The Farm Journal Illustrated Rural Directory of Monroe County, New ...

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · County Directories Collection
beside the mixing board and placed on
the concrete with a bucket.
If you are at all in doubt about the
parity of the water that you contemplate
using, it would be well to make up a
block of concrete as a test, and see
whether the cement "sets" properly.
For ordinary ^ work a very satisfactory
concrete mixture is 1 part of Portland
cement, 2J4 parts of clean sharp
sand, 5 parts of broken stone. In heavy
foundation work, the quantity of cement
can be considerably less. The important
thing is to have the sand and cement
thoroughly mixed, and to use only
clean eand. Use only as much water as
necessary. It is not well to work concrete
in freezing weather.
Cold Storage Without Ice
Why not have a cold storage room
somewhere on the farm? Winter apples
may be kept in such a place until spring,
thus avoiding the necessity of marketing
the fruit at unprofitable times. A
Pennsylvania farmer has such a place
built in one part of his barn—a doublewalled,
double-doored, paper-lined space
wherein he stores many hundred bushel
crates of selected fruit. He says that
the main essentials are to keep out heat
and frost from the room. On cool
nights he leaves the doors open, shutting
them again when the sun begins
to warm things up in the morning—the
idea being to use cold air instead of ice
for reducing the room's temperature.
He aims to get the temperature in the
room as low as possible without freezing
the apples, and then hold it there.
Night air is cheaper than ice, he says,
and about as good.
How to Make and Use a Fireless
Cooker
A saver of time, fuel and labor is
the fireless cook stove, which can be
made at home, absolutely without expense,
and, though not adapted to all
kinds of cooking, answers well for food
that requires long, slow cooking to soften
tissues, bring out flavors and conserve
the juices, such as stews, pot roasts,
soups, cereals, rice, tapioca, dried fruits,
vegetables, etc. It consists of a kettle
of agate or tin, inclosed in a box with
insulating material between them to prevent
the heat of the kettle from escaping.
Food brought to the boiling point
over a fire, and inclosed? still boiling,
•ontinues to cook. This is the whole
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principle. Choose a kettle with tightfitting
lid and a box large enough to
allow six or eight inches of insulating
material. Line the box, bottom, sides
and hinged-on lid with stout packing
paper, or several thicknesses of newspaper.
Make a firm, cylindrical shape
to fit easily around the kettle and fasten
a circular'bottom to it. This might be
of asbestos paper, or paper soaked in
alum water and dried. Xhen no matter
how hot the kettle there would be no
danger of scorching. Fill the bottom of
the box with packing, which can be of
cotton, wool, ground cork (in which imported
grapes are packed and which
grocers are usually willing to give away).
Hay will answer, but does not pack so
closely as these. Pack hard to a depth
of three inches, place the cylinder, containing
the kettle in the middle, and
pack tightly around it, even with the
top. The insulating material can be
covered neatly with cloth, or a thin
board with a round hole in the middle.
A thick cushion will insulate the space
between this and the lid, which must be
fastened down tightly. If desired to.
cook several things at once it is best
to have two or three such cookers, as
the box should not be opened after the
food is put in, except to reheat. Some
persons prefer using a sort of double
boiler, the inner kettle, containing the
food, being placed in a larger one, partly
filled with hot water. In this case the
water in both kettles must be'actually
boiling. An additional vegetable can be
put jn the outside kettle, or water kept
hot in it for dishwashing.
Ready-made cookers can be bought,
but are rather expensive. Some of these
will also bake and roast by means of
thick disks of concrete which must be
made very hot. on the stove, then put
under and over the kettle containing the
food. The idea might be applied to the
home-made cooker by heating soapstone
griddles. These might be heated at the
same time with a large iron pot. The
meat or chicken, which should be seasoned,
can be put in a kettle, a hot disk
put in the bottom of the pot, the kettle
set on this; the other disk put on top,
then put the lid on the pot and bury in
the cooker. The pot, however, should be
inclosed in asbestos paper to avoid possible
ignition. It would be interesting
for each housekeeper to experiment and
invent improvements on the central idea.
The time required for cooking vegetables
varies according to their age and fresh-