1883 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
hood and grandmother, with her solid, old-fashion¬ 
ed silver, and well do we remember the little silver 
basket, with its equal parts of powdered sugar and 
cinnamon, the proper thing to spread over waffles 
after they are buttered. The following recipe, 
which has been proved, is here offered for the 
benefit of those who do not know how to make 
these just right: two cups of milk; two eggs; 
three cups of flour; one teaspoonful of cream- 
tartar; one-half teaspoonful of soda; one salt- 
spoonful of salt; one tablespoouful of melted 
butter. 
A Quilting Frame. 
Mr.W. M. Nixon, Clement, Ill., sends us a sketch 
and description of his quilting frame. The con¬ 
QUILTING FRAME. 
struction of this frame is made clear by the engrav¬ 
ing. The side pieces are of two by four-inch dress¬ 
ed pine, eight feet long. The frame may be taken 
apart, and be closely packed away when not in use. 
Too Much. Sugar ! 
Sugar is a useful article of diet, yet I daresay 
the ancients lived very comfortably without it. 
The people of England were without sugar until 
the fourteenth century. Though sugar is found in 
nearly all of the fruits, vegetables, seeds and 
meats that constitute our food, it would be very in¬ 
convenient to be deprived of the manufactured 
and refined sugar. There is perhaps nothing we 
eat that works more mischief, especially with the 
liver and kidneys, than sugar used in excess. The 
evil begins in babyhood, when the milk or gruel for 
baby’s bottle is unduly sweetened. 
Too starchy food may also produce unpleasant 
results, as it is one cause and aggravation of 6ome 
diseases of the kidneys. After considerable ex¬ 
perience with healthy children who seldom showed 
any great thirst for water in infancy, and who were 
not fed sugar or candy or sweetened food when 
very young, I am led to believe that when little 
ones keep calling frequently for water, it is because 
they have been improperly fed, and the irritated 
stomach demands the cooling influence of water 
to allay its tendency to inflammation. 
A mother often complains that her child is 
troubled greatly with a sour stomach, but this case 
is no longer mysterious when the mother, to quiet 
the little one so that she can continue her account 
of the case, sets down before her a little dish of 
sugar, from which the child may help itself. 
Most mothers would give candy ora cookie instead, 
though some feed their children lumps of sugar 
from the bowl, believing that the children need 
sugar, and might better have it in that form than 
in any other. In any case of this kind there is a 
very frequent call for water. 
Do you know how vinegar is made? You can 
get plenty of it by simply mixing sugar or mo¬ 
lasses with water and keeping it warm. A sour 
taste in the mouth after eating sweets, is of very 
common occurrence. It is the acid caused by the 
fermentation of the sugar left in the mouth, with 
the saliva that causes the decay of children’s teeth 
—this and the lack of bone-forming material in the 
daily food. Vinegar “ eats” lime, as one can tell 
by leaving an egg in vinegar. Bits of sugar or 
candy left to ferment among the teeth destroy their 
enamel, as well as do pickles. The child that is 
fed on sweets naturally craves pickles as an anti¬ 
dote, but well-fed children are contented with plain 
nourishing food if properly prepared and suffi¬ 
ciently varied. Many imagine that all children 
should have free access to both sugar and pickles 
in order to supply what they suppose to be natural 
cravings, and to prevent thefts of sugar from the 
family bowl. A mistaken policy. 
In “Foods” by Dr.'Edward Smith, of England, 
we find a statement of the danger from feeding 
children condensed milk as made (with sugar) in 
that country. Children fed on it grow fat and 
seem to thrive, but disease easily makes them a 
prey. They are slow in learning to walk, and take 
on easily those physical malformations suggestive 
of “ rickets,” pigeon breasts, large heads, bow¬ 
legs and stunted bodies, all because the sugar in 
this food fattens but does not nourish. He also 
says, and experience proves it, that children fed 
much sweetened food refuse plain fare and 
thus the case is made worse and worse. 
In more than one way, I have been con¬ 
vinced that the sugar habit has a bad 
effect upon the morals. It is the sugar- 
fed child that is most tempted to steal. 
Its abornormal appetite for something 
which gives only a temporary gratification 
to the sense of taste leads to excessive in¬ 
dulgence, and to deceit and downright -dis¬ 
honesty. I know of little children who 
use candy as playthings and never seem 
to think of eating it “between meals.” 
I have seen children go for months 
without a piece of cake or bit of candy or sugar 
except as cooked in food, and they never seemed 
to have the least desire for those things. And I 
have seen children who were very freely supplied 
with sweets, tease for them, bargain for them, cry 
for them, and seem to set their gratification of the 
palate above all other childish pleasures. This and 
the call for “ drink” which it creates, especially 
for some acid drink, point directly down the road 
of intemperance. Faith Rochester. 
Washing in Different Countries. 
In some households the day of the weekly wash¬ 
ing is proverbially one of discomfort. Besides the 
cold dinners, there is steam and slop, and the 
sweetest tempers are apt to be lost on washing-day. 
The weekly return of the day may well make the 
men folks wish for the custom in some parts of 
Germany, of doing the family washing annually or 
semi-annually. An annual or semi-annual washing 
implies either that there is an immense stock of 
Fig. 1.— WASHING ON A STONE. 
family linen, or that it must be worn longer than 
we think proper. The occasion can hardly be 
called washing-day, as many days are occupied, 
and it is made a sort of domestic festival. 
One who visits distant countries soon learns that 
his washing is done in a very different manner 
from that to which he has been accustomed. In 
the East, and in Continental Europe, the river is 
the common wash-house. In India the washing is 
done in the most primitive manner of all. There, 
the washer-woman is, so to speak, a man, the 
“ Dhoby,” who follows the calling, as his fathers 
for many generations have done. The only fixture 
in his wash-house is a rock, which is his by right of 
457 
inheritance from a long line of ancestors. The 
Dhoby calls for the clothes, takes them on his 
back, often for several miles, to his particular spot 
on the river. There the articles, now, as they 
were ages ago, are dipped in the water of the river, 
and beaten upon the ancestral stone. This con¬ 
tinued whipping in time makes the linen very white, 
and is done without any reference to the condition 
of the articles themselves ; whatever is left of them 
is sure to be taken home clean. In Europe the 
washing is done by women, and along every river 
passing through or near a large town, washing ar¬ 
rangements are seen along the shores. If the river 
is deep, a large raft is provided, along the edges of 
which the washer-womens’ boxes are placed. 
Fig. 2.— WASHING ON A BOARD. 
These boxes (seen in figures 1 and 2) are filled with 
straw, to make the kneeling position of the women 
comfortable, and when not occupied look ridicu¬ 
lously like enormous hen’s nests. When the river- 
bank will allow, the cassette, as the French call the 
box, is placed directly upon it. In some places the 
box is provided with a board (figure 2), upon which 
the clothes are rubbed, and soap is employed upon 
the most soiled parts ; this soap is kept in the lit¬ 
tle pocket seen on the side of the box. In some 
localities the board is replaced by a large flat stone, 
upon which the articles are beaten with a heavy 
paddle, figure 1. It is said, in France, that the wash¬ 
er-women are so attached to this method of wash¬ 
ing in the river, that in private houses they will not 
use a well appointed wash-room, and where public 
wash-houses have been provided in cities, they will 
not occupy them. One travelling in Mexico meets 
with many customs brought over by the Spanish 
settlers. One of these is the manner of washing. 
The washer-women, for they never go singly, as 
they could not gossip, take the clothes to the river 
side, where each has her flat stone. No box is used, 
but the woman does not hesitate to enter the water, 
where she rubs the articles, not with soap, but the 
root of a plant, called Amole, lays them on the flat 
stone, and pounds them with a smaller stone. The 
clothes come home very white, but, as the writer 
well knows from experience, minus all buttons. 
Prepare Winter Clothing Now. 
Sudden changes of temperature, and cold, pene¬ 
trating winds may now be looked for, and it is pru¬ 
dent to be ready to meet them promptly. Strong, 
vigorous persons, in full blood, may resist a fall of 
twenty or thirty degrees in the thermometer, but 
none are sure of doing so. A change from 50° to 
40° or 30°, before the system is inured to cold, is 
more felt than 0° in December and January. So, 
good warm under and outer clothing should be at 
hand for instant use when an unexpected north¬ 
erly blast comes. A cold caught in autumn is apt 
to last a long time, if it do not chance to termi¬ 
nate fatally. Let the winter apparel be looked over 
at once, mended and remodeled, and new clothing 
ordered. Tailors and seamstresses, if to be em¬ 
ployed, will be over-busy, and less accommodating 
later on than now, and fabrics are in more variety 
at the stores, and cost no more now than later. 
To doubly protect the throac and lungs, line the 
undershirt nside,both back and front and well down 
the waist with warm, soft flannel. Give special 
care also to the feet and limbs. Home-knit stock¬ 
ings of soft wool are by far the best. Line the 
knees and heels of children’s stockings with flannel. 
