186 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[May, 
papers have gold introduced in the pattern. The 
places to be gilded are printed with size, and gold- 
leaf imitation metal leaf is applied by hand. 
Closets in. the House, 
Having suffered some for closet room at one 
time and another, or for places to stow away things, 
I have had considerable sympathy with that man 
who said that when he built a house he should be¬ 
gin with a big closet and make additions to that. 
When I speak of closets my husband understands 
me, but immediately begins to talk about modes 
of ventilating closets, and I have only gradually 
grown to understand his strong sense of the neces¬ 
sity for closet ventilation. Having for several 
years hung the clothing of the family in rooms 
where there was a free circulation of air, I am sur¬ 
prised when I go into the well-finished clothes- 
rooms (let us call them close rooms) in some fine 
houses to find how dead and unwholesome—not to 
say foul—the air is. The soiled garments hung in a 
tight and dark room, contaminate the whole apart¬ 
ment, and such contamination is very perceptible 
to a well-trained nose or to olfactories accustomed 
to the refinement of habitual pure air. Old boots 
and shoes cause a bad smell in a close room. 
To pursue an unpleasant subject a little farther— 
why will people keep the dirty clothes designed for 
the weekly wash in a close closet ? That which 
has come from the skins of unclean or unhealthy 
persons (the latter adjective describes nine tenths 
of the human family) grows constantly more im¬ 
pure shut away from light aud air, and everything 
kept in the same room is contaminated by the 
effluvia. Can not soiled garments be kept while 
waiting for the wash, in some bag or covered basket 
in the wood-shed or some such place? There 
are baskets on purpose for soiled clothing, open 
enough for ventilation but too fine to admit mice. 
Unless a closet is ventilated so that there is some 
circulation of air through it, it is no place to hang 
away night-gowns, unless they have previously 
been aired, so that the perspiration accumulated in 
the previous night—only insensible perspiration, 
perhaps—has been dried and sunned away. 
I have no means of ascertaining this morning 
how far science has attended to this subject of 
closet ventilation, but I am very sure that it is an 
important matter, and should be well looked into. 
Of course, there can be closets with windows in 
them, and this should generally be the case. They 
can be kept dark, as a general rule, if desired, but 
it ought to be possible to admit a flood of light. 
Closets built under stairways might be ventilated 
by a grate closed by a sliding shutter under one of 
the stairs. It would be well to have the grate 
capable of being shut to keep out dust when the 
stairs are swept. I do not know whether this has 
been tried, but the idea has occurred to me as 
practicable. A sliding window in the closet door 
is also possible. The small sliding window in the 
door and the grate in the elevation of one of the 
stairs ought to give a sufficient circulation of air to 
a small stairway closet. 
It is idle to suppose that a closet (or any other 
room) is provided with ventilation because it is 
built large and high. There must be some circula¬ 
tion of air, or the atmosphere becomes dead. 
Rell. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Towns-people’s Criticisms on Country Fare. 
—The tide will soon be setting again from city to 
country. City people are generally ready to pay 
country people a good price for comfortable lodg¬ 
ings and board during the hot summer months ; 
but they make many complaints of disappointment 
in respect to the fare which they are obliged to take 
up with along with rural life among the farmers. 
I have had several months of city life lately, but 
the country seems likely to become my permanent 
home, and that speedily—whereof I am glad. So 
I may 6peak freely of the shortcomings of country 
housekeepers and householders, as one who may 
be included somehow in the general castigation. 
A friend writes to me in a private letter : “I do 
think that there is a deal of missionary work to be 
done among farmers’ wives. I was sometimes 
vexed with the family where I boarded to see how 
every drop of cream was converted into butter and 
heavy lard pie-crust set before us; while cracked 
wheat, graham meal, and oatmeal were unheard of. 
I felt like exclaiming that ‘good farmer’s fare’ 
was the most indigestible in the world. The inev¬ 
itable pig occupies so prominent a place in their 
household economy that I was tempted to wish 
that a hog-plague would sweep through the 
country.” 
So large a proportion of those who flee from the 
city during summer are in pursuit of healthier 
conditions of living that it seems as though it would 
be the fair and Christian course for us who have 
any of them to entertain to give some study to the 
subject of the preservation of health by natural 
means. First the air. There is plenty of pure, 
life-giving oxygen out-of-doors, but the air of 
many country houses is constantly foul and poison¬ 
ous. I say that which I do know. , The windows 
are opened to ventilate the dwelling, perhaps ; but 
ignorance has done its best in many cases to make 
a supply of pure air in-doors, even in the breezy 
summer time, literally impossible until great 
changes are effected. On one side there is perhaps 
a big horse barn and cattle shed, with piles of fer¬ 
menting manure. On another side is a row of foul 
pig-pens ; on another the slops from the kitchen 
and pantry are thrown out to decay and ferment 
and send up their fetid gases; under the floor of 
the dwelling is the unclean cellar perhaps, where 
very likely there is no such provision for ventila¬ 
tion as allows a fresh breeze to sweep through it, 
and where, possibly, some of last year’s vegetables 
are going to decay. Then there is perhaps an open, 
unshaded “out-house,” neglected and disgusting. 
So it seems hardly possible for the dear, good 
winds of heaven to blow toward the house from 
any quarter without bringing deadly poison along 
with them. There is no disagreement among sci¬ 
entific men, including all educated physicians, as 
to the fact of the poisonous nature of all these 
foul odors that arise from decaying animal and 
vegetable matter. 
Do you ask what shall be dene with refuse mat¬ 
ter ? Our wise Creator is trying to teach us the 
folly of all waste, and that everything is good in 
its place. The manure from which the early Dutch 
farmers of New York used to move their barns 
away and leave behind as useless, is now prized 
and cared for as of great value to make the land 
give forth its crops. We can not longer afford the 
deep vaults as receptacles of human excrement; 
we can not afford to pollute our rivers of water 
with it by means of sewers. A little pulverized 
dry earth scattered in mercy over each addition' to 
this kind of “refuse” or “waste” matter turns 
all its apparent foulness into treasure for the far¬ 
mer, fruit-grower, and florist. The kitchen slops 
poured into a compost heap and properly worked 
and mixed with soil save the premises from evil 
and yield their blessing to the garden and the field. 
Difficulty with Graham Gems. —Ought I to 
“ fuss ” a little ? Well, do you know ?—I couldn't 
make a graham gem fit to eat for weeks and weeks 
last summer! Actually, I got to thinking that 
graham gems must be a humbug, for I tried every 
way, and nobody would eat my gems if they could 
get any other bread. I did not hanker for them 
myself. 
There came an article in Hearth and Home, 
beginning ■with the question: “ Did anybody 
ever see any of those wonderful graham gems, 
made only of flour and water, which are said 
to be perfectly light and sweet, 1 perfect puffs,’ 
etc.?” This article harmonized with the mood 
into which I had fallen, and despite all my happy 
experience of years gone by, I began to read it aloud 
in a triumphant tone to my husband, who had not 
ceased to sigh for “ good graham gems.” 
Hooked up after reading a little way, and met 
such a look of astonishment (at my tone and man¬ 
ner I suppose) that I laid down the paper to hear 
the grave remark : “ But we have had graham gems 
made only with flour and water that were deli¬ 
ciously sweet, perfectly light, and sufficiently ten¬ 
der, and you have made them many a time.” 
So I had. I was sure of it at that moment. I 
remembered how I had time and again myself 
broken open a fresh gem (by the way, they should 
always be broken and never cut open when warm— 
the same of all warm bread) with the remark, 
“Now, if that is not light, I don’t see how bread 
can be light ”—alluding to a positive declaration 
made by one of the wise men of the deceased 
“Farmers’ Club” that unleavened graham bread 
“ could not be made light.” 
Well, I tried again, asking first to have the stove¬ 
pipe lengthened above the roof of the woodshed 
or summer kitchen where it stood. I had to wait 
a long time for the oven to get decidedly hot, and 
Pater had almost finished his breakfast before I 
could give him a hot gem ; but that morning the 
gems were a success—for the first time in more 
than three months. We had lovely white yeast 
bread upon the table that morning, made of the 
“ gilt-edged ” or patent flour—exquisitely white, 
but said to contain a large proportion of the nutri¬ 
tious canaille or middlings. (Will the “humbug 
man ” of the Agriculturist please inform us whether 
this “patent flour” could be classed under the 
head of “sundry humbugs.”) Every one at the 
table preferred the gems to the much beloved white 
bread, and that day baby called only for “good 
gem ” when she was hungry for dinner or supper. 
The great mistake that I had been making all 
that time was in not having my oven hot enough 
when the gems were put into it. The chief secret 
of making “perfect puffs” lies in having the oven 
so hot that a skin or crust is very quickly formed, 
and this confines the expanding air and water as the 
inside of the gem grows hot, so that the gem 
comes out of the oven, if the batter has been well 
stirred and well baked, all full of fine air-holes. 
A great many people can not believe that these 
simple flour and water gems can be really as good 
as those mixed with sour milk and soda, or with 
baking-powder, and salted and sweetened. I tried 
them with baking-powder and sugar, and with 
yeast, butter, and sugar, but we all do honestly 
prefer the genuine flour and water gems now that 
I have regained the secret of making them. New 
milk is better than water for mixing if you can 
get it. I have been no more pleased than surprised 
to find that my children, having grown accustomed 
to forms of food that were sweet, because they had 
not been deprived of the natural sweetness of their 
materials in the processes of preparation for the 
table, prefer these simply cooked and plainly sea¬ 
soned dishes to what is called richer food. 
It takes a careful cook, who understands the 
science somewhat, to make plain food palatable. 
If Bridget leaves the sugar out of your gems or 
johnny-cake she will probably try to atone for its 
absence by an extra allowance of salt—something 
to give the bread a taste you know ! As though 
God forgot that when he contrived the wonderful 
wheat kernel! But it requires a refined taste, per¬ 
haps, to appreciate the peculiar sweetness and 
delicate flavor of well-cooked wheat. 
Chocolate Calce. —Mrs. E. G. B.—Butter, 
% tea-cupful; sugar, 2 tea-cupfuls ; flour, 3 tea- 
cupfuls ; milk, 1 tea-cupful; eggs, 4 ; baking- 
powder, 1 tea-spoonful. Bake as jelly cake, and 
put between the layers the following mixture: 
Into one pint of boiling milk stir one tea-cupful 
each of grated chocolate and sugar and one table¬ 
spoonful of corn-starch. Boil until it forms a 
smooth paste. In boiling milk, always set the pan 
with the milk into another vessel containing water, 
and thus remove all danger of burning. 
Corn»Slarch Cake. —Mrs. E. G. B.— 
Sugar, l}{ tea-cupful; flour, 1% tea-cupful; butter, 
\4 tea-cupful; corn-starch, tea-cupful; milk, 
\4 tea-cupful; six eggs, whites only; baking- 
powder, 1 tea-spoonful- Flavor to taste. 
