but 
I’m not troubled in that way, it never 
keeps long enough to dry. With the re¬ 
mainder of the sponge, I make white 
bread. I would be pleased if some reader 
would try the two kinds given and report 
results. 
Middlings can be used for gems and 
baking-powder biscuit, the same as en¬ 
tire wheat or Graham, with some flour. 
