RURAL NEW-YORKER 
895 
Simple Science 
By Dr. F. D. Crane 
Water Glass 
After reading on page 809 regarding 
failures with water glass as egg pre¬ 
servative, I am strongly moved to give 
my own experience, for I had splendid 
success and took none of the precautions 
recommended. I did no sterilizing what¬ 
ever. I used large jars holding over 40 
dozen. I rinsed the jars with the hose 
and made a one to nine water glass mix¬ 
ture. using cold tap water and stirring 
briskly with a bit of shingle. The eggs 
were absolutely fresh, an hour to four 
hours old. They were fertile eggs. I 
rejected dirty and cracked eggs. I re¬ 
gard it as important to refrain from 
washing eggs for storage or hatching and 
so used the “dirties” at once. I rather 
think some cracked eggs may have got 
bv me. Certainly no harm came to the 
eggs from that or any other source. I 
mixed enough for the whole jar and 
added eggs from day to day as laid. I 
put them down in April and used the last 
of them 14 months later. I think in the 
last month we found one egg too bad to 
use, and it was only after the eggs were 
a year old that they got any serious old 
taste. I kept them m a cool cellar with 
a cleated barrel head for a cover. It 
kept dust out and prevented heavy ob¬ 
jects dropping in and breaking eggs. In 
November I sold two jars of nearly 100 
dozen together to the local store, and 
when they were disposed of to my neigh¬ 
bors they tried to buy more from me. 
There was no complaint whatever, but 
much praise. I put in and took out eggs 
with my bare hands, say about 100 re¬ 
movals to a jar. I laid the eggs on their 
sides. Fresh eggs and a cool cellar "were 
my only precautions. 
JUNIU.8 T. HANCHETT. 
New Hampshire. 
We are glad you had such good luck. 
You took large chances, but you evidently 
have a nearly sterile water supply under 
pressure, which is rare on farms, and you 
have cooler cellars in your region than 
many of us, for a good cellar is .at the 
average yearly temperature most of the 
time. For this, and perhaps other rea¬ 
sons, your cellar is more free from odor 
than some, so you are able to keep po¬ 
tatoes where others could not. But in 
general it is better to play safe and boil 
the water and keep fewer eggs in each jar. 
Vegetabl* Oils for Flavoring 
Would it be possible to extract vege¬ 
table oils, just as flower oils are ex¬ 
tracted, and use them to flavor less palat¬ 
able articles of food? C. ii. 
New Y^ork. 
The oils from many herbs and a few 
vegetables are already extracted, mostly 
bv steam distillation, and are on the mar¬ 
ket in normal times at reasonable prices, 
considering the various factors of supply, 
extraction costs and demand. They are 
used by sauce manufacturers, vaiaous 
compounded food and flavor manufactur¬ 
ers, and, at times, in very small propor¬ 
tion, by perfumers. But your scheme to 
use them to make food substitutes, or 
inferior articles of food more attractive 
and so more acceptable, is not likely to 
work except in the hands of an expert. 
Something of the sort is probably being 
done bv the makers of the lower grades 
of pickles, and that sort of thing, but it 
is out of the question to produce a very 
wide range or superior article of goods 
in this way in the present stage of our 
knowledge. The reason is that, in the 
first place, many vegetables do not have 
an extractable flavor. The flavor is faint 
and evanescent at best, and consists 
largely of bodies which break down before 
they can be extracted, even if there were 
enough of them present. Take the flavor 
of spinach, for instance, or beet greens, 
and try to see as you taste of what it is 
made. Y’ou will find a faint acid, a leafy 
flavor and a very faint aroma. Now, 
while taste is largely helped by odor, 
and odor often merely an extension of 
taste, both these must be in just the bal¬ 
ance your mind expects to give you the 
“natural taste.” Even if the faint odor 
could be extracted and transferred to 
some nice green tissue paper, let us say, 
you would still be short the taste effects 
and the substitute would be unacceptable. 
A second reason is that no odor or 
taste is one thing. Tliese bodies are in 
the tissues as complex compounds, some 
of which break at once on cutting or 
wilting or cooking the vegetable, and 
often further break down of themselves. 
Sweet corn, for instance, is at its best 
for but a few hours after gathering. At 
the other extreme is the globe artichoke, 
which keeps good for many weeks. But 
in neither of these cases is there any ex¬ 
tractable flavor which could be trans¬ 
ferred to other things. 5lany of the more 
aromatic vegetables have true essential 
oils in very small proportions, but these, 
when extracted, only partially reproduce 
the flavor, because they are, in the first 
place, only a part of the flavor; you might 
as well expect, by extracting the fifes and 
the trombones, to get the effect of an or¬ 
chestra. Those you took out could carry 
the tune by themselves, but they would 
not reproduce the true flavor. 
Another reason why your plan is un¬ 
likely to give satisfaction is that the fresh 
or freshly cooked vegetables no doubt con¬ 
tain in small proportion some things 
which are of great value to the nutrition 
of the system. Here we are on the thin 
and growing edge of knowledge, but it is 
already evident that vegetables have a 
nutritive value far above that which can 
be figured from the starches, sugars and 
fats which are their prominent constitu¬ 
ents. But to preserve these unknown 
bodies, and transfer them to other foods 
is, as yet, beyond our skill. f. d. c. 
Use of Steam Turbine 
I saw an account of good results from 
attaching a steam turbine to the exhaust 
of an ordinary steam engine. Is there 
any value in doing this ? m. D. 
McDonough, N. Y. 
All sorts of tales float about, but the 
one you have seen appears to be more 
than ordinarily improbable. In the first 
place, a large modern engine does not 
have any exhaust to signify; the final 
cylinder is apt tO' run.on negative. pres¬ 
sure, since the steam is condensed to 
water. A steam turbine requires a large 
initial pressure, and is not suited to run 
in series with an ordinary engine. 
Foot Powders 
I notice many advertisements of “-,” 
a powder to dust in the shoes, and also 
other things to add to baths for the feet. 
What are they, and are they good or bad? 
New Y^ork. w. c. ii. 
Several mixtures are sold for dusting in 
shoes. Most have boric acid or borax as 
a base; sometimes even this cheap stuff is 
diluted with talc, which is merely a high- 
grade soapstone, powdered. To this base 
is added more or less astringent and germ- 
Reproduced from N. Y. Evening Telegram 
killing ingredients, tannic acid being a 
favorite; also salicylic acid and its salts. 
The idea is slightly to tan the skin of the 
foot, slow down its natural tendency to 
sweat, and kill, or at least moelify the ac¬ 
tivity of various germs which are well 
adapted to life in a shoe, and which are 
apt to turn the natural secretions into 
substances of unpleasant odor. These 
mixtures, if well made, do these things 
fairly well, and if used in moderation, or 
only from time to time, may do no harm. 
The same result may usually be ob¬ 
tained at much less cost by a daily foot 
bath and the use of fresh stockings each 
day. While more pairs are in service, the 
wear and tear is so much less that it co.sts 
no more in the long run, or even in the 
daily walk. 
The powders to put in foot baths are 
usually merely an excuse for wmshing 
the feet. They are generally baking soda 
or dried washing soda, with more or less 
borax and some perfume. One of those 
widely advertised is an alum and tannin 
mixture, which tends to harden the skin 
somewhat, but i.s probablj harmle.ss if 
used only now and then. A little ,.ul 
baking soda in a hot foot bath > tli rsii- 
ally do all that can be done by the 
things you buy in a box, and are certair.lv 
harmless. 
Waterproofing Canvass 
What is the best solution to use for 
waterproofing canvas? E. ii. A. 
Virginia. 
iMuch depends on what the canvas is 
to be used for. It stands to reason that 
any sort of waterproofing will fill the 
minute holes in the canvas, more or less, 
and tend to stiffen it also, so if the can¬ 
vas is to be folded often it will soon begin 
to break at the joints. On the other hand, 
if the canvas is folded or bent only rarely, 
a much thicker dope can be used. The 
“Boy Scout Book” gives two methods for 
the boys’ tents, and, since tho.se who get up 
this book have tried about everything, it is 
likely that they are as good as any. The 
first depends on forming a complex salt 
of lead and alum in the cloth, which is 
first soaked in a one to thirty-two solu¬ 
tion of sugar of lead in water and then 
in a one to sixty-four solution of alum in 
(Continued on page 897) 
0^ 
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