515 
American Agriculturist, May 31, 1924 
Take Thought for Kitchen Comfort 
How One Woman Planped Her Workshop to Save Steps and Energy 
w 
'HY not give us the, plan of Mrs. gray. Quarter round moulding along the edge of 
Edith Loring Fullerton’s kitchen?” the walls makes sweeping and cleaning easy. I 
wrote a reader last summer, after have not found any floor covering that stands the 
the household editor had praised it constant wear of sandy feet coming in and out all 
as a model. “We need plans to aid in our effi- day and every day without marring the surface, 
ciency in our daily kitchen efforts.” Linoleum stands the wear wonderfully but the 
If any room in the house should be carefully surface becomes badly scratched. I object to 
wax because I have known of so 
many bad falls, also rubber heels 
leave a bad mark on it.” 
The plan gives the general 
arrangement of the model kitchen 
showing the unusual way in 
which the stove and boiler are 
built out to make them nearer 
the center of the room and at the 
same time to form a laundry 
alcove and pantry for supplies. 
But no sketch could show the 
numerous small conveniences 
which Mrs. Fullerton has added 
to expedite h«fr' work. Notice, 
for instance, in the photograph, 
the shelf under thte sink drain 
board for wrapping paper and 
string. And the other 7 picture 
shows the corner firf/he stove 
with th£~ niandy board ” by it, 
Fullerton hangs a 
ity does the husband give his wife the income from 
anything? Why should not she just as reasonably 
present him with a runt pig or a stunted calf with which 
he is to provide himself and his children with necessities? 
It is hard for us here to comprehend the condition by 
which the wife keeps up the house with the butter and 
FIGURES THAT MAKE YOU DIZZY 
A FARM woman sat down with her pencil one 
rainy, dull day, and figured up all the work 
she had done in the 30 years of her married life. 
In that time she served 235,425 meals. 
She made 33,190 loaves of bread. 
She made 5,930 cakes. 
And 7,960 pies. 
She canned 1,550 quarts of fruit. 
Raised 7,660 chicks. 
Churned 5,460 pounds of butter. 
Put in 36,460 hours sweeping, washing and scrubbing. 
She estimates that the worth of her labor con¬ 
servatively at $115,485.50, none of which she ever 
collected. But she swears she still loves her husband 
and her children and wouldn’t mind starting all 
over again for them. 
One corner of Mrs. Fullerton’s model kitchen, showing the table by the window, 
the fireless cooker, part of the laundry alcove and the “handy board,” at the 
extreme right, where extra supplies hang conveniently by the stove. (Center: 
Diagram of the model kitchen) 
laid out and its arrangement studied from every 
angle of efficiency and convenience, it is the farm 
kitchen. Here the woman of the family spends 
the greater part of her waking hours and on its 
comfort depend her happiness and health. 
We can not all build new kitchens just to suit 
ourselves, though even when a new house is built 
it is often surprising how little voice in the planning 
is given to the woman who must do its work. 
But almost any kitchen can be improved, and 
women who now take for granted the incon¬ 
venience and discomfort of an old-fashioned 
kitchen should try to look at it wdth the eyes of an 
outsider. They will be surprised to see how many 
small changes can be made to improve it, and 
may even prevail upon the man of the house to 
make larger changes, too. 
Mrs. Fullerton calls hers “the drudgery- 
eliminating kitchen” and she owes it to her own 
foresight that it worked out so well. For wdien 
plans were made for the “model” homestead 
on the Long Island demonstration farm at 
Medford, she found that they called for a typical 
old-fashioned kitchen, too large, too dark, and 
without proper allowance for ventilation. She 
insisted that a model house must be model all 
the way down to the kitchen, and though the 
plan she submitted made the building slightly 
more expensive, everyone now agrees that she 
knew what she was talking about. 
r,n 
FIRE 
LESS 
C00REA 
egg money; what keeps up the farm, the water-cress 
receipts? 
The proportion of the joint income that the wife 
needs is hers; and the amount she needs depends 
entirely on what she is supposed to do with it. Gen¬ 
erally speaking, she needs as much as it takes to buy 
clothes for herself and children, supply necessary 
groceries, and keep the house decently. All these 
depend upon individual conditions. Obviously the 
mother of five children needs more for all these purposes 
then the mother of one. If she hasn’t too much else 
to do and she likes to work in the garden, she may very 
reasonably raise vegetables enough to cut her grocery 
— -bijk^appreciably, but the mother of a large family 
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CA&MtT 
* 00*7 
usually has no business to add gardening to her other 
ork except as a recreation. The vegetables should 
be forthcoming but the man should attend to 
work and very little of it should be hand-work 
either. 
The farm certainly supplies a good variety of fruits 
for home use, but raising them should never devolve 
upon an overburdened mother. At home we have 
apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, grapes and all 
kinds of berries except strawberries and if it were not 
for our destructive hens we would have strawberries. 
There should be hens but the strawberry patch should 
be protected from them and we hope next year to have 
our hens within reasonable bounds. 
One woman of my acquaintance raises a variety of 
poultry for which her husband furnishes all the feed. 
The hens are his, but the turkeys, ducks, etc., are hers 
and she spends the proceeds for fur coats and other 
holiday gifts for him while he buys her whatever she 
needs or wants. I think they provide for the children 
“jointly and severally.” Another poultry raiser speaks 
Planned With a Special Purpose 
“This kitchen, like all the rest of the things on 
the demonstration farm,” says Mrs, Fullerton, 
“was planned with the special purpose of making 
a light, airy, sunny room of the place where the 
farm wife or home maker must spend the greater 
part of her time. I find kitchens are usually 
‘stuck on’ the back of the house in a corner 
where there is no cross ventilation at all and I 
insisted this kitchen be built as a wing to the 
house so we can have air from all sides. It meant 
another chimney and a separate roof, but it has 
more than paid for the extra expense. 
“When we came here we had a family of eight 
and ten with a constant stream of visitors, so 
while the room may seem large it is none too large 
for that size family and none too large no matter 
what size the family when the canning season 
comes around. We use it as a dining-room in 
winter when the family is small and Japanese 
toweling for curtains makes it very attractive. 
“ The walls are a soft green and the ceiling and 
woodwork cream. The floor is covered with 
linoleum glued to a felt lining which is glued to the 
floor boards. The linoleum and base-boards are 
supply of things sometimes need¬ 
ed in a hurry when one is cooking, 
including a box of salt for the 
extra “pinch” often added after 
the ingredients are mixed at the 
cabinet or table. 
The kitchen has broad windows 
on three sides, and is lighted at 
night by home-made electricity, 
with kerosene lamps in case of 
emergency need. Mrs. Fullerton 
has been using the kitchen in all 
year-round practical operation 
since 1910. Nothing in the 
room is beyond the reach of any 
farm home, and every bit of 
equipment in it has been per¬ 
sonally tested under normal coun¬ 
try conditions and abnormal ones, 
too, for since the farm is run as a 
demonstration, the kitchen must 
always be ready for invasion and 
inspection — something the average farm wife 
escapes and can be mighty glad she does escape. 
How Much Is a Woman Worth ? 
{Continued from -page 512) 
Across the room from the laundry' alcove are the sink and kitchen cabinet. 
Every piece of equipment hangs on its own hook over the 36-inch high sink; 
reference and cook books stand on a handy shelf, and two hanging lights 
make the corner bright on dark days or for evening work. 
of her receipts as “ours,” and the money her husband 
makes in any way whatever is “ours” too. 
It is entirely optional whether or not benevolences 
should be paid by the husband or the wife, but the 
fairest way would probably be for each to pay half of 
the allotted tenth. Besides that, the farm wife, surely 
on the same farm, the poultry men would just, as surely has the right to reasonably spending money for in 
be giving their wives all they had if they “allowed” cidental purposes. We have a nice little club here 
them the egg money. By the way, under what author- - : {Continued on page 52k) 
