latter class of readers, four works have recently appeared. That they all appeal to eye and stomach as well as brain is evidenced by their profuse illustration, their chapters on how to cook the delectable mushroom, as well as by their assumption of scientific or pseudo-scientific diagnoses. Of these books two may be quickly dismissed. The modest little work of Misses Dallas and Burgin purports mainly to give the beginner in the study of the larger fungi the results of the recent field experiences of its authors. The ponderous volume by McIlvaine, while it will doubtless prove the most useful of the entire series because of its covering a much wider range of descriptions of species than any of the others and freely quotes descriptive matter from original sources, is more or less uncertain and unreliable because one is often left in doubt where the quotations end and the less reliable remarks of the author commence. As a work intended for practical use it is a clumsy product of the bookmaker's art, as wretchedly adapted to its purposes as any botanical work that the past century produced. giving details that were evidently drawn. from long and close acquaintance with the specimens in their native haunts. The work by Miss Marshall is a practical well-written text shorn, as far as possible, of technicalities, prepared to accompany reproductions of what are without question the finest series of fungus photographs that have been produced. These were made by J. A. Anderson, of Lambertville, N. J., and colored by his daughter, Miss H. C. Anderson. Twenty-four of these have been reproduced in color, none of which equal the superb originals, though a few, like those of Amanita muscaria, Pholiota adiposa, Boletinus pictus, and Phallus, approach them. Others like Tricholoma personatum and Clavaria formosa are too highly colored and the defective reproduction of backgrounds in some cases detracts from the good illustration of the fungus itself. The work makes no claim to be coldly scientific, but depends for its technical descriptions on those who have originally made them. As a piece of artistic bookmaking the Mushroom Book shows superior workmanship. Fine quality of paper, excellent printing, and plain but effective cover make the work attractive externally and internally, while its clear and simple text is not aimed above the heads of the audience to which it primarily appeals. The other two works, however, are the ones between which the mycophagic public will be more likely to choose, for at this public it is evident that their respective authors have clearly aimed. Of the two, Professor Atkinson's work is more technical, for it is not easy for the professional botanist to lay aside the technicalities of his office in appealing to a popular audience. Yet a mixture of too technical science and recipes for cooking jars one's sensibilities of congruity, seeming to bring the kitchen in too close proximity to the laboratory. The work is admirably illustrated with photographs in half-tone and seven colored plates. The cover ill accords with the contents and the paper used is of the glossy clay-covered form so common in our time, which serves to bring out the half-tones well, but ill comports with fine bookmaking and lessens the prospect of durability. The descriptions are very complete and accurate, But after all that is said, for the practical purpose for which these books are intended namely, the enlightening of unscientific people as to what are edible and what are poisonous fungi, none of the American books yet touch the standard set by the Germans at half the price, where in place of attempts to force science on unscientific minds, in place of heavy books adapted best for library tables, we have fifty-six colored plates (nearly all of which are of species as common in America as in Europe) put up in a form adapted for the pocket and for work afield, with plain descriptions of the fungi one is sure to meet with in the field and forest, and with no entanglements of rare or new species or elaborate keys and array of technicalities; for after all the my cophagist must learn edible fungi as he learns garden vegetables-by sight-and then eat them by faith! BITS OF ICE. "I always thought cold victral nice: My choice would be vanilla ice.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes. (From the American Kitchen Magazine.) THREE million tons of ice are consumed annually in New York City, while England's amount for the same time is 450,000 tons. If the salt and ice are thoroughly mixed before they are packed around the freezer, the surface of ice with which the salt comes in contact is much greater, and thus the freezing is accomplished more quickly. All refrigerators should have a thorough washing once a week, according to Dr. Cyrus Edson, with hot water in which soda has been dissolved. The waste pipe needs The waste pipe needs especial attention. "A farmer family can raise the temperature of their idea of the value of living several degrees over a can of ice-cream," writes a correspondent to the Rural New Yorker. "What's the use of talking about pie when this combination can be found on the farm? I have known men who kept twenty-five cows or more, and received less than two cents a quart for milk, growl like bears if their wives wanted a little cream for home What ails such men?" use. A recipe for Tea Ice-cream is given in C. H. Senn's little book, "Ices and How to Make Them." Half a pint of very strong tea, scented tea preferred. Add two ounces of sugar. When cold mix with a pint of vanilla custard and a tablespoon of heavy cream and freeze. The same writer recommends denises glacés, or ice cream sandwiches, as a convenient and dainty way of serving ices of almost any kind. An English ice wafer is used which does not impair the flavor of the ice. This is spread on the wafers when it is sufficiently frozen, and another wafer is placed on top, like a sandwich. Packed like ice cream, with paper between the layers, they keep till needed for the table. An unusual method of preserving rare flowers for transportation is to freeze them in distilled water. In this way lilies peculiar to New South Wales were sent unchanged to Queen Victoria. The queen's railway carriage was cooled when she travelled by pieces of ice partly hidden by plants. In this country blocks of ice are sometimes used in theatres to give the impression of coolness, if nothing more. On the Continent ice is largely used with flowers on dining tables and sideboards for decoration. Incandescent lights are placed within the ice for evening functions. A confectioner in St. Louis is credited with using his bicycle as a motor power in freezing ice cream. Upon his stationary wheel it is said that he can freeze seven gallons in twenty minutes. Here is a suggestion for mothers of small boys. The first ice cream is said to have been made by a French chef, who set the dish before the Duc de Chartres in 1774. Iced drinks and water ices were known to Parisian epicures a century and a half earlier, the dainties having probably come from the Far East by the hand of some traveller who had tasted sherbet. English people knew or cared nothing for such artificial refreshment until the present century. A CORN POPPING. A VERY enjoyable entertainment is a corn popping. One was given recently by two resourceful girls to their club. For the invitations they made folders of dark brown paper, on the inner leaves were lettered the invitations, on the covers of which were painted snowy white pops merrily hopping through the air. The day before the entertainment they removed the hangings, bric-à-brac, etc., from the club rooms and decorated them with corn. Long stalks were grouped in the corners and a fringe of corn of different colors strung across the window frames and doorways. Small rings were screwed in the stock ends of the ears of corn to facilitate the stringing. Corn stalks, baskets, and ears of corn were arranged in panels on the wall, and an especially elaborate one put over the mantel. The members found baskets of ears of pop corn and corn-poppers awaiting them by the open fireplace. They were much mystified by the tables covered with oilcloth and the array of dishes and kitchen utensils. Aprons and sleeves were put on and the fun began. The corn Iwas shelled and each member took turns in popping and then sugaring or salting and buttering the corn. The more ambitious of the confectioners colored their pops pink and made them into balls. Then all helped to make molasses pop corn bars. While the woman hired for the evening cleared up and got the supper, the club played a game of Missing Words. The old German begged me to buy a bunch of as it was the Kaiser's birthday,-headed the list of sentences. "Cornflowers" was the missing word; all the missing words began with corn. The prizes were corn-cob pipes and corn-cob candle-sticks tied with the club colors, and cornshuck dolls. Supper was served at small tables and consisted of chicken tamales, café frappé and cakes. The café frappé was very much enjoyed. It was made by a very simple recipe, one quart of strong dripped coffee to a cup of sugar. The frappé had all the fragrance and strength of the coffee, which is not the case when it was made with boiled or not freshly prepared coffee. When the coffee was cool and the sugar thoroughly dissolved it was frozen. The frappé was served in glasses with a generous spoonful of whipped cream. The cream was sweetened, flavored with lemon and chopped crystallized ginger stirred through it. The recipe for the little cakes is as follows: one-half cup of butter, one cup of powdered sugar, two cups of flour, one-half cup of milk. Cream the but Di ter, then add slowly the sugar, creaming them well together. Add the milk and the flour alternately, beating until light. vide the batter in half, flavor one-half with lemon, and stir one-fourth of a cup of melted sweet chocolate and a pinch of cinnamon in the other. Spread a thin layer of batter on the bottom of an inverted pan with a palette knife. Sprinkle with finely chopped almonds and bake in a moderate oven till done, but not brown. Cut in pieces two inches wide and three long. Let the pans cool before spreading with another layer of batter.-Marie Eulalie Moran, in What to Eat. ENDURANCE OF VEGETARIANS. "DR. BAELZ, of Tokio," according to London Health, "has made investigations as to the endurance of meat abstainers, and found that the vegetarian Japanese possess considerably more endurance than the meateating foreigners. In the interior of Japan, where fish and rice are a scarcity and where butter, milk and cheese cannot be procured because the cows do not give milk, the diet is a scant one, being limited to barley, the soya bean and buckwheat with onequarter rice. The soya bean contains 20 per cent. of oil and almost as much albumin as beef, but it contains much cellulose, making it extremely difficult to digest. "This diet leaves its mark in the skeleton of the Jap. Rachitis is never met with in Japan, yet the rice-eating children exhibit grooves in their bones from compression of the clothing. The wealthy class eat largely a rice diet and as this contains no lime their bones are very soft. Baelz says that he tested the endurance of the Jap in various ways. He once drove 69 miles in fourteen hours, changing horses six times. A Japanese with a cart made the trip in fourteen and a half hours. Two jinrickisha men trotted 25 miles with his weight of 176 lbs. every day in all kinds of weather. At the end of 14 days one carrier had gained 10 lbs. in weight. A little meat was added to their ordinary diet, but the men complained that it made them tired. At the end of 22 days the men were as fresh and energetic as when the journey was begun.". HARMONY OF COLORS AND MOSQUITOES. NUTTALL'S experiments (British Med. Journal), indicate that the Anopheles maculipennis is attracted by some colors and repelled by others. The experiments were conducted in a large gauze tent, one end of which was formed by large windows into which the sunlight poured on bright days. Large stone basins were placed on the floor for the anopheles to breed in.. At the beginning it was noticed that when a person entered the tent clad in dark gray clothes the mosquitoes settled on the dark cloth, but that they never did this when the person entering was clad in white flannels. A number of boxes lined with cloth of various colors were placed in rows on the floor and it was noticed that the mosquitoes would enter the box lined with dark blue in great numbers and, in less numbers, would enter boxes lined with other colors, in the following order: dark red, brown, scarlet, black, slate gray, olive green, violet, leaf green, blue, pearl gray, pale green, light blue, ochre, white and orange. No mosquitoes were found in the box lined with yellow. As practical applications of these experiments it is to be noted that the khaki uniform should offer advantages in addition to being invisible to the human enemy. The number of insects congregating in dwellings might very well be lessened by the choice of suitable colors applied to the walls. A trap might be made, lined with dark blue, in which the insects would congregate, so that they could be readily destroyed in large numbers. Have your mosquito bars yellow. The favorite blue seems to be also the mosquito favorite. PUMPKINS. WHAT are folks going to eat? Potatoes have entered into a combination to limit the supply and put up prices. Apples, ashamed of themselves as the raw material of cider, have respected the scruples of the Drys and cut their own crop. Sad news comes from up this State that pumpkins are few and not especially fit. What is the world coming to? Potatoes are a luxury; apples are a dissipation; pumpkins are a necessity of life. Take out of American literature and history the thoughts that have been thought and the deeds that have been done under the inspiration of pumpkin pie and what is left? Without it, what is man and where is Thanksgiving Day? It is true, and sad, that bungling or degenerate pie-makers make and vend squash pie and call it pumpkin-so dishonoring a great name and deceiving a foolish public; but the soul of the strong is not to be bamboozled by this wicked substitution. Pumpkin, the ornament of the rural landscape in the fall; pumpkin pie, the ornament of the happy home in winter, the mellownamed, mellow-savored, mellow-flavored angel of the insides! It can have no succes sor, no parallel, no proxy. Nobody can be "some punkins" who doesn't stoke his brains with pumpkin pie. Why in blazes aren't there more pumpkins? Is the lack of pumpkins attributable to imperalism, to trusts, to the gold standard or to the absence of the initiative and referendum?—N. Y. Sun. CRANBERRIES. THE pure, fresh juice of raw cranberries, given freely, either undiluted or with an equal part of water, is an excellent means of relieving the thirst in fever, and, moreover, is markedly antipyretic. In the thirst and vomiting peculiar to cholera it is even more effective. In fifty cases in which ice and narcotics failed to make the slightest impression, cranberry juice, in small but repeated doses, rapidly checked both vomiting and nausea.-GORIANSKY. THE VERY LATEST DIETETIC CULT. A RECENT despatch to the New York Times gives the following account of the newest fad in dietetics and digestive prophylaxis. Whatever the sanatory or insane-atory characteristics of this latest delusion, its votaries can at least boast that they have sand in their gizzards: Of all the peculiar sects which have recently sprung up in the West, St. Louis boasts the most striking-a community of dirt eaters. William Windsor, native of Wisconsin, sometime lawyer, college student, student of natural science, is their Moses. Seventy-five men and women form the community. Dirt eating is their only aim and object in life so far as their existence as a community is concerned. They seek to make converts to their belief and practice, and "Head Dirt Eeater" Windsor holds forth in earnest and convincing manner every night to his class at his lecture room, at Eighteenth and Olive Streets, in the old Merchants' League Building. The dirt eaters take every day a spoonful of dirt. They believe that grit is necessary to every animal, and that many of the stomach troubles to which human flesh is heir are due simply and entirely to the absence of grit in the stomach. In support of this unique theory the dirt eaters cite the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the serpents which crawl, asserting triumphantly that none of these share mankind's foolish aversion to good, pure dirt, and none of them have stomach troubles. The dirt eaters maintain their argument is unanswerable. The dirt eater, declares Leader Windsor, soon becomes accustomed to his diet and craves it. The daily allowance of one teaspoonful is washed down with a half glass of water and the dirt eater smacks his lips with relish and winks one eye, in much the same manner as the Kentucky "Colonel" does when sipping his mint julep or his morning toddy. Mr. Windsor's disciples are epicurean in their tastes. They are very particular as to the kind of dirt they eat. This article of their singular diet is technically a sand. It comes from the river bottoms and is made up of many little particles of granite, marble, quartz, and flint well rounded with age. The chief dirt-eater collects the sand and sterilizes it; then it is put up in little bags and sold to the disciples for twentyfive cents a bag. Dirt eating is six months old in St. Louisand flourishes like a green bay tree. The chief dirt-eater is rotund and looks happy and prosperous; the lesser dirt-eaters have good appetites and are enthusiastic in their faith and practice. THAT a lie which is half truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met with and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. -Tennyson. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; -Shakespeare. The island of Key West has tweny-fivethousand inhabitants on a surface of only two thousand acres. A given acreage of wheat will feed at least ten times as many people as the same acreage employed in growing mutton. Two of a thousand things are disallow'd, A lying rich man and a poor man proud. -Herrick. 'Tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perch'd up in a glistering grief And wear a golden sorrow. -Shakespeare. |