306 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[August, 
ter. Fresli berries are very wholesome food, if 
eaten simply dressed, with nice sugar, or cream, or 
in milk, at the regular meals. 
That Frying-Pan. —And now the doctors are 
after us—us farmers’ wives. The doctors of Mas¬ 
sachusetts say, by way of the State Board of Health 
Report for 1874, that one of the most crying sins 
against hygiene in farmers’ families is too much 
frymg of food. Food which would be good and 
wholesome boiled or baked, is often made as in¬ 
digestible by its contact and admixture with melt¬ 
ed fat, or butter, as to be almost ruined for all pur¬ 
poses of nutrition. Those who take a good deal 
of out-door exercise, can stand this abuse of their 
stomachs much longer than others can, whose 
work is in the house, or who work chiefly with 
their brains. “ The most indigestible of all kinds 
of food are fatty and oily substances, if heated. 
It is on this account that pie-crust and articles 
boiled or fried in fat, or butter, are deemed not as 
healthful as other food.” 
Really, I can not think of a single article of food 
that must be fried. I know of nothing which can 
not be made quite as palatable, or more so, when 
cooked by 6ome other method. All kinds of meats 
are better broiled, or boiled, or baked, or roasted. 
It is so with every kind of fish that I know of. 
Vegetables of all kinds may be boiled, or baked, or 
steamed; and, certainly, the poorest way to deal 
with fruit is to fry it. ' [It may be new to some of 
our readers that apples, fried in pork fat, are quite 
a favorite dish with many.— Ed.] No kind of grain 
can be made up so nicely, or healthfully, by means 
of the frying-pan, as by use of the oven, or steamer. 
To warm over cold potatoes, make them into 
potato balls, seasoned with cream, and brown them 
on a baking tin in the oven ; or mash them with a 
fork or potato-masher with cream or milk and salt, 
in a spider, and warm them on the top of the stove. 
If you have cold mush on hand, the easiest thing 
is to eat it cold, with milk or with cream. Or you 
can heat it thoroughly in the oven. Or you can 
make it into nice mush-balls—oat-meal, corn-meal, 
graham, rye—by mixing the mush stiff with white 
flour, and baking in balls. It is not necessary to 
fry cold food in order to warm it over; but if it 
seems most convenient or desirable, it may be 
heated upon a griddle, or even in a flat-bottomed 
frying-pan, with only enough butter to keep the 
food from sticking when it is laid cold upon the 
hot iron. This can hardly be called frying, and 
does not fill the room with the odor of scorched 
grease. 
Aside from the unhealthfulness of fried food, we 
should banish the frying-pan, if possible, on ac¬ 
count of the contamination from this source of the 
air of our rooms. [Of course we allow Mrs. 
Rochester to express her views on this matter, and 
we agree with her that it is better to abolish the 
frying-pan altogether, than to have so much good 
food spoiled. But there is proper and improper 
frying, and when certain things are properly fried, 
they are quite free from grease. Smelts, properly 
fried, may be served on a napkin without soiling 
it; the celebrated Saratoga fried potatoes are put 
up like bonbons without a hint of greasing the 
paper, and a veal cutlet, or lamb chop, properly 
covered with eggs and crumbs, may bo fried in an 
unobjectionable manner. The trouble is that many 
sizzle things in fat, and think they are fried.— Ed.] 
Small Waists.— We are all finding out, gradu¬ 
ally, that deformity and beauty never coincide. 
As we learn more about nature and her laws, our 
childish self-conceit in respect to our superior 
taste, gives way before a growing admiration of the 
beauty of use and fitness in all that God has made. 
Who that knows how wonderfully the heart and 
lungs perform their work—yes, and the stomach and 
liver too !—when these organs have the necessary 
room and building materials, can even look upon a 
wasp-shaped female figure without horror. I can 
not possibly admire such evidence of a slow murder 
taking place before my eyes. I can not help think¬ 
ing of the cramped organs, and of the blood which 
can not speed upon its life-giving errands through 
a body so pinched and pressed, blood which has 
little life to give, so badly is it fed by food which 
never is well digested in a stomach cramped for 
room, and so poorly is it supplied with oxygen in 
the oppressed, poorly-working lungs. 
Do study physiology, my silly friend, and pray 
to the Lord to convert you to some religion, wliicli 
will make you mindful of His laws written upon 
His works, and reverent in your treatment of the 
“living temple” for His spirit, which is the 
human form. 
You think I do not mean you ? I do mean you ! 
I mean, at least, nine women out of every ten. 
For, though tight-lacing is said to be out of 
fashion, I am convinced that very few women wear 
their clothing loose enough about the waist. Some¬ 
times it is only the belt that is drawn too tight, 
but that can never be done with impunity. 
“ But my girls have naturally small waists,” says 
a fond mamma, whose ignorance leads her to ad¬ 
mire the round, tapering waists of her daughters. 
I have heard often of “naturally small” waists, 
even from girls who were in torture while they 
spoke. Nature never makes such waists. The 
pinching may have begun so early—even in baby¬ 
hood—that no one has ever seen any particular 
change. The bauds were pinned so tight that the 
floating ribs have never had a fair chance to spread 
as the body grew, and the young girl, liking the 
smooth fit of her dresses as she grew older, has al¬ 
ways worn her garments snugly fitting, though she 
may not have worn corsets at all. These are your 
“naturally small waists ” ; and these are your girls 
who die early of consumption, or live lives of 
debility and dependence upon a doctor’s care. 
It is so very uncommon- to find a woman who 
will confess that her corset is drawn too tight, that 
many believe no such person exists. There are 
girls, however, who acknowledge that their cloth¬ 
ing is tight; but they “ like to feel it snug.” They 
can’t bear to feel as though they are “ all dropping 
to pieces,” as they say. They have learned to de¬ 
pend upon the support given by the bones and 
springs of the corset, and their own muscles have 
little strength and elasticity. It sometimes hap¬ 
pens that a woman who asserts that her corsets are 
not worn tight, has to go without that part of her 
clothing for a little time, while mending or clean¬ 
ing the corset. Then, if she undertakes any very 
active exercise with her arms, you are almost sure 
to see her dress-waist bursting at the seams or 
hooks, or button-holes—proof positive that the 
corset was tight. 
Bread Crackers. — I have asked “grandma” to 
tell me just how she makes the nice little bread 
crackers, which my children and their mother like 
so much. She says she has no particular recipe 
for them, but as near as she can tell they are made 
as follows : Take about a quart of the light bread 
dough, when you make it into loaves (it having 
been previously kneaded and allowed to rise again), 
work into this a piece of butter about the size of a 
butternut, or a small hen’s egg, in the same way 
that you would work butter into bread dough to 
make biscuit. Roll the dough to the thickness of 
about three-quarters of an inch, or less than an 
inch in thickness. Cut it into shapes with a small 
biscuit cutter (or empty spice-box!). Let these 
biscuits rise till very light, but never until they be¬ 
gin to sour, and then put them in your hot oven, 
and bake them. When they have partially cooled, 
break them apart (or separate them from each 
other), stand them upon their edges in a bak¬ 
ing tin, and set them back in the warm oven, or 
in a tin warming-closet, to dry thoroughly. 
These are better for the children than bread and 
butter, though not suitable alone fora whole meal. 
They are nice to eat with juicy fruits, or with 
soups, and are good in milk. They are more 
wholesome than the sale crackers, which have 
more or less lard in their composition, whatever 
be their name or shape. 
Apple Pies for Lunches.— Try this. I have 
tried it with success, and I have found no hungry 
person who did not praise the little pies. You can 
see for yourself when you read the recipe, that they 
can not come under the censure which intelligent 
people bestow upon ordinary pie. They seem 
ridiculously simple, but if well mixed and thor¬ 
oughly baked, they are delicious. Take good juicy 
dried apple-sauce—but first about the cooking of 
that sauce. Either soak the dried apples over 
night, and then cook them slowly in the same wa¬ 
ter next morning, or let them heat up slowly upon 
the back of the stove, with plenty of water to soak 
them out fully, and keep them from burning while 
cooking, and add the necessary sugar while the 
fruit is still boiling. Let the sauce be thoroughly 
soft, or well done. Then stir into a pint, or any 
quantity of it, enough graham flour to make a 
rather stiff batter. Dip a spoonful of this into dry 
graham flour, and, taking it into your floury 
hands, mold it into a round flattisli biscuit. Fill 
your baking tins with these, and put them into a 
hot oven. Bake them thoroughly—upon the clean 
oven grate, if you prefer it to the tins. The pro¬ 
cess of molding the pies suggests the proper stiff¬ 
ness of the dough, but do not get it too stiff—that 
would make the pies (or apple-cakes ?) too hard. 
Any other sauce can be used in the same way— 
fresh apples stewed, stewed peaches, stewed 
prunes, huckleberries,—anything that is simple 
and juicy. Let the baking be done in a hot oven, 
and thoroughly done without burning. Let the 
children have these to carry to school for the noon 
lunch. The graham flour gives the proper nour¬ 
ishment for their bodies, and the apple makes it 
more palatable, and is in the most convenient shape 
for their use, unless they can have raw apples and 
graham crackers. 
A Mother on Bathing 
BY MRS. J. C. B. 
It seems strange and unaccountable that so many 
of the really intelligent class act as if in ignorance 
of the necessity and benefit of bathing. It seems . 
almost incredible, but there are many ladies most 
particular as to dress and fashion, who almost 
wholly neglect this matter. Some mothers think 
when their children get beyond two or three years 
of age, the frequent entire bath can be dispensed 
with. If some of the main facts of physiology 
were well known and understood, every one would 
perceive that cleanliness of the skin, is one of the 
conditions of good health. 
"We learn that the skin has innumerable minute 
perspiration tubes, opening on the cuticle, and these 
openings are called pores. These tubes are hollow, 
like a pipe-stem, lined with wonderfully minute 
capillaries, which are constantly exhaling the 
noxious and decayed particles of the body, just as 
the lungs pour them out through the mouth and 
nose. It seems clear that injury, more or less, 
must ensue if this drainage from the body becomes 
obstructed. It happens when bathing is disregard¬ 
ed, that the lungs, kidneys or bowels, have more 
than their own apportionment of work. If these 
are strong and healthy, they may bear the tax with 
little apparant injury, but in most cases a lowering 
of the vitality and tone of the system ensues. 
Large bath-tubs are pleasant and convenient, but 
not indispensable to the proper cleansing of the 
skin. A speedy sponging of the body in pure 
water, followed by friction in pure air is all that is 
necessary. When disinclined to use water, I find a 
thorough application of the flesh-brush to the 
whole person, an admirable substitute; especially 
on retiring, it relieves nervousness, equalizes the 
circulation, and induces quiet sleep. Mothers, 
above all, should see that their children are well 
bathed. If their skins are kept active and healthy, 
there will not be half the danger, from fever, colds, 
and eruptive diseases. If your little one is cross or 
troublesome, and finds no occupation that pleases 
him, try the effect of a bath, sometimes it is magi¬ 
cal, and if tired, he will go ,to sleep and awaken 
bright, cheerful, and happy. 
Do not though, as I have seen some parents do, 
plunge a child into cold water when he screams and 
shrinks from it, thinking you are doing a good 
deed. Nature must be the guide, if your child has 
a nervous constitution, a shock of this kind is only 
exhausting and injurious. 
