528 
American Agriculturist, June 23,1923 
Putting the Sheppard-Towner Bill Into Action 
State Health Department Plans — Another Embroidery Design—Better Homes on Less Money 
A lthough the work of carrying out 
.the provisions of the Sheppard- 
Towner Act may be slow in getting 
started, every farm mother should 
eventually benefit by it, according to 
Ur. Nichols of the State Department of 
Health. Dr. Nichols who addressed a 
“jubilee meeting” held recently at the 
Y. W. CL A. building in New York City 
by the United Women’s Organizations 
which achieved the passage of the bill, 
said that women doctors and nurses 
were now being trained for this special 
service. 
Some misunderstandings about the 
work to be done have arisen, and Dr. 
Nichols, in explaining the method to be 
followed, said that in no case would 
help be forced upon any woman who did 
not want it. Expert, personal service 
will be available to all prospective 
mothers who thus can safeguard their 
own health, as well as that of their 
babies. The importance of pre-natal 
care has been more and more realized, 
and the danger of loss of life to both 
mother and child is greatly lessened 
when proper care is observed during 
pregnancy. 
Miss Lillian Wald, originator of the 
visiting nurse idea, who has now more 
than a hundred such nurses under her 
supervision in New York City, gave 
some interesting figures showing the im¬ 
mediate decrease in maternal and infant 
deaths when pre-natal nursing care is 
given. Miss Wald spoke of the fact that 
during the epidemic of influenza which 
proved particularly dangerous to preg¬ 
nant women, there was not a single 
death from that cause in a group of five 
thousand persons under systematic 
nursing care. The death rate of babies 
under a year old in the crowded city 
districts which these nurses serve is 
now exactly one-half that of the rest 
of the city, and is far lower than the 
rate in the country. 
Sixty Miles to a Doctor 
“Not every one knows the origin of 
the Sheppard-Townet bill, which some 
time ago passed the Federal Govern¬ 
ment, providing funds for States which 
appropriated an equal amount,” said 
Miss Wald. “Although the subject of 
better care for mothers in isolated dis¬ 
tricts had been much discussed, I’ think 
that it was first crystallized when I 
received a letter from a western woman* 
a real pioneer of fine old stock, who 
was expecting her first baby and who 
wrote to me in New York, for advice. 
The nearest help of any sort was 60 
miles away and a good doctor was even 
further. A woman physician I knew 
was planning for her vacation and 
thought Wyoming as good a place to 
spend it as any other. So she went clear 
out there to bring that baby into the 
world. Her report of the conditions 
under which these splendid western 
women were bringing up their families 
stirred us all up to action.” 
Netv York State, though not so 
sparsely .settled as portions of the West, 
is lamentably short of both doctors and 
nurses, according to Mrs. ^F. H. Vander- 
lip and Mrs. Mitchell, officers of the 
League of Women Voters, who worked 
valiantly for the bill. In making a State 
health survey in the interests of the 
bill. League members found that farm 
women constantly spoke of their need 
for pre-natal care. 
A Fair Chance for Mothers and Babies 
“Every so often, when we were ask¬ 
ing for signatures to our list of those 
in favor of the bill, some one would say 
‘Do you want Aunt Ella to sign? She’s 
been bedridden since her baby was 
born.’ ” said Mrs, Mitchell. “We would 
answer that indeed, we did want Aunt 
Ella’s signatui’e. We wished that we 
could have indicated in some special way 
the names of the many women who 
suffered permanent ill health or whose 
children died or were not strong be¬ 
cause the mother did not have a fair 
chance. It does not force a woman to 
have pre-natal care, but the woman who 
wants to bear her child under healthy, 
normal conditions, may have it for the 
asking.” 
Difficulty in obtaining skilled doctors 
and nurses was reported by Dr. Nichols 
as the main reason for the slow prog¬ 
ress of the State Department in getting 
the work under way. He said that the 
demonstrations given by ^ a visiting 
nurse far outweigh printed instructions, 
and that such nurses had to be trained 
for their special sort of work. He re¬ 
ported that local doctors were eager to 
have the benefit of advice from and 
conference with specialists, and said 
that the department welcomed calls for 
cooperation and would answer them as 
quickly and as liberally as possible. 
The Federal fund is entirely in the 
hands of the State Department to ad¬ 
minister. 
WHEN DKEAMS COME TRUE 
Before I was married, I had planned 
on all new furniture for our home, 
but family finances altered the case. 
Husband’s mother gave us part of our 
furniture and my gi’andmother con¬ 
tributed the rest. But since I’ve ren¬ 
ovated everything in the house, I don’t 
feel a bit ashamed now when my old 
school friends drop in to call. 
When we first moved into our little 
home, the floors and the wood-work in 
each of the four rooms were painted a 
sickly yellow and the wall papers were 
of so many colored hues that they 
fairly shouted at you. 
When we decided to renovate, I be¬ 
gan with the kitchen. It is 9 x 12, and 
had only one outside door, facing the 
south, and one small window facing 
the west. 
Windows Improve the Kitchen 
I placed two medium sized windows 
on each side of the door on the south, 
and substituted two larger ones for the 
small west one. Husband balked at the 
idea of an all-white kitchen, but he gave 
in at last. The wood-work, shelves, 
table and cupboards are all enamelled 
in white. The walls are covered with a 
blue and white checked oilcloth paper 
that is easily kept clean. 
I had an old linoleum rug that had 
once been blue and white and was still 
in fairly good condition. I gave it two 
coats of delft blue paint and had a nice 
looking rug. 
All my life, I planned on a sink and 
hot and cold water in the kitchen. So 
I finally came to the conclusion that 
I’d dig down into the bank account and 
have my ideal kitchen. So we pur¬ 
chased a pneumatic-hand power pump 
and had it placed in the smokehouse. 
It pumps all the water right into the 
house from the well and only cost us 
$52.75. 
The hot water boiler, that is heated 
by the kitchen range, cost $24.75. The 
wash bowl and sink for the kitchen 
were all white enamel, and the sink has 
double drain boards. 
The sink cost $40.95 with all fittings 
and the wash bowl, $12.45, Husband 
did all the carpenter and plumbing 
work himself, thereby saving 80 cents 
oh the hour. 
Paint Goes a Long Way 
The living-dining room was painted 
all in white too, and I put a blue and 
white rag rug down on the floor. The 
walls were papered with a pretty sub¬ 
dued design in grey. 
The table and chairs were all white 
(the table was a small kitchen table), 
and were stenciled with tiny borders of 
blue thistle and pink rose design. For 
the windows I used pretty cretonne. 
The smaller of the two bedrooms is 
just large enough to hold a bed, dresser 
and a chair. The wood-work here 
was all in white, and the curtains were 
made of grey and pink cretonne. A 
small chiffonier, a four poster bed and 
a small rocker were finished in silver 
grey. I placed a small mirror oyer 
the chiffonier and a grey and pink 
cretonne cushion in the rocker. The 
wall paper was grey. 
My own room was all blue, the fur¬ 
niture being painted a soft shade of 
blue. It was stenciled with a tiny pink 
rose design. A blue and pink rag rug 
is on the floor. 
The walls were papered with a quiet 
paper. Where dresser and table scarfs, 
were necessary, I made them out of the 
cretonne. 
The entire cost of our renovation was- 
$175. The hot , and cold water supply 
outfit alone cost $140.—A Farmer’s 
Wife. 
FOR NEXT WINTER’S MENUS 
Now is the time to begin the planning 
of the vegetable course for next win¬ 
ter’s meals. Why? Because now is 
the time to plan the garden, and while 
planning your garden allow an extra 
row of peas, wax beans, beets and 
tomatoes (if you do not have a large 
tomato patch) for home canning. I 
prefer the first lot of peas, wax b^eans 
and beets for this, for not only are 
they better flavored, but the ground 
can then be planted in sugar corn for 
early fall canning. Country Gentle¬ 
man and Shoe Peg are both very good 
varieties of sugar corn for canning; 
DESIGN FOR A SCARF END OR SOFA PILLOW 
line stitch, the “lazy daisy” and the french knot. Yet the design is so arranged 
that by combining your colors clevei-ly you can get a very artistic effect. 
Tan linen, worked in dark brown heavy twist silk for all but the french knots 
which are worked in a golden yellow, is smart. So is black satin, using dai*k 
green and golden yellow. 
A transfer p.attern for this design, in size 12 by 16 inches will be sent upon 
receipt of 12c in stamps. Address your order to the Handicraft Department 
and ask for E 12. 
and Golden Bantam is excellent for 
canning on the cob. 
The hardy greens are better for 
winter if you have, a good place to keep 
them in, where they will-not have to be 
disturbed to make room for something 
else; but it is nice to have a few jars 
of canned gneens for emergency if it 
should be top stormy to get the other. 
And though dried lima beans are good 
soaked over night and boiled with a 
piece of meat, canned green beans are 
nicer. 
I prefer the “Conserve Cooker” to 
other makes of canning apparatus, as 
not only—^to me—is it easier and 
quicker, but the fruit and vegetables 
retain, more of the natural flavors. 
I now have on hand enough canned 
vegetables to last till the fresh vege¬ 
tables come on, because my husband 
plants as many for canning purposes as 
he does for use during the season; we 
both gather the ones for canning and 
prepare them, and I do the canning. 
And because of our joint work we have 
from two, three or four vegetables on 
our dinner table every day through¬ 
out the year.— Catherine R. Groves. 
THE JARS ON YOUR SHELVES 
How many cans of fruit and vege¬ 
tables will the average family use? 
The Department of State Economics 
at the State College at Ithaca sug¬ 
gests the following quantities to last 
for one year: For a family of five, 
80 quarts of tomatoes, 100 quarts of 
.green vegetables, 5.0 quarts of starchy 
vegetables, 250 quarts- of fruits and 
40 quarts of conserves and jellies. 
Because of the presence of cer¬ 
tain necessaiy vitamins, tomatoes are 
provided in quantity, but the use of 
oranges at certain seasons of the year 
may somewhat decrease the amount of 
tomatoes used. The amount of vege¬ 
tables stored may also affect the quan¬ 
tity of green vegetables in cans. 
The Brown Mouse 
{Continued from page 527) 
want to nominate you for a second 
term. If we go to convention without 
your home delegation it would weaken 
you, and if we nominate you, every 
piece of trouble like this cuts down 
your wote. You ought to line him up 
and have him do right.” 
“But he is so funny,” said Jennie. 
“He likes you,” said Haakon. “You 
can line him up.” 
Jennie blushed. 
“But if I cannot line him up?” 
“I tank,” said Haakon, “if you can’t 
line him up, you will have a chance to 
rewoke his certificate when you take 
office.” 
So Jim Irwin was to be crushed like 
an insect. Jennie dimly sensed the 
tragedy of it, but very dimly. Mainly 
she thought of ])Ir. Peterson’s sug¬ 
gestion as to “lining up” Jim Irwin as 
thoroughly sensible. She ’ could not 
help feeling a little resentment at Jim 
for following his own fads and fancies 
so far. The idea that there could be 
anything fundamentally sane in his 
overturning of the old and tried school 
methods, under which both he and she 
had been educated, was absurd to 
Jennie. To be sure, everybody had al¬ 
ways favored^ “moi'e practical educa¬ 
tion,” and Jim’s farm arithmetic, farm 
physiology, farm reading and writing, ( 
cow-testing exercises, seed analysis, 
corn clubs and the tomato, poultry and 
pig clubs he proposed to have in opera¬ 
tion the next summer, seemed highly 
practical; but to Jennie’s mind, the 
fact that they introduced dissension in 
the neighborhood and promised to 
make her official life vexatious, seemed 
ample proof that Jim’s work was vis¬ 
ionary and impi-actical. Poor Jennie 
was'not awai-e of the fact that new 
truth always comes bringing, not peace 
to mankind, but a sword. 
“Father,” said she that night, “let’s 
have a little Christma,s party.” 
“All right,” said the colonel. “Whopi 
shall we invite?” 
“Don’t laugh,” said she. “I want to 
Invite Jim Irwin and his mother, and 
nobody else.” 
(Continued next week) 
