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FIELWtftRPEN
CAPONS.
When a Capon Is at Its Best —Some of th
Various Advantages of Caponizing.
Those who hatched chickens in Marcl
and April will soon have a lot of cocker
els of sufficient size to caponize, and ir
regard to these, George Q. Dow, recog
nized authority, tells in the New Yorl-
World that the sooner they are per
formed upon after reaching the size o)
2’ 2 pounds the longer time they wil.
have to make their growth for the wintei
and spring markets. Mr. Dow also ex
presses himself as follows upon the sub
ject of capons:
A capon to be at its best should reallj
be allowed to live for a year or fourteer
months. The first eight months of theii
lives are devoted to building up a large
frame or body, which they will finish ofl
and decorate in fine shape with delicious
meat if for the following four months
they are permitted to live. I disposed
of all my capons early the past season
(in February) simply because I needed
the room for one thing, and another was
that my customers demanded them, and
still another reason was, I needed the
money which they brought. However.
I should not have done so had I not been
offered a very high price, which I should
have been foolish to decline. Had Inc
particular market for them it would
have been much better for me to have
kept them until April, for I notice that
the market price for capons tended up
ward, and they were quoted at twenty
four to twenty-six cents a pound in
April and- early May, while chickens
could be bought for fifteen cents and in
some cases less. Besides the profit there
is in it there are several other great ad
vantages. You will get rid of a lot of
cockerels that are running around both
ering the hens and other birds and fight
ing with each other from morning till
night, .pausing them to lose their flesh
faster than you can put it on and eating
far more than any capon.
After being caponized they become
very docile and quiet—lose all then
fighting propensities, pay no attention
to the hens and pullets, lie around, take
life easy and seem to enjoy perfect con
tentment. As they do not care to run
all over creation and lose all desire foi
companionship of the other sex they be
gin to grow very rapidly, and one will
notice this remarkable change in them
in a week after performing the opera
tion. Everything they eat and drink
goes to forming their frame and flesh.
These are not the ideas of an enthusiast
on the subject, but simply the experi
ence of one who has been at it for a num
ber of years and knows what he is writ
ing about —not theory, but plain North.
American facts. Try it, my friends,
and see for yourselves, and if every
capon you raise doesn’t bring you more
than double what you get for a cockerel
there must be something wrong about
you, certainly not with the capon.
Experiments with Potatoes.
In an experiment at the Utah station,
in which whole tubers, halves, quarters
and one eye and two eye cuttings were
planted, the yield increased with the
, amount of seed used, but it is reported
doubtful whether pieces larger than
three-quarters “will yield enough more
to pay for the extra amount of seed re
quired.” Pieces cut from the stem end
of potatoes gave larger yields than those
cut from the seed end. Experiments
. with large and small potatoes for seed
during two years have given inconclu
sive results. Flat culture of potatoes
gave much better results than ridge cul
ture. The newer varieties most promis
ing are Hoffman, Governor Rusk and
Rural New Yorker No. 2.
At the Maryland station varieties used
in an experiment, in which large and
small whole potatoes, two or three eye
pieces and one eye pieces were planted,
were Early Rose, New Queen, Dakota
Red and Early Harbinger. The results
of this and of two previous experiments
indicated that the yield increases with
the amount of seed, but that when large
whole potatoes are used for seed there
are very many small potatoes in the
crop. The most profitable results were
obtained when small whole potatoes were
planted.
Tile Drainage.
The laying of draintile is now one
feature or foundation of success in farm
ing. The increase in the production of
the soil is great. A correspondent in
The New England Homestead reminds
farmers that there are good and bad tile,
as there is land of the best and inferior
qualities. The best tile run from ten,
twelve and fourteen dollars per 1,000
and upward, according to the size. The
round tile are considered the best and
largely used, although the square bot
tom tile are sometimes laid. The
8-inch tile is the most used in the flat
lands of Ohio, then the 4 and 5-inch
sizes, and also larger. All tile should bo
laid in angles across the land. The
larger size tile are more frequently used
at the end, the smaller sizes along the
sides of the field. The conditions of
eacli portion of the land must be under
stood to intelligently lay the tile.
Good Date Keeping Celery.
Many gardeners do not know that the
dwarf celery, that sells best in the fall,
one of the best keepers until late in
the spring, says The American Cultiva
tor, Cold and absolute darkness are the
requisites for late keeping. Comply
with these conditions, and the celery can
be kept until March in just as good con
dition as it will bo in December, if no
rot starts among it. If the rot gets in
to any great extent, the sooner it is sold
the better for the grower. Nine times
out of ten the rot is the effect of too sud
den a change from cold to warm
weather either out of doors or in the
celery house, and the other time, if the
celery is free from rot when put in, it is
the result of careless handling when put
in the pit or houses.
SELECTING SEED POTATOES.
American Cultivator’s Advice in This Im
portant Matter.
Selecting good seed potatoes from this
season's crop is the surest way to have a
profitable yield next season. The more
we plant potatoes the more we are im
pressed with the great value of having
good seed. So much depends upon this
that it is risky to depend upon others
for seed. It is a matter of experiment,
and then it takes several experiments
with poor crops before we are certain
PEOPLE’S PARTY PAPER, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1892.
where to get good potatoes. To get
large, fine looking potatoes, that will
sell readily in the market for the high
est prices, it is quite essential that the
seed should come from the very largest
tubers that we dig from our fields.
The value of selecting seed potatoes
for home use has been made apparent
on Long Island. Potatoes from that
part of the country invariably sell foi
more than those from any other state or
locality. The gardeners there
have selected their seed carefully foi
many years. The result is that a type
of potatoes has been formed which are
of especial value. They are larger,
fairer and more globular in shape than
potatoes from any other section. The
market gardeners there believe in the
theory that the potato must be adapted
to the particular soil in which it is
grown by a number of years’ trial. In
the course of time, if the seed from the
crops is selected, a new type of potato
is raised, and seed from these tubers
planted on other soil would not do so
well.
To readers who have not already .se
lected their seed potatoes it is advised
that as far as possible potatoes for seed
should be of average size and shape. In
this way one soon gets about the same
sized potatoes from the field. They not
only average well in size, but also in
shape. This is quite an important point
in selling potatoes. They can all be put
into the first assortment, and their simi
larity of shape makes them attractive.
Extremely large, crooked potatoes are
not so desirable, as a rule, as the smaller
but fair, regular and thin skinned ones.
In selecting the seed this point should
be remembered. Os course it is an ad
vantage to select the largest, but they
should all be of about the same type and
shape.
Winter Protection for Plants.
The opinion sometimes expressed that
hardy plants need no protection during
winter is not shared in by persons who
find increased crops where jjrotection is
given. It is argued by some that the
strawberry, for instance, is naturally as
hardy as many other plants which re
quire and receive no protection what
ever, and so with the other cultivated
plants, such as the grape, raspberry, etc.
This is true to a certain extent, and if
nothing further were looked for than
the mere existence of a plant it would
not greatly matter whether it received
protection or not. But it is found in
practice, says Mr. William Saunders,
superintendent of gardens and grounds
at Washington, that a proper degree of
covering notably increases the crops of
fruit, and it is well to keep in mind
that the best varieties of our fruit bear
ing plants have been far removed from
the natural conditions of their ancestors
and have acquired artificial'qualities, as
it were, by careful cultivation, and
■which can only be maintained by con
stant attention to their needs. If neg
lected they will soon show the ordinary
result of negligence, and it is only by
giving all the judicious attention and
care ■which the best experience suggests
that they can develop their greatest
profit and usefulness. But it is also a
common observation that a good prac
tice may be rendered nugatory by in
judicious application.
Asparagus Growing.
Having'a special fondness for kspara*-
gus, and having given the subject of its
growth in a small way considerable at
tention, a correspondent of the New York
World has reached the following among
other conclusions: One is that many as
paragus beds, especially in cold and
heavy soils, die out from rotting of the
fleshy roots. While to a certain extent
asparagus likes moisture, this is easily
overdone when the growth is at a stand
still. Asparagus in a state of nature
grows in a sandy, well drained alluvial
deposit. Now the point I wish to get at
is that heavy mulching on a cold, heavy
soil, in my opinion, only renders the soil
more cold and sodden and the roots more
liable to decay. Allowing the tops to re
main on throughout the winter is a slov
enly method, and besides it prevents
the frost and air from having free access
to sweeten the surface soil. I make a
practice of cutting the tops off close with
the scythe and clearing them away as
soon as thoroughly ripened. I have had
good success in top dressing with decom
posed manure and decayed garden ref
use in equal parts.
Crop Reports.
The wheat crop in Europe is reported
as better than in 1891 and worse than in
1890.
The cotton crop is light, with short
staple and generally fair quality.
The agricultural department makes
the average corn yield 22.4 bushels per
acre, or an aggregate production of a
little more than 1,600,000,000 bushels.
The national statistician indicates the
total wheat production to be about 500,-
000,000 bushels.
The average yield of tobacco is less
than last year.
The average yield of hay is reported
to be 1.17 tons per acre.
This year Idaho and Montana lead in
wheat with crops of 22.5 and 22 bushels
per acre, respectively, Colorado follow
ing with 19.1 and Washington with 18.4
bushels. The great wheat fields of the
northwest—the two Dakotas—drop to
12.5 bushels. Kansas is reckoned at 17
bushels, Illinois and Michigan at 14.7,
Pennsylvania at 14.4, New York at 14.3,
Indiana at 14, Ohio at 13.2, California at
12.8, Missouri at 11.1 and lowa at 11.5.
Just So.
Some of the Democratic papers have
just waked up and are “deeply regretful
of the indignities committed upon Gen
eral Weaver and the ladies who accom
panied him in his political campaign in
the south.” It reminds one of the story
of the Irishman and the bulL Pat saw
the bull coming, but before he could get
out of the way the bull had hoisted him
high on his horns and tossed him over
the fence. Pat looked back and saw
the bull pawing and bowing his head.
He remarked: “Oh, yes; you axe very
perlite and sorry, no doubt. But you
did it a-purpose, and you know it.”
Democrats, like Pat’s bull, are in condi
tion now “to be very sorry and polite’’
to General Weaver. But, all the same,
they threw eggs on purpose.—Chicago
IntAT Ocean.
There is no better, safer friend of the
interests of capital in this country than
Mr. Cleveland, and every millionaire
knows it, and not one of them will lose
an hour’s sleep over his election. —New
Nation. . . „
THE BEES.
How Best to Prepare Them for Winter
ing; Over.
The bees need weeding out in the fall
of the year as ■well as the poultry and
stock. For the highest profit in bee
keeping the smallest number of bees
should be wintered consistent with good
management. Bees that are wintered
properly require a great deal of care and
feeding. A weak colony will often die
for lack of warmth, and it is better in
the fall to join two or three such small
colonies in one. They can be wintered
better in this condition, and they do bet
ter in the hive. Overcrowding must be
avoided, but then too few in the hive
must also be guarded against. The mis
take of many is to carry more bees
through the winter than they can actu
ally attend to, and instead of making
more profit from such a number of col
onies they actually make less. Poorly
wintered, the bees die in numbers, and
another season the numbers will be dec
imated more than if less had been kept.
Unprofitable colonies should be done
away with. Facilities should be pro
vided for those that are to be kept.
Hives, sections, foundations and all
other needful things should be obtained
before cold weather comes, and an ex
act estimate should bo made of how
many can be wintered in the cellar or
outside. It does not pay to starve the
bees, and syrup of granulated sugar and
water should be provided in sufficient
time and quantity to keep the bees in
good health. The amount of sugar
needed for this purpose is often quite an
item in the beekeeper’s expenses, and
every pound thus used should be made
of value.
The wintering must be done gradually.
The hives should be protected more and
more as the season advances. The fall
flowers gradually grow less in number,
and bees are unable to find sufficient to
eat. The comb honey will then' often be
consumed if they are not watched. If
more bees than there is actually honey
to feed in the neighboring woods and
fields, starvation will stare the bees in
the face in the fall. More food will then
have to be doled out than will ever be
paid for by the honey. The number
must be reduced at once before another
honey season arrives.'
Even if wintered in the bee cellar the
hives should be kept out of doors until
very late in the season. The bees do
better when they are not shut up in
some artificial place where the surround
ings are gloomy and close. Sufficient
protection can be given with straw until
the middle of December.’ If the hives
are situated in a sunny place and pro
tected somewhat by trees or the barn,
the little inmates do better than if win
tered in protected hives out of doors.
During warm midwinter days then they
•will come out and take a fly around to
air themselves and stretch their cramped
limbs. This is of great value to them,
for it prevents often foul brood and
filthiness in the hive. One cannot be
too careful in this respect, for it influ
ences the bees all through the honey
season, often contaminating the honey
itself. Wintering in cellars has a tend
ency to breed disease and dirt unless
the owner is very careful. —Helen Whar
burdon in American Cultivator.*
Beef and t
I do not believe any stockman can
maintain a herd of beef cattle in fme
form for axi£ qbntintied period unless a
reasonable amount of succulent feed of
some kind is provided for his animals
during the long winter months. Where
dry feed only is available stock will
never show that thrifty, healthy appear
ance made possible by the addition of
some moist food. Oilmeal, to be sure,
will help very materially, but it is an
expensive food, very fattening in its na
ture, and only a little can be used suc
cessfully with breeding stock. Cooked
feed, too, will produce practically the
same results as succulent feed, but the
cost of preparation makes it more ex
pensive than silage or roots.
Practically, therefore, succulent feed
of some kind is a necessity with fine
breeding stock, and the choice narrows
down in most cases to roots and silage.
Cheap storage can be provided for roots,
and where money is scarce I would ad
vise growing them until one is in condi
tion to construct a silo without seriously
feeling its expense. A limited use of
silage for breeding stock of the beef
breeds —Shorthorns and others ■— will
prove extremely helpful in keeping the
animals in winter time in that grassy
condition so satisfactory to the eye of
the stockman. Silage fed animals shed
their coats early and will be in fine sale
condition earlier in the springtime than
if fed on dry grain—another point
of considerable advantage.—Professor
Henry in Breeder’s Gazette.
Dive Stock Points.
The Gold Spangled Hamburgs are ex
ceeding handsome fowls. For persons
who want ornamental chickens nothing
is better. They are feathered in the
breast like an English cock pheasant.
Besides being so handsome, they are
good layers and their meat is first class.
They are of medium size.
Some farmers have succeeded well
with corn ensilage for breeding ewes.
They have also been able to raise lambs
on it with profit.
Now that the millionaire Vice Presi
dent Morton is in the incubator business,
and makes no chicken bones of the fact,
perhaps those who sneered at ex-Presi
dent Hayes because ho found his pleas
ure in fancy fowl breeding may cease
their jibes. It is much better to raise
good chickens than to wrestle with bad
politicians.
If you want late winter broilers, set
your incubators going in November, or
set your hens, if you prefer raising the
broilers in that way.
When it is time to take the pigs away
from the sow, stop giving sloppy food
and roots that her milk may dry up. It
is better to begin this as soon as the pigs
have learned to drink milk at the trough.
They should have a trough so arranged
that the sow cannot get to it, and sweet
milk should be given, milk warm at Ilist.
A Use for Worn Stockings.
Very pretty little jackets for babies can
be made from the legs of silk and woolen
stocking when the feet are worn out. The
stitches that confine the legs are carefully
picked out and the legs joined together ■
down the back of the jacket. The sleeves
are cut from the narrower parts and sewed
in. The jacket is then edged around with
a scalloped edge of worsted or knitting silk,
which is started by drawing a single cro
chet through the edge of the material. A
cord and tassel made from the same is run
through the neck.—Household. ~
THE DAIRY
THE CREAMERY DAIRYMEN.
How to Take Care of Milk for Butter
Making.
The cows should be properly fed the
best and most wholesome food on the
‘‘irm. They should not be allowed to
drink out of any slough or stagnant pool
of water, but should be given as pure
water as you use for domestic purposes.
Their surroundings should be sweet and
clean, and the milkers should be neat in
drawing the milk from the cows. The
milk utensils, such as pails, strainers,
cans, etc., should be of tin. They should
be washed out in hot water in which
some salsoda has been dissolved, then
scalded and set out of doors to air. The
milk should be thoroughly cooled and
aerated as soon as drawn from the cow,
and morning’s milk should never be
strained in with the night’s milk until it
is perfectly cool.
The milk should be kept in the com
mon setting cans, set in a tank of cold
water until just before the collector
calls for it; then empty the milk into the
delivery cans and place on a platform
convenient for the driver. This is for
your own interest as well as ours, for
the earlier the milk gets to the factory
the better shape it will be in, and the
skimmilk will be sent back to the farm
better than it would be otherwise. The
skimmilk should be emptied out of the
delivery cans as soon as returned from
the factory, and the cans and covers
washed and placed bottom side up on a
rack out of doors to air until the next
time. Do not send any sour, tainted,
frozen or impure milk of any kind-to
the factory, or any milk from an un
healthy cow, but send us such milk as
you would use in tea or coffee, or off
which you would take cream for straw
berries or table use. No other will
Jnake fine butter.—lowa Agricultural
Experiment Station Bulletin.
A Model Creamery.
The walls of the building contain two
dead air spaces, with flues in the outer
space to conduct off the direct and re
flected heat from the sun in summer,
but to be closed in winter.
The water tank is made of metal and
is hung overhead in the refrigerator,
and the water remains cold and sweet
for washing the butter. The icebox is
at one end, with top and bottom circu
lation of air through it and the “cold
room.” There are two doors and two
weigh cans for receiving milk, and the
skimmilk is conducted above the wagon.
The heat and dust from the boiler and
engine room are cut off from the work
room with good, substantial doors and
partitions, and the steam pipes and ex
haust pipes and flues, especially if steam
separators are used, are covered with a
good nonconductor of heat or placed in
wooden boxes.
If there is a full supply of hands and
a proper division of labor the milk is al
lowed to gravitate from the wagon to
the weigh can, to the separator, to the
cream vat, to the churn, and to the
buttermilk tank, dispensing with pumps,
but the lay of the land and the climbing
capacity of the butter maker must be
taken into consideration. Creamery
Journal.
Question and Answer.
Which is the best cow for batter—one that
gives twenty-five pounds of milk per day, 6 per
cont. butter fat, or one that gives fifty pounds
of milk, 3 per cent, butter fat? Which is the '
best cow for cheese?
More butter can be made from twen
ty-five pounds of milk containing 6 per
cent, fat than from fifty pounds contain
ing only 3 per cent., because the losses
in creaming and churning will be less.
Which is the better cow for butter will
depend very largely upon the way in
which they hold out in giving milk.
The probabilities are that the milk from
the fifty pound cow would make the
most cheese, but of a quality not quite
up to what so called full cream cheese
ought to be.—Hoard’s Dairyman.
Dairy and Creamery.
The individual who has a hillside with
a spring upon the hill above it has just
the place which nature had in mind for
a first class creamery when she built
that spring there. If the spring is one
that does not dry out, the water can ba
collected in a reservoir and used for a
dozen different purposes. If it is cold
enough the cans of milk can be plunged
into it, or a cement milkroom can be
built under the hillside creamery and
the milk kept there. It can be utilized
as a water power to run the cream sep
arator, the test machine, the churn and
butter worker, besides cutting feed and
sawing wood if necessary.
It will be an excellent plan, where
you make butter to sell directly to
hotels, restaurants or fancy groceries, to
have a print made with the particular
name of the buyer upon it. A fine rep
utation for both butter maker and
dealer might be established in that way.
Suppose, for instance, a hotel named the
Montrose House buys your fine butter.
The article might be turned out in pound
prints with some pretty design upon the
face and the word “Montrose” printed
handsomely beneath. Or if a grocer
named—let us say Smith—wanted to es
tablish a name for a first class and re
liable brand of butter, he could get the
article made from a producer whom he
could swear by and then ask the pro
lucer to put it into pound rolls, each
bearing the trademark “Smith” printed
s?pon its face. Here is an idea worth
trying.
The first thing to do in building up a
model dairy is to get rid of your poor
cows. Then get a pure bred bull of a
milk or butter family, whichever you
wish to produce.
If you are a young man or woman
and expect to make your living on a
farm, go to your state dairy school this
winter and graduate.
Frost bitten grass is not calculated to
improve the digestion or the milk of"
cows.
Wasted Effort.
If one-half the time effort and money
that have been worse than wasted on
strikes during the past ten years had
been expended in the education and or
ganization of the workers of the coun
try into an independent political party
such legislation would have been se
cured long ago as would have removed
all cause for strikes.
Organized laboring men, with half a
million votes of their own and the assist
ance of unorganized labor, can dictate
any policy they desire, but so long $s
they <TivideSly support “rival” factions,
while the corporations and trusts have
no politics except what adds‘>o their
profits, just that long may they expect
their efforts to end in defeat and enslave
ment.—Jacksonville Advocate.
The Peer of Any Living' American.
General Weaver’s magnificent canvass
of the country in behalf of free silver
coinage and the rights of the people will
ever remain the great prominent feature
of the presidential campaign of 1892. In
heart and brain and in every element
which goes to make up a great leader
General James B. Weaver is the peer of
any living American.—Rocky Mountain
A Home Broken Up.
There is nothing sadder in life than the
: dissolution of homesand the disintegration
of families. There are houses where we
have been made welcome, whose hospital
ity is a green oasis in the desert of com
monplace life. We accept the good gifts
they offer us as we accept the sunshine and
the air, as if we expected them to endure
always. Suddenly death or misfortune
copies, and the home that opened its doors
to us vanishes as utterly out of our reach
as if it had never existed.
The charming hostess becomes a care
worn, anxious woman, bereft of the lux
uries and the comforts that she so gener
ously shared with others, and is a nomad
in the land where she once had an abiding
; place. Her sons leave her and establish
families of their own. Her daughters do
likewise or turn their energies to thoughts
of earning a livelihood and - caring for the
mother, who has never known before a
privation or an ungratified wish. There is
none of us who cannot recall these sad ex
periences, and, after all, they are the real
sorrows of life..
For a home once broken up, its hearth
fires extinguished, its joy quenched, its
common experiences of grief and pain end
ed, the ruin is unalterable. No earthly
power can restore its completeness, rekin
dle the flame or reopen the sealed book
upon which destiny has laid its forbidding
hand. —Chicago Inter Ocean.
For Mosquito Hites.
It amuses me to hear so many remedies
suggested for the bites of the mosquito
and so many devices mentioned for keep
ing the insects out of the way, even when
every window and door in the house is
protected by a screen. In frontier dis
tricts, where mosquito bars and screens
are alike unknown, various plans are
adopted to keep off the insect pests, and
those who live in houses could adopt any
one of them with far greater certainty of
success than the unfortunate man who has
to sleep in the open without a cover of any
description.
No mosquito will come within smelling
distance of oil of cloves, and a few drops on
the pillow or coverlet will keep the sleeper
as safe from annoyance as a dozen thick
nesses of netting. The precaution is spe
cially desirable in the case of children, es
pecially as the mosquito is not by any
means the only insect that has a decided
objection to the perfume.—St. Louis Globe-
Democrat.
Giggling Is Not Laughing.
Women very generally neglect a very
powerful weapon of offense and defense
placed at their command by nature. A
woman’s laugh, if intelligently and skill
fully used, can wither a man in his tracks
or elevate him to the seventh heaven of
happiness.
Several causes have contributed to the
decadence of woman’s laughter. The chief
one perhaps is the modern habit of dress
ing. Full, free laughter depends upon a
perfect development and exercise of the
respiratory muscles. Confined as these
are by steel and whalebone laughter be
comes an impossibility.
With a loss of the art of laughing comes
a loss of the sense of humor. When the
expjession of any of the senses becomes
difficult the sense itself dwindles. Do not
mistake giggling for laughter.—Philadel
phia Times.
Miss Dodge Dislikes Pliilanthropliy.
Miss Grace Dodge, who is so well known
in connection with the various organiza
tions of working girls in New York, is a
woman of wealth and culture. She lives
in a beautiful home on Madison avenue.
More than that, she keeps house in addi
tion to all her oujtside work.
Miss Dodge says: “I don’t think a woman
can be a true woman if she has no home
duties.
“I hate that word ‘philanthrophy,’ ’’.she
said in response to some remark about her
work. “In the first place, my work in my
clubs is not philanthropic. It is simply
part of my social life. A woman was talk
ing to me the other day, and she said that
she was ‘in thirty charities.’ Ido not feel
that way. I’m not ‘in’ any ‘charity.’ I
belong to several girls’ clubs, and I attend
them like any other member.” —New York
Recorder.
Beautiful Hands.
Not only ladies should have pretty hands
—a rough, untidy pair of hands is just as
unnecessary for a man to have as a wom
an—beautiful white hands very many can
have if nature has been kind enough to be
stow upon them fair skins. All may have
neat looking, smooth hands. A lemon,
some oatmeal, palm oil soap and tepid
water and a few ounces of glycerin will be
all sufficient to-accomplish the desired re
sult.
After the hands are washed clean in tha
water, to which has been added a table
spoonful of oatmeal and a teaspeonful of
glycerin, and the palm oil soap freely used,
rub over the wet hands the lemon juice;
apply it especially well about the nails, for
it hardens the skin and prevents the form
ation of hangnails.—St. Louis Republic.
Well Known Women Musicians.
Among the brilliant pianists who are
also composers are Mrs. Raymond and
Mrs. Place. Miss Morris, Miss Hoyt and
the daughter of Mrs. Cruger Pell are un
usually superior pianists. Mrs. Charles
Dudley Warner is an accomplished player,
and the most charming room in her co
lonial home at Hartford is the music room,
with its grand piano and many curious
souvenirs from foreign lands. —New York
Press.
An Inexpensive Easy Chair.
The steamer chair is just beginning to be
appreciated for house use. For those who
live in flats or small rooms it is especially
valuable as a lounging place, as it can he
put out of the way after the rest hour is
over. When that is not necessary it may
be made into an easy chair rich enough for
the average sitting room by having cush
ions for both back and seat made of cordu
roy, mohair, plush or velours.—New York
Post.
To Keep the Waist Down.
Does the point at the back of your waist
persist in curling up when you sit in the
car or even in an ordinary chair? If so
sew two inches of black elastic on the
under side, leaving it the least bit tig ‘er
than the dress just over the whalebone'
and see how it will b.ug the top of your
skirt.—Exchange.
Mrs. Millicent G. Fawcett is one of the
most aggressive workers in England for
the enlargement of women’s rights.
Forks are placed to the left, knives to
the right of the plate. Leave the spoon ia
the saucer unless in actual use.
In houses where strict order prevails ths
friction of the kitchen work is never felt
beyond itsjvall|t, , t v
WOMEN WHO SELL TEA
GENTLEWOMEN OF DISTINGUISHED
BIRTH IN BUSINESS.
In England Highborn Ladies Do
Forfeit Their Social Position if They
Engage in Trade—How the Ladies’ Tea
Company of London Manages.
A gentlewoman in search of an income
furnishes a complex situation. Possessing
the inherited belief that repose is her es
sential element, she yet faces the necessity
to act, so that vary extremes have met.
The position is tragic, and none the less so
that it is the result of an artificial training.
It has been curiously observed of late
that the English gentlewoman is more
ready to go into trade than the American
woman of breeding is. Tins may or may
not be because of the greater certainty of
social position here. When a woman in
heriting a title runs a millinery shop she
does not by her act forfeit her title or tha
respect due to it, whereas with us social
position in the fashionable world cannot La
maintained without money, which H 8
woman keeps a shop obviously she is wit h
out.
However it is, English women of birth
and culture have distinguished themselves
in trade so far as to make the tendency
quite worth remarking, and their ex
perience worth the consideration of our
own gently bred women who need to earn
a living.
With us women of advantages turn by
choice to mental occupations, the school
room being the great resource. In New
York city alone there are numbers of
lovely women, members of old families of
generations of refinement, who, with the
natural shrinking from trade given them
by their training, are dragging out un
satisfactory lives as teachers in private
schools; they are screwed down in salary
by the principals, on the plea of over
supply of teachers, to scarcely enough to
keep body and soul together.
The attention of such women is called to
the ventures of English women in trade,
and especially to an interesting depart
ment which I am about to describs. It
really is worth our women’s while con
sider whether the apparently superior gen
tility of the teacher’s work is worth the
sacrifice of an independent career anti pos
sible accumulation of income.
The venture of which I speak is a tea
company controlled and operated by gen
tlewomen. These ladies own one-fifth of a
large estate in Ceylon, where they grow
their own tea, and so do their own import
ing without any middlemen. They do
their own blending, packing, selling and
all the drudgery incidental to the business.
Their employees are a secretary and a
waitress in the tasting room, both of whom
are cultivated women.
The company is a limited one of seven
two of whom act as manag
ing directors. These directors have mas
tered every detail -of the business with a
thoroughness parallel to that required of a
nurse in a training school, and you can see
them in the packing room of the establish
ment enveloped in big aprons and caps
doing up their own packages—not an easy
matter folding a. pound of tea into the reg
ulation size pound papers! The tea will
burst out and fly all over just when one
seems to have captured it, and it requires
much practice to do it expertly.
The business of thecompany is conducted
in a quiet suite of rooms, up two easy
flights of stairs, in Bond street in the midst
of the fashionable shopping district. There
is a secretary’s office, a packing and sell
ing room and a tasting room. Their sales,
which are all retail, are made here to pur
chasers who come in, and also throughout
the United Kingdom by means of agents,
who are ladies, and to whom.they give a
high commission. Indeed, the most
fact concerning the company is that though*
it has been in operation but four months
it now employs sixty of these agents and is
all but paying its expenses—a flourishing
condition of affairs that indicates good
management and a profitable market for
tea.
Their special brand is the Ceylon raised
by themselves, but they also blend other
teas called for by the market. There are
as many flavors as there Are tastes for tea—
a pinch more of Souchong for one; a soup
con of Hyson for another—the variation is
endless. Blending requires patience and
experience, and is a skilled work in itself,
but it has been accomplished by the ladies,
and the result they have styled “The La
dies’ Own Blend,” and numbered one, two,
three, etc.
A charming feature is the pretty parlors,
where any intending customer may taste
his tea before buying it—an advantage the
ordinary grocer does not supply. This room
is thrown open to the public for “afternoon
.tea” at a small price a cup, with bread and
butter. It is an odd and delightful ex
perience to have in a public place your
tray brought to you by a woman of cul
ture. If your hand had gone into your
pocket for a fee you draw it out again with
disgust at yourself and the world of eating
houses outside that encourages such degra
dation, and you look with grateful pleasure
at your waitress in her cap and apron and
almost believe that Bellamy’s millennium
has come.
This, we reflect, is a gentlewoman wait
ing on us for wages—doing it perfectly and
doing it without affectation, as any trained
servant would do.
It shall be noted, however, that the pol
icy of the company in employing only
gentlewomen makes it easier to do such
humble work. There is no contact with
anything vulgar; the environment is al
ways refined.
The agents employed by the company
are residents in towns and cities through
out the kingdom. They number among
them a woman with a title, another who is
an honorable, and many clergymen’s
wives. These ladies do not solicit from
door to door, but they mention the matter
to their friends who are willing to try the
tea, and these mention it to others, and
when such orders are sent in to the tea
company they are accompanied by the •
name of the agent, or else the agent sends
the order with the customer’s address. A
fashion with the agents also is to have tea
tasting parties and invite all their friends
and introduce them thus to the tea.
I ask again, in these early days of wom
en’s independent work, w’hy should not
women find the easiest road through trade?
Nations have traveled this way, and intel
lectual life has been the resulting crown.
It is the history of men—why not of wom
en?—London Cor. Chicago News-Record.
A Graceful Definition of a Mature Maiden.
The Boston Transcript thus gracefully
defines maiden ladies: “The undelivered
packages at the express offioe. They were
originally intended for somebody, but the
parties to whom they were addressed have
never appeared, or else they had the wrong
address, or the address somehow got ob
literated. Often very valuable parcels,
which would have given great joy if they
had been delivered to the proper consignee/’
Mouth Breathing and Deafness.
From the condition of a “mouth breather”
it is but a short step to one of two results—
more often both, deafness and that pecul
iarly stupid, sleepy, inane, foolish expres
sion of countenance so characteristic of
the “mouth breather.”
To parents who have the welfare of their
children at heart such a warning as this
should be of sacred importance. As soon
as the child gives evidence of a tendency
to breathe constantly through its mouth
just so soon should intelligent medical in
vestigation be made of its nostrils, prefer
ably by a proper specialist.—Dr. A. M.
Fanning in Popular Spience Monthly.