1590 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 2-7, 1924 
The Manufacture of Yeast 
L am interested in feeding yeast to my 
chickens, and wonder why I cannot make 
it myself, as I know many people make 
their own yeast for homemade bread. 
Oxford. N. Y. mrs. c. M. 
You certainly can raise all your yeast 
for your live stock and yourself, and the 
temptation is strong to come out with 
quite large black headlines: 
Yeast, the Farmer’s Winter Crop 
Tons of Food in a Week 
From a Single Cell 
and 1 could write the thing up so every 
word would be scientifically true and the 
article as a whole the rawest kind of a 
fake. Let us look at what a friend of 
mine, of' Oriental descent and nervous 
temperament, once ‘referred to as ‘‘the 
i rue facts.” Yeast is a real plant, though 
it is a very small one. If we arrange 
plants in the order of their-complexity, 
we will find the yeasts, for there are 
many sorts, well above the bacteria and 
just below the simplest “seaweed,” . or 
algat. 
If we make them look larger, and even 
a small microscope will bring the indi¬ 
vidual cells within the range of vision, we 
see a bit of round or oblong jelly, with a 
pretty sharply marked boundary wall, 
and within we see from one to several 
darker spots. The cells will be mostly of- 
one size, but here and there there will be 
smaller ones, and if the lot of yeast we 
are examining is growing well, we will 
see that these little cells are often close 
against a large cell. If we are in a Very 
warm room, or if the stage and slide of 
the microscope are kept warm, and if 
we watch patiently, we will see some 
plump yeast cell swell out a little on one 
side, the bump will grow larger, and then, 
almost before you can realize it, there is 
a shadow at the base of the bump, then a 
line, and then you see two cells, a little 
one next the big one and, very soon, the 
little one will be as big as the other, and 
putting out buds every few moments on 
its own account. 
That is the way yeast grows when it is 
growing fast, and all is favorable. (There 
is another method, akin to the methods 
of more complex plants, but of no com¬ 
mercial interest.) It is quite easy, with 
a good microscope and a glass tube 
drawn down fine, to pick up a yeast cell, 
just one at a time, and put it in a suit¬ 
able liquid which has been freed, by heat, 
from all other yeast cells, and all other 
germs as well. 
Here, within a few hours, we will find 
several thousand yeast cells, for an in¬ 
crease at a 2-4-8-10 pace soon gives all 
the yeast which can well grow in one 
little glass tube. All these cells are, then 
put in a flask with a larger lot of nour¬ 
ishing liquid, and in a few hours more the 
flask is ready to be added to a small 
tank, and from this tank several large 
tanks are planted. In less than *a week 
you will have between (50 and 70 tons of 
yeast. This is not a “stunt” ; it is done 
every day, year in and year out, by the 
large yeast makers. Yeast is one of the 
simplest plants to raise that we know of, 
if we get and keep the conditions just 
right. But the hitch is just there. The 
liquid in which it grows must have plenty 
of food in it. You cannot get something 
out of nothing by way of a yeast cell. 
Then there are smaller plants, the germs 
or bacteria, ready and willing to eat up 
the yeast food, and the yeast too, and, 
with rare exceptions, bacteria are not a 
paying crop. There is one sort, the kind 
that lives on milk sugar and turns it into 
the acid of sour milk, lactic acid, that 
really seems friendly to yeast; at any 
rate it is.unfriendly to other germs that 
eat up tiie yeast plants. 
On a commercial scale the older meth¬ 
od was to allow some grain to sprout a 
litrle and then heat it till it was just 
barely killed, and the result was freed 
from the littie sprout and called “malt.” 
Barley was usually used, but any grain 
will give a sort of malt, for the grain, 
whatever it is. when it begins to grow, 
makes something which turns starch, 
which is insoluble in water, into starch 
sugar, glucose, which is soluble in water, 
and so a food for the yeast plant. This 
“something” has long been called “dias¬ 
tase,” and that word means “stand over,” 
but we do not know any more about it 
after we have given it a name. It has 
not helped us any ; we do not know any 
more about the moon after we have called 
it “moon,” but there is a type of mind 
that feels better after it has said “dias¬ 
tase is an amylolytic enzyme.” At any 
rate, this stuff can turn a lot more starch 
than there is in the malt itself into starch 
sugar, so starch from some other source 
is cooked in water and the ground malt 
added in proper proportion. After all 
the starch is turned to sugar, a “pure 
culture,” that is, a small crop from a 
yeast cell, or cells, of known character, is 
added, and with a few hours the sugar is 
about all eaten and the yeast has greatly 
increased. If there has been only a little 
air, with its one-fifth by volume of oxy¬ 
gen, available, the yeast, as it grew, has 
changed a fair proportion of the starch 
sugar into alcohol, but if there has been 
a great deal of air blown through or 
stirred into the culture, that is, the grow¬ 
ing crop of yeast, the yeast will have 
grown much better and there is almost 
no alcohol formed. 
The manufacturers now filter out the 
yeast: cells and mix them with starch and 
sell them. If there is enough alcohol to 
pay for the trouble, the liquor is distilled. 
As the yeast cells will stand being quite 
dry for a few days, they are sometimes 
dried and sold as such, but the yeast 
used by bakers is sold moist. 
Now, you can do this as well as any¬ 
one if you will take the care that is abso¬ 
lutely needed. You do not have to go 
through all the malt and starch method, 
either, since cheap molasses has in it 
plenty of sugar, and has been the source 
of most of the denatured alcohol and 
much of the yeast, for some years past. 
Malt and molasses both have in them 
some salts, particularly phosphates, and 
some bodies which contain nitrogen, 
which are not at all understood. But 
tney must be present if the yeast is to 
grow well. There must also be a very 
little of a definite substance called 
“biose.” but that it is a definite substance 
and that it must be there is about all we 
yet know. It is for these reasons that 
pure starch sugar, by itself, will not give 
a good growth of yeast. The salts and 
nitrogen, and some “vitamines,” what¬ 
ever they are. for “biose” seems to be one 
of them, at least for yeast, are present in 
ekim-milk. and that has been patented for 
use in fermenting sugar from sawdust 
and similar wastes. 
8o, if you must experiment, get some 
cheap molasses, dilute it four or five 
times with water, add a half pint of skim- 
milk to each gallon and bring to a sharp 
boil. It may be you will ■ not need the 
skim-milk, it. depends on the molasses. 
When the liquid is cool, about blood heat, 
stir in some yeast, and keep it about 
blood heat. Stir very often, mixing in 
plenty of air, and by this means avoid 
making alcohol and interesting the pro¬ 
hibition unit in your neighborhood. 
Within 24 hours, maybe a little longer, 
you will have a good growth of yeast, and 
the entire culture can be used to wet 
down the feed. Will it do any good? 
Personally, I think it will; there is no 
donbt that yeast has in it some of the 
things, present, to be sure, in traces, and 
almost if not wholly unknown as yet, 
which are absolutely needed to keeD ani- 
. mals, including “this so-called human 
race,” in good health and spirits. And I 
think it is a good deal less trouble than 
sprouting oats, and probably not quite as 
good as sprouted oats, take it all in all. 
If I still had chickens I should be in¬ 
clined to alternate sprouted oats, or, bet¬ 
ter, sprouted wheat, and yeast. It is 
really very little trouble, and the only 
thing that must be done just so is giving 
, your culture a good boil, to destroy all 
other germs before the yeast is added. 
F. P. c. 
Resurfacing a Mirror 
Could you give me a preparation for re¬ 
surfacing a mirror that has become spot¬ 
ted? MRS. G. W. B. 
Freeville, N. Y. 
This is not work that can be done by 
inexperienced persons. The older mirrors 
were backed by putting tinfoil on a 
smooth stone slab, pouring mercury 
(quicksilver) on it and sliding a very 
clean sheet of glass over the top. This 
was then weighted and, after the mercury 
and tin had united and the resulting 
amalgam had set, the glass was lifted and 
the backing protected by a heavy coat of 
paint. The more modern sorts are cov¬ 
ered with a layer of pure silver. The 
nitrate is treated, in water solution, with 
just enough ammonia to nearly re-dis¬ 
solve the white cloud which first forms. 
This is the trick, to get that precipitate 
just enough dissolved. This solution is 
then added to a warm solution of formal¬ 
dehyde or glucose, the latter being more 
dependable, and the mixture poured on 
the well-cleaned glass, which has a wax 
rim built up around the edge, and is. 
of course, set level, so the solution will 
be of equal depth at all points. The 
metallic silver is deposited in a short 
time, the solution that remains poured off, 
the layer well, but very gently washed, 
allowed to dry and backed, as before, with 
a protective paint. 
Homemade Nicotine 
Solution 
How can I make nicotine sulphate for 
spraying? I wish to make about a quart 
at a time, and do not seem to get the 
home product to throw the strong fumes 
of the commercial article. tv. L. 
Woodhaven, N. Y. 
One reason you do not have the same 
odor is that you do not use the same raw 
material, but it is not the odor, but the 
actual contact of the spray that kills the 
aphis. You will get all the nicotine info 
solution as sulphate by soaking your to¬ 
bacco in water made faintly acid ‘(use 
litmus paper, which you can get at any 
drug store), with sulphuric acid, or you 
can get the chloride by the use of hydro¬ 
chloric (muriatic) acid, but the nicotine 
has to be in the tobacco before you can 
get it out, and there is not much present 
at best. Use the same acid water to soak 
several lots of waste tobacco, and you 
will increase the nicotine in the solution. 
The determination of the nicotine is not 
easy, and you may better be satisfied with 
a solution that kills the insects, which 
you can get easily from one or two ex¬ 
tractions, and not try for a solution of 
high nicotine content unless you have 
plenty of waste tobacco. 
Thinning Coal Tar 
What can be employed to thin the coal 
tar I use to preserve cotton netting for 
fish traps in salt water? o. b. l. 
Vineyard Haven, Mass. 
Try benzene (benzole), but something 
depends on the kind of coal tar; it is not 
all the same stuff. But you cannot over¬ 
come the stickiness; it is inherent in the 
material. 
Why Not Girl Scouting for 
Farm Girls? 
I am the wife of a dairy farmer in 
Washington Co., Vermont. I am also the 
mother of two daughters, and the teacher 
of the rural school near my home. As a 
teacher and a mother, I am interested in 
the Girl Scout movement. I believe it 
would help the girl on the farm as well 
as the city girls. 
Our girls get a good deal of happy, co¬ 
operative work through the girls’ club 
work of the Farm Bureau, and most of 
them help, as a matter of course, with 
housework and the care of younger chil¬ 
dren. They do not need the Girl Scout 
work in home-making and child care: 
but any farm girl, I think, would find 
life much more interesting if she could 
be trained to enjoy the out-of-doors The 
Girl Scout can swim, dive, manage 
boats, go on hikes with a group of com¬ 
panions, skate, ski, and recognize birds 
and flowers. This kind of recreation is 
at our own front doors in the country. 
It costs nothing, takes little time. If is 
much better for health and character 
than late dances, too many moving pic¬ 
tures, too much dawdling over love 
stories. 
Most country people think of the Boy 
Scouts and the Girl Scouts as organiza¬ 
tions which bring to city children the ad¬ 
vantages of the country. But, in reading 
Girl Scout literature, it appears to me 
that something should be done to bring 
the advantages of the country to country 
children—girls, especially. Most boys on 
the farm learn to swim and row. They 
go hunting and fishing, and taste at least 
the healthful pleasure of days in the 
woods. But only the exceptional coun¬ 
try girl is capable of saving her own 
life in the water, or of swimming for 
pleasure or health. 
Not enough farm girls own skates and 
skis. Most of our daughters have never 
been on a real hike, with a trained leadei 
who knows about the birds, flowers, trees, 
rocks, and animals along the route. Few 
know the fun of cooking over a camp¬ 
fire. 
Perhaps it will be a long time before 
Girl. Scout troops will be organized in 
farm neighborhoods. Leadership for 
young people’s organizations is scarce; 
but all progressive mothers and teachers 
will profit by reading up on the Girl 
Scouts and taking hints from their pro¬ 
gram. I am trying to give my own 
daughters the equivalent of scout train¬ 
ing. I give them nature study books to 
read. If they come asking for skates 
or skis or snowshoes, I interest myself 
and do what I can to help. I take them 
camping every year, if only for single 
days at a time; and in warm weather, we 
often take our supper to the woods and 
cook over a campfire. I make it a rule 
to have a Sunday trip in the flivver or, 
in Winter, if the weather is good, to go 
for a sleigh ride. Next Summer I am 
planning a motor* camping trip to the 
Massachusetts coast. 
It isn’t easy for me to manage the 
lighter side of life. Like all farm wives 
I am busy from morning until night. I 
do all my own work, with the help I get 
from my daughters. I spend six hours 
a day or more at school. Sometimes I 
milk a few cows after supper to hurry up 
the chores, so that the whole family may 
enjoy a little relaxation together before 
bedtime. But, hard as it is to get play¬ 
time in. I will do it, though the heavens 
fall. It is through monotony and hard 
work, unrelieved by fun or by change, 
that many country women have broken 
their health or gone insane, and that 
farm daughters have decided to cast their 
lot with the working girls of great cities. 
If my daughters find that their talents 
or their future work take them to the 
cities, well and good; but I do not intend 
to have them driven to the big towns be¬ 
cause life on the farms is an all work 
and no play proposition. 
LAUBA B. GOULD. 
“Oil, Mr. Jones,” said Miss Dash, “I 
saw an advertisement saying that you 
could furnish your home by soap pre¬ 
miums. Every timeyou buy a piece of 
soap you get a furniture certificate. I 
am going to be married, and do you think 
I could get all my house furniture that 
way?” “Why, yes. Miss Dash,” replied 
Mr. Jones. “I had a friend who got all 
the furniture for a six-room house that 
way. The company only had to send him 
furniture for one room, the other five 
rooms were full of soap.”—Judge. 
A Vermont District School Playing O/d Knglisli Foil, Plays — The teacher plays 
with them. 
