Or an earthen jar or common sauce pan may be used for the outer recep tacle, and rice, cracked wheat, oat meal, prunes, etc., may be cooked without danger of burning.
They are also useful for storing and carrying milk, butter, and eggs.
Baking-powder and Cocoa Cans.— One of these cans, with el few nail holes in each end, is a good soap shaker. This will utilize all the scraps of soap.
Or soak off the wrappers, paint these cans with any color of enameled paint, and label them with gilt or any other colored letters. Use these for all sorts of spices, which may be bought in bulk much cheaper than in cans. These cans are air-tight and will preserve the strength of the contents.
Or use for this purpose empty vase line and cold-cream jars with screw tops. These being of glass, their con tents can be seen at a glance, and no labeling is required.
Cereal Boxes.—The stiff pasteboard boxes in which breakfast foods are sold may be labeled and set in a row on the pantry shelf. When paper bags of dry groceries come from the grocer's, they may be dumped in the proper box, thus saving the time and trouble of opening first one sack and then another to find the right article. Use these for rice, beans, tapioca, corn meal, oatmeal, starch, salt, hominy, buckwheat, sugar, etc.
Labels. — Everything should be la beled for the convenience of every member of the family. Beat up the white of an egg and dilute with a pint of warm water. On ironing day ap ply this both to the label and to the glass or tin, and afterwards run a hot iron over the surface to set it. Tack pasteboard tags on wooden boxes, and on bags containing pieces of cloth of all descriptions tie cloth labels.
Kitchen Cabinet.—A good kitchen cabinet, with metal bins for flour, meal, and other substances that mice are fond of, is an investment which will save time and strength for the housekeeper and will be a money saver in the long run. These bins should be removable, so that they can be regularly washed, scalded, and dried.
To Order Groceries.—A child's school slate hung on a nail in the wall of a kitchen, with a slate pencil attached by a strong cord, will be found a great convenience in ordering gro ceries. When any supplies run low,
make a note on the slate of what is wanted. The whole family will soon get into the habit of making these memoranda, and many steps in run ning errands will be saved. Also make an alphabetical list of groceries in a little indexed alphabetical memoran dum book and hang this up on the same nail. When the grocer calls, run over this list to refresh your mind.
If the various dry groceries, as tapi oca, rice, raisins, etc., are kept in glass jars, it will be easy to see what is wanted, and they will be protected from mice and insects. Fruit jars of various sizes are useful for this purpose.
Or use a pad and pencil to keep memoranda of articles wanted. The paper can then be detached when go ing to market and forms a convenient memorandum.
Storeroom.—A cellar having a ce ment floor and water-tight walls, if kept clean and sanitary, makes an ideal storeroom, but many houses do not have one. A small storeroom can be made in a corner of the cellar at much less cost than is commonly supposed, by putting up walls of concrete made of sand or gravel and cement. Rough boards may be knocked together with very little trouble to make a mold. The cellar walls, if they are tight and dry, will make two sides; or they can be faced with cement by building a board-retaining wall an inch or two from the surface of the cellar wall and pouring the cement back of it. The whole, including the floor, can thus be made solid concrete at a trifling cost. When furnished with a suitable door, this storeroom' will be damp proof and free from dust, germs, and all other unsanitary pests. There should be a cellar window pro tected on the outside by wire netting, and having on the inside a removable screen of cheese cloth to keep out the dust.
Slat shelves painted with white paint and a coat of enamel may be built up in this storeroom in the same manner as book stacks, in a library, i. c., back to back, with just enough room between them for a person to walk. On these shelves preserves, pickles, canned goods, butter, eggs, and other groceries can be stored the year round in perfect safety.