1015 . 
1019 
• i 
THE RURAIj 
1 ,\ r -if \ ! T 
NEW-YORKER 
and I had not crossed the floor once! All 
was done inside half an hour, and the 
two “handlings” of the dishes, instead of 
the several that usually fell to each dish, 
saved breakage as well as time and steps. 
Emma was delighted, and by a little prac¬ 
tice, learned to manage other things with 
equal thought. 
I have since made dishwashers for sev¬ 
eral friends, one from an old wooden 
washtub, and if I lived on a farm I’d 
save several miles of walking every day, 
by getting the things together that go 
with each kind of work ! It’s just as well 
to conserve time and strength as to 
squander them, and every unnecessary 
motion shortens life by that much ! 
But all of that is another chapter. 
LUCY A. YENDES. 
Success with Meringues. 
In response to a request from A. E. F. 
I send my recipe for a meringue, which I 
have always found to be a success. As 
quickly as the pie is taken from the oven 
beat the whites of two eggs very stiff, stir 
in two tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar, 
spread on top of the pie and put it in the 
oven and watch very closely, and as soon 
as it does not stick to the finger the least 
bit take it out; it need not be browned a 
bit, but must not be sticky. Have the 
oven hot enough to do it in a few mo¬ 
ments. MRS. c. A. H. 
For a good meringue, beat the white of 
two eggs then add three tablespoonfuls of 
sugar, one-half teaspoonful of baking 
powder, cover pie and bake in a hot oven. 
I always put meringue on hot pie. 
MRS. A. w. 
In answer to A. E. F.’s request for a 
meringue recipe I would say that I have 
an excellent one. I always use the whites 
of two eggs, and put them in a deep plate 
with the tiniest bit of salt, and beat with 
a silver fork till it is very stiff and there 
are no large air bubbles. Then add two 
level tablespoons of granulated sugar, and 
beat till one can pile it in great fluffy 
piles on the pie. This last beating takes 
nearly five minutes. Then spread on pie, 
putting the last two tablespoons in piles 
in the middle just as they drop from the 
spoon. Then bake in a quick oven, turn¬ 
ing it around once to brown evenly, and I 
will guarantee you the nicest meringue 
you ever tasted. I have a cream pie re¬ 
cipe that everyone thinks, in connection 
with the above meringue, is delightful, 
and it is so easy to make. Have ready 
a baked crust and put on one pint of 
milk to boil. Put in a bowl the yolks of 
two eggs, three-quarters of a cup of sugar, 
a tiny pinch of salt, three heaping table¬ 
spoons of flour, two tablespoons of lemon 
extract and one-half of vanilla. Stir all 
together good, and when the milk boils 
add this to it and stir till it is cooked, 
when it will be thick, smooth and creamy. 
Then pour in the crust, add the meringue 
and bake. Now in return for these will 
some one kindly give me a good recipe for 
a light layer cake to put chocolate icing 
on? Mine inevitably turn out like bricks. 
R. T. c. 
The Needs of Farm Women. 
I thoroughly agree with Mrs. Frederick 
0. Johnson, page 902, in her opinion that 
farm women receive unnecessary sympa¬ 
thy. I have lived in Massachusetts, New 
York, Illinois, Nebraska and Washington, 
and I have seen very few instances of 
such deplorable conditions as the gov¬ 
ernment has unearthed. I have seen more 
women in Washington laboring under in¬ 
conveniences, than in all the other States 
together, but there are reasons for this; 
they are either foreign-born women who 
have never entirely adopted American 
standards of living, or they are women 
who are doing their share in helping their 
husbands get a start on new logged-off 
land, and are willing to do without lux¬ 
uries for a few years. In no case have I 
known established farm homes of Ameri¬ 
cans where there was an attitude on the 
husband's part against helping the women 
all he could. 
The chief cause, and one which is often 
overlooked, of dissatisfaction among farm¬ 
ers’ wives, is one that they will probably 
have to endure as long as they remain 
farmers’ wives. Farming calls for tools, 
receiving hard usage, and for their re¬ 
pair and replacement; housework calls 
for fewer tools, which are more easily in¬ 
terchangeable. If the man of the house 
damages his plow beyond repair, he can¬ 
not use his harrow just as well, but must 
have a new plow. If the woman of the 
house breaks her best baking dish, she 
can possibly use an enamel pan for an in¬ 
definite period. In the first case, their 
living depends upon replacing the tool; in 
the second case nothing but a little peace 
of mind is at stake. 
Women are too apt to overlook the 
real values in such cases, and blame the 
man or the farm or the government. Until 
the farmer receives at least a 75-cent dol¬ 
lar, conditions on many farms must re¬ 
main as they are. One is inclined to won¬ 
der whether the government’s 55,000 vol¬ 
unteer crop reporters are any more relia¬ 
ble in their outlook than theii wives are. 
I will admit that the woman alone on 
a large farm, who has to feed many farm 
hands, has a hard time. A little tact and 
patience on her part would soon induce 
her husband to spare one “hand” for an 
hour or two, twice a day,to do the heav- 
Embroidery Design 
No. 850—Corset Cover. The scallops at the 
neck are for buttonholing the (lowers and 
leaves are for the satin stitch or worked ae 
eyelets. The stems are for outline stitch 
and the small circles to be embroidered ns 
eyelets. The price of this garment stamped 
on tine domestic Nainsook with one dozen 
skeins of mercerized (loss, is 00 cents; trans¬ 
fer pattern, 10 cents. 
icst work about the house. Women do 
not make the most of their opportunities, 
and many of them send their complaints 
to a quarter from which no help can be 
expected. 
These farmers’ wives are like the 
woman who wrote to a magazine not 
many months ago, asking for advice and 
sympathy because “John always takes 
the biggest half of everything.” One won¬ 
ders sometimes why such women ever 
married, and if they entirely lack pa¬ 
tience and unselfishness. One wonders 
also why these farmers’ wives did not 
marry lawyers or bankers. Surely the 
majority of them must have been farmers’ 
daughters, and must have known what 
conditions to expect when they married 
to the same fate. Do none of these 
women put a value on their healthful sur¬ 
roundings ; on the freedom of their lives 
from worry about the husband’s “losing 
his job”; on the greater range of pure, 
fresh food that their city sisters never 
know? MRS. R. R. WILLIAMS. 
How to Make Bread. 
There is a wide margin for improve¬ 
ments in the methods of bread making. 
Besides the manipulating process the 
making of good bread involves some other 
consideration of no secondary importance. 
With imperfect or bad materials it is 
useless to attempt its production. The 
flour or meal must be of the best ob¬ 
tainable. There are several methods of 
testing wheat flour which are available 
to purchasers although none of them af¬ 
ford positive indications. Good flour is 
rot sensibly sweet to the taste but bad 
flour often is. This is owing to the 
presence of glucose resulting from chem¬ 
ical changes in the grain from partial 
malting. Extreme whiteness is a good 
indication, as partly malted grain is dis¬ 
colored in the process of change. Good 
flour is tenacious and unctuous to the 
touch. When thrown against the wall 
it should adhere and not fall readily. 
It does not feel crispy and when formed 
into a ball in the hand adheres together 
like a ball of snow. To the sense of 
smell it is sweet and pleasant and when 
taken into the mouth forms a glutinous 
mass free from all disagreeable taste. 
The nutritive quality of flour depends 
upon the proportion of gluten which : t 
contains. In the best specimens ten or 
twelve per cent, is found. 
Bad bread is by no means always 
chargeable to imperfect materials. Hun¬ 
dreds of families who procure and use 
the most perfect flour subsist upon bread 
of a very inferior quality. Some house¬ 
keepers assert that they can have no 
“luck” in making good bread; their 
loaves are always heavy or sour or 
doughy or burnt and they give up experi¬ 
menting and become discouraged. As 
with good materials everyone can pre¬ 
pare good bread there should be no want 
of success. Success depends in a great 
measure upon good judgment, faithful¬ 
ness and patience in working and in 
using the right materials. It is quite 
preposterous to present a filed recipe 
and set it up as an infallible guide in 
this department of household labor. The 
method adopted in my family which af¬ 
fords perfect white bread is as follows: 
Sift five pounds of good flour and put 
it in an earthen pan suitable for mixing 
and kneading. Have ready a ferment or 
yeast prepared as follows: Take two po¬ 
tatoes the size of the fist, boil them, 
mash and mix with half a pint of boiling 
water. A fresh yeast cake of the size 
common in the market is dissolved in 
water and the two solutions mixed to¬ 
gether and put in a warm place to fer¬ 
ment. As soon as it begins to rise or 
ferment, which requires a longer or short¬ 
er time as the weather is warm or cold, 
pour it into the flour and with the addi¬ 
tion of a pint each of milk and water 
form a dough and knead for a full half 
l our. Form the dough at night and allow 
it to stand until morning in a moder¬ 
ately warm place, and then mould and 
put in. pans and let it remain until it 
l as become well raised, then place in a 
hot oven to bake. The points needing 
attention in this process are several. 
First the flour must be of the best 
quality; second the potatoes should be 
sound and mealy; third the yeast cake 
is to be freshly prepared; fourth the fer¬ 
ment must be in just the right condition; 
fifth the kneading should be thorough 
and effective: sixth the raising of the 
dough must be watched that it does not 
proceed too far and set up the acetic 
fermentation and cause the bread to 
sour; seventh after the dough is placed 
in the pans it should be allowed to rise 
or puff up before placing in the oven; 
(ighth the temperature of the oven and 
the time consumed in the baking have 
much to do with the perfection of the 
process. If this method is followed with 
the exercise of good judgment and ordin¬ 
ary skill, white bread of the highest per¬ 
fection will be uniformly produced. 
Unfermented or “cream of tartar” 
bread is never placed upon the table in my 
family. There are special dietary or 
sanitary reasons for its exclusion. All 
“quick-made” bread is usually prepared 
in haste, and the adjustment of acid and 
alkali is apt to be imperfect. If tartaric 
acid or cream of tartar is used with the 
soda there remains in the bread after 
making a neutral salt, the tartrate of 
soda, which is diffused through the loaf 
and is consumed with it. This salt has 
aperient properties, in fact is a medicine, 
and thus at the daily meal those who use 
bread made with “powders” or with 
cream of tartar are taking food and medi¬ 
cine together. If there is any form of 
bread more delicious than another or 
more conducive to t 1 e sustenance'of the 
physical and intellectual powers it is 
that made from unsifted wheat meal. 
Corn bread, too, is excellent and most 
nutritious. It contains a large amount 
cf oil not found in other grains which 
adds greatly to its value. I think there 
is far too little of this used. The old- 
fashioned dish of corn “pudding and 
milk” is now nearly as obsolete as that 
of “bean porridge,” and may we not with 
much reason attribute the physical de¬ 
generacy of the present race to the radi¬ 
cal changes in the forms of food? Re¬ 
garding the matter from a chemical and 
medical point of view, it certainly would 
be difficult to select better or more 
healthful forms of human nutriment so 
v. ell calculated to build up and sustain a 
“sound mind in a sound body” as the 
two above named. They are easy of di¬ 
gestion and assimilation, and contain all 
the chemical substances or organic and 
inorganic constituents needed to nourish 
the body and mind. 
MRS. M. E. UNDERWOOD. 
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W1H I CI1 runc.ll power to drive your 
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Ponn & Goorgo Sts., - Hanover, Pa. 
Prevent Fly Eggs 
From Hatching 
After exhaustive tests, ex¬ 
perts in the United States 
Department of Agriculture 
have discovered Borax to be the 
most effective agent in prevent¬ 
ing the hatching of fly eggs. 
20 Mule Team 
Borax 
^ ’—the same Borax you have 
used in your home for years 
—'will be found invaluable 
* n ridding your premises of 
’ >•>.-. this pest if you follow these 
• simple 
,«v i Directions 
f m> •* 
r t, e> I Apply 2 ounces of 20 Mule 
9 ;•? Team Borax to the can of gar- 
* '? tv bage, daily, through a fine 
Steve orfloursifter. Apply 
• 'V- y- . -si in the same way, 10 ounces 
- * of20MuleTeamBorax 
’ „ to 8 bushels of 
^ fresh manure, 
v and sprinkle 
-with 2 to 3 gal¬ 
lons of water. 
For Sale by 
All 
Dealers 
<8u*b] 
GAN 
