i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 471 
LEND A HAND. 
NEof our busy housekeepers took time 
to tell us last week about the way fruit 
juices are prepared in her household, saying 
to u«, in a private note, that she gives the 
directions for the sake of helping experi¬ 
menters in other farm house kitchens 
Although the busiest season of the year is 
upon us, we hope this thought of the help 
which may be given to others may be pres¬ 
ent with every housewife; for there is noth¬ 
ing which will so quickly lighten our own 
burdens as to feel that we have helped to 
lift a load from other weary or untried 
shoulders. Send in your bits of experience, 
dear friends, and do not be afraid to ask 
questions, if you need help. 
The force of “ S. A. L.’s ” remarks (p. 407) 
concerning the expensive nature of dried 
cherries was lost by an omission that 
occurred in the office. The lady wrote that 
if she had bought the raw cherries at the 
market price, the cherries when dry would 
have cost her 60 oents a pound, not 60 cents 
for the five pounds, as printed. The people 
in our office evidently could not believe 
their eyes, and thought it one of the cases 
of “ heterophemy ” which occurs so fre 
quently among writers for the R. N.-Y. as 
well as among those for other papers. 
SUMMER COOKING. 
OLIVE E. DANA. 
S the days grow hot, the housekeeper 
demurs, and reasonably, at the extra 
heat and the extra labor necessitated if she 
must have warm biscuits or some other 
form of hot bread, once or twice a day. 
She likes to do her baking, whenever pos¬ 
sible, in the cool of the morning, and longs 
for something in the way of bread that will 
not seem stale at the second serving, and 
that may be palatable when cold. Yet the 
yeast loaf is often disliked by men-folk, 
save as an occasional dependence. 
With the use of cream of-tartar as well 
as soda to leaven them, I make cream bis¬ 
cuits which retain a good degree of fresh¬ 
ness for a day or two. They are very good 
cold, and warmed in a hot oven for break¬ 
fast are almost as inviting as newly-baked 
bread. I use two quarts of flour. Into the 
first are mixed two tea-spoonfuls of cream- 
of-tartar and the same of soda, in the second 
two tea-spoonfuls of cream of-tartar and 
one of soda. The whole requires a table¬ 
spoonful of salt. I measure my flour into 
the sieve, then add the cream-of-tartar and 
soda; stir a little with a dry spoon, and 
sift. This mingles the dry ingredients 
quite thoroughly. For mixing, four large 
spoonfuls of cream and the same quantity 
of well soured milk are required with 
enough sweet or slightly soured skim-milk 
to wet up the flour. Make into not very 
thick biscuits, kneaded very slightly, and 
bake them in a brisk oven till they are 
well browned on both top and bottom. 
If one can spare the cream for the pur¬ 
pose. cream pie-crust is very palatable and 
healthful during the hot months. I find 
this a good rule for it: Into a pint bowlful 
of very thick sour cream mix one tea-spoon¬ 
ful of soda and one of salt dissolved in a 
little cold water. Stir into a pan contain¬ 
ing flour enough to make a really stiff 
dough. Divide in halves, using one half 
for the lower crusts just as it is. Roll out 
the other, spread with lard, salt well, 
dredge with flour, and roll up again. Cut 
from it the upper crusts in endwise slices, 
and use plenty of flour in rolling out. 
Cream cookies, served with berries and 
sweet cream, will do for a simple dessert, 
and are handy for tea or breakfast. Here 
is my rule: One egg, 1>£ cupful of sour 
cream, two cupfuls of sugar, one tea. 
spoonful of soda and the same of salt, with 
a dessert-spoonful of lemon or a little nut¬ 
meg for flavoring. They should be baked 
at once, care being taken that only enough 
flour is used to make it possible to handle 
the dough. Just before putting it in the 
oven dredge thickly with sugar. 
It is never harder to know what to get 
for breakfast than during the early summer 
months. Ordinary foods seem very un¬ 
palatable, and meats and hashes seem 
quite out of season, and too heavy to begin 
the day with, unaccompanied by some 
piquant relish. Happy the housewife 
whose family takes kindly to salads and 
cereals, for these, unlike as they are, may 
help to furnish forth many a healthful 
meal. The former fitly accompanies the 
hot or cold meats, the latter, if nutrition is 
to be considered and the testimony of wise 
men believed, will often take their place. 
Oat-meal may give place to wheat germ or 
the new parched farinose, and these, espe¬ 
cially the wheat-germ meal, may be cooked 
so quickly as to make very convenient as 
well as dainty dishes. Four or five 
minutes suffice to prepare them. Served in 
saucers, with plenty of sweet cream, and 
with or without cake or crackers, it suffices 
for a dessert, when, as sometimes happens, 
one must be hastily prepared. Short cakes 
are almost always relished, and need 
not disappear with the strawberries. 
Other fruits and berries serve well for fill¬ 
ing. The cream crust given above, with 
the addition of a large spoonful of sugar, 
will serve as a basis. I have found it a 
good way to roll out and fit in the tin one 
not very thin layer of crust; then butter 
this well, sprinkle with sugar and add a 
second layer. When baked and partially 
cooled, it is easy to pull them apart to re¬ 
ceive the filling. Let this be generous in 
quantity, well crushed and sweetened, if 
of berries, and preceded by a liberal 
buttering of both crusts. It should stand 
a short time before serving. 
WHAT IS SUITABLE DRESS? 
S. A. LITTLE. 
N The Rural New-Yorker for May 17 
Ella Guernsey criticises the expression, 
“suitable for country wear.” I fear that 
she has not lived for years on a farm which 
is situated not less than “ five miles from 
a lemon,” or she would realize more fully 
the unsuitability of many articles of fash¬ 
ionable dress to the denizens of such homes. 
Y,’e must needs have dresses, hats and 
wraps which a shower or a plentiful 
sprinkling of dust will not ruin, else how 
shall we show ourselves in church or on the 
street after such drives, when nature has 
not been kind, and there is no time to go 
to an hotel for repairs. Country girls may 
be, and often are, as pretty and as bright 
as their sisters in town; but the “eternal 
fitness of things ” must be observed if they 
are also pronounced as well dressed. The 
kind of shoes, alone, worn by people in 
town and country should be different. We 
“farmerines” have more use for thick 
soles and firm, substantial leather than do 
those who walk on pavements. We need 
gloves for common use, which will not be 
ruined by contact with the reins should we 
be fond of driving, and which will prove a 
protection to our hands. There are, truly, 
a great many country women who have rare 
taste in dress, and who adorn their clothing 
There are others who have taste enough 
to understand their lack of skill in this line 
and who confine themselves to a degree of 
simplicity which is always to be admired ; 
but I fear that both classes taken together 
will not counterbalance the number who, 
from lack of taste or means, wear toilets 
which have no element of beauty. You will 
say that this is also the case with the resi¬ 
dents of towns, but while I admit it in part, 
my experience shows me that where a 
woman is constantly in the habit of seeing 
people who are well dressed, she copies by 
intuition. The woman who visits town not 
oftener than once a month can hardly be so 
good a judge in matters of dress as she who 
learns by frequent observation. We should 
not regard it as a slur cast upon us that 
dresses which are not easily torn or soiled 
and which are easily renovated should be 
regarded as “suitable for country wear;” 
neither should we be vexed when charged 
with wearing clothes which are not after 
the most recent fashion. The numerous 
cares and anxieties of a farm-house often 
crowd the thought of dress from one’s 
mind, and the number of country people 
who keep abreast of fashion is, happily for 
the farms, in the minority. 
IN SEARCH OF A SECRET. 
LTIIOUGH I think that they Jet the 
butcher off too easily, I want to 
thank the several ladies who so kindly tried 
to help me with my difficulty about the 
steak. I am glad to know, from one of 
them, that a poor steak cannot be made 
really good, for I had thought perhaps I 
was lacking in some quality of mind essen¬ 
tial to attaining that desired end. How¬ 
ever, I think I know now just where the 
trouble has been. They all insist on a very 
hot, steady fire, and, as I have been largely 
dependent on an oil stove, I think that is 
the cause of the difficulty. There is a 
broiler to go with these stoves, and it does 
very good work, though, of course, not 
quite equal to that of good coals, but 
mine is worn out, and I have neglected to 
replace it; and while the frying-pan heats 
well at first, the meat cools it too much. 
A day or two ago 1 saw a note in another 
paper, directing that two pans be used, and 
the meat be changed from one to the other. 
1 should think that might work very 
nicely. S. A. L.’s directions for scraping 
the meat fine would meet the difficulty of 
tough steak nicely, and it must be very 
nice indeed, but it is a great deal of work, 
and I havfe always tried to find a way both 
easy and good for every household prob¬ 
lem. With the directions for preserving 
left over bits of crust in tissue paper, and 
that other housekeeper’s bright thought to 
mix up the lard and flour in quantity, and 
put it away for use as needed, I feel that 
making pies is growing to be mere play. 
But you know the proverb: “Give a 
woman an inch and she will take an ell.” 
I believe that same to be quite as true of 
man natnre as of woman nature, but in my 
case it is true, for now that I know where it 
may be obtained, I am in search of more in¬ 
formation. If any one has the secret of 
making perfect cake, I wish she would tell 
it to me. I will promise not to tell until I 
find some one who needs to know it, when 
I will at once pass it on. I believe I’ve 
about every recipe for good cake that has 
ever been published, so it isn’t recipes I 
need. But I don’t make cake very often, 
and when I do it is a semi-failure so often 
that I get discouraged, and is successful 
just often enough for me to know that 
there must be a reason for the failures. I 
can make a dismal failure from the best of 
recipes, and I have occasionally had really 
good cake from a very common and cheap 
recipe; but the secret, the law which governs 
the matter is beyond me as yet. I never 
did feel satisfied with mediocre results from 
anything, and I believe some of you can 
help me. 
I will add a mite to lessen labor, too. 
My neighbor over the way who has a 
large family uses home-made “prepared” 
flour, thoroughly mixing a large vessel full 
with the proper quantity of baking-powder 
at a time, and putting it away closely cov¬ 
ered to be used as needed. It saves so much 
“ fussing,” and she says it is just as good 
as to mix when wanted in a hurry. 
LINA HADLET. 
SCIENCE AND COFFEE. 
HTRTY SIX years ago there appeared 
in the weekly New York Evening 
Post a short letter signed “An Old Man,” 
showing how to make a good cup of coffee. 
One of his statements was that the coffee 
ground in an old mill made better coffee 
than when ground in a new mill; the older 
the mill the better. But he did not give 
the why of the fact; for it is a fact, and so 
non sensible readers would dismiss the 
thing as but an old man’s fancy. An old 
mill crushes the berry, whilst a new mill 
cuts it. The crushing of the berry releases 
that which gives out the aroma; the cut¬ 
ting does not do that. In the East (Tur¬ 
key, etc.,) the coffee is bruised to an impal¬ 
pable powder in a mortar—thus releasing 
all the essential oil in a berry. So says an 
exchange. This would have been a good 
illustration for the gentleman who said, at 
the Nurserymen’s Convention, that science 
differed from common observation in that 
it proceeded to And out the why after hav¬ 
ing once observed a fact. If those who 
send recipes or make statements differing 
from the common notions would be sure to 
give the why, their recipes would be more 
strictly followed, their words would have 
more effect, and more good would thus be 
done. People are inclined to set this or 
that statement down to personal whim or 
fancy, unless reasons therefor are given. 
WOMAN AS A COMPETITOR. 
SIDE phase of the all-pervading 
“ woman question ” which does not 
often receive common-sense consideration 
is treated by Marion Harlaud in an able ed¬ 
itorial in the June Home-Maker. The im¬ 
mediate cause which led to her words was 
the receipt of two letters, the one complain¬ 
ing of the shockiugly ill paid work of 
women; the other from two women on a 
farm, filled with bitter complaiuts of the 
imposition practiced upon them, simply be¬ 
cause they were so unfortunate as to be 
women. 
The point in the answer which I wish to 
touch upon is that the chief cause of the 
feeling manifested iu the second letter lies 
in the fact that a large majority cannot 
divest themselves of the ingrained idea that 
they should be favored because they are 
women. Iu other words, they claim their 
rights to work on the same level with men 
in every possible field, yet are by no means 
willing to take the chances, as men are 
obliged to do; and whenever an ill turn of 
fortune bears down upon them, they take 
refuge in whining that they have been trod¬ 
den upon because they are women and there¬ 
fore helpless. 
There is a vast amount of good common 
sense in this idea. No possible doubt exists 
that many women left to the tender mercies 
of the world at large with little experience 
and with property to manage, after being 
for years confined to a few dollars at a time 
doled out from masculine pockets, have 
been imposed upon and robbed in utterly 
shameless ways. Yet it must be remem¬ 
bered that we must take men as we find 
them, and that the woman who enters the 
field to compete with men, whether wil¬ 
lingly or unwillingly, must expect nothing 
more than the treatment always awarded 
to competitors; and since the best of men 
could scarcely see any reason why his chiv¬ 
alry and deference should be given to an 
open rival, what is to be expected of 
those who are only average ? Yet women 
will enter the fields of work as competitors 
with men, demanding the same pay whether 
the work is of equal quality or not, and if 
fortune do not smile, they will sit down and 
beg for the compassion of every one, because 
they are women. 
There is no competition without govern¬ 
ing rules, and the inevitable law that who¬ 
ever enters any business where there is 
competition must staud or fall in accord¬ 
ance with the rules that govern the compe¬ 
tition must be understood. It is undoubt¬ 
edly severe upon many women who are con¬ 
ducting farms, especially because they did 
not enter the competition of their own ac¬ 
cord, the charge of the farm, as a rule, de¬ 
scending to them by the death of the hus¬ 
band. During a life spent among farming 
people, and with a knowledge of many 
women who are conducting the farms which 
have been left them by law, I may say 
that I have never known a woman in such 
circumstances who did not think herself 
imposed upon by every man with whom sh«* 
had to deal. Every man Is expected to give 
advice because she is a woman; every man 
is expected to wait on her and to help her 
because she is a woman; and in every trade 
she expects the men with whom she deals 
to give her the best of the bargain, simply 
because she is a woman, else she is being 
imposed upon. She is not conscious of the 
fact, but I fear that here is just where the 
real cause of her discontent and complaint 
lies. PENNY WISE. 
Readers of The R. N.-Y. will please the 
advertisers and benefit the paper by always 
mentioning it when writing to advertisers. 
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RARE BARGAINS 
IN 
USEFUL ARTICLES 
In the co >r e of trade we have obtained the follow 
Ing nameo articles which we will sell at a big discount 
from manufacturers’ prices. We have no use for 
them aud 'he prices named ought to take them oil 
our hands In short order 
A Weed '•ewing Machine, Boudoir Cabluet of 
Black Walnut. Manufacturer’s price $75. We will 
sell 1 New York for $30-a rare bargain for some 
one. 
A Wheel lloe and Cultivator; retails for $6 
Our price *3. 
Several Curtiss’s Improved Needle Hay 
K. ni ves, chisel edge teeth. Retail price ftl.SS each. 
Ou- price only 75c. each. Order at.once. Address 
v. v. CK» LOWS. Box 4. Tenn fly, W. J. 
C T Colo A 1,300 acre Virginia Farm, lo- 
r U1 OCl 1C, cated 55 miles above Rlchmi nd 
on the line of the Alleghany Railroad. One of the 
finest fttrn s in the Slate Price f6<',00(>, which includes 
stock. Implements, growing crops, etc. Kor full par¬ 
ticulars address J. H NORVELL, Island P. O., Gooch¬ 
land Com ty, Va. 
I TV VI? C A 1 17' ~ A GORDON PRESS 
. V " JL\ 1 XLl» (eight medium). In per¬ 
fect order 3xW chase. Also a small lot of display 
type and 3u pair of Upper and Lower Cases In good 
order. Address U. T. T., P. o. Box 3318, N. Y. City. 
