Motherly talks with young housekeepers / embracing eighty-seven brief articles on topics of home interest, and about five hundred choice receipts for cooking, etc.

by Mrs. H. W. Beecher

Other physicians assume that a growing plant is not noxious or in any way detrimental, but that as soon as it begins to blossom it should be at once removed from a bedchamber, and if allowed to remain in the house at all, should be placed, while in bloom, as far as possible from the family apartments.

Again, it is stated—and all these conflicting opinions, we are told, come to us from the “best and most reliable authority”—that no plant, in flower or not, is at all injurious in any part of the house, so long as the perfume from the blossom is not powerful and not at all offensive. “Who shall decide when doctors disagree?” It seems to us very important that our learned, scientific men—those who make the effects of the various gases on life and health a careful study—should give this question a thorough investigation, and when, after mature research, they arrive, as they suppose, at a proper conclusion, should publish their opinion in simple terms, such as all can comprehend. We should rejoice if the conclusion of the whole matter might be such that all could lean upon it with no fear of its proving by and by a broken reed; but it is difficult to keep pace with changes in the results of scientific investigations.

One year certain health-principles are established, the next they are set aside for some other thing. Some articles of food are prohibited as being very injurious, but in a few months the prohibition is cast aside. One mode of diet is declared pernicious, shortening the days, and making the few that are granted undesirable. Yet, just as you are ready to accept this theory, you are told of those who have lived wellnigh to a hundred years, or perhaps have passed that period, always healthful and cheerful, yet the proscribed diet or article of food has been habitually indulged in by them.

For our own part, we find it difficult to believe that the plants cultivated in our homes, and which so beautify and enliven our winters, can be injurious, provided the rooms in which they are placed are kept well ventilated. In severely cold weather it may not be advisable to open a window just over the plants, but when windows are raised to air adjacent rooms, where there are no flowers, then open the doors leading from them to the parlor, or winter garden, that the cold breeze from without may sweep through the whole suite of rooms for a few moments until the air is entirely changed. This, even in the coldest winter, will do the plants no harm, nor their owners either, but, on the contrary, will be very beneficial, making both more healthy and vigorous. Many a lady in mid-winter sits by the fire or register, yawning and stupidly sleepy, with a dull heavy pain over the eyes foreboding a severe headache, who could throw off all this torpidity, defy the headache, and rise up refreshed and vigorous, if she would simply throw open her doors or windows just long enough to drive out the overcharged air in the room, and by so doing bring in exchange a pure and invigorating atmosphere from the outdoor world; and house-plants will be equally benefited by the same prescription.

We should not think it wise to have plants in bloom in the sleeping-apartment, unless the room was large, and the doors so arranged as to favor frequent and complete change of the air.

It is always desirable, just before retiring, to raise the windows for a few moments, not only in the parlors, but in the sleeping-apartments, particularly if they have been used through the day as sewing-rooms. It will insure a more refreshing sleep, and also a brighter awakening in the morning. House-plants should be placed on a stand having castors, so that they can be easily rolled away from the windows when opened, until the room is fully aired; or, if freezing cold, an old cloth kept for the purpose, or old newspapers, should be thrown over the plants to protect them from being chilled.

Cut flowers, we think, should not be left in a bedroom overnight. Just before retiring, set them into a cool, dark closet. They will keep fresh much longer by using this precaution, and the occupants of the chamber escape any possible injury from them. The water in which cut flowers are put ought to be changed every night and morning, or it will become slimy and offensive, as well as injurious.

The love of flowers is very desirable in children, and should be cultivated from their earliest years. For that reason, if for no other, we should be exceedingly sorry to have any physician whose judgment we respected forbid the cultivation of house-plants, particularly in the nursery. In that room every bright and pretty thing should be gathered, and certainly nothing more quickly attracts the attention of children than a choice collection of flowers. To find these all about the house, but especially in the nursery,—their own peculiar domain,—secures a taste for them far more surely than to see them kept exclusively in the green-house, or in rooms set apart for their culture and nothing more. Yet no mother will risk her children’s health in the least degree, and if her physician assures her flowers in any part of the house are harmful, she will eject them at once. We do not at all believe they are injurious to the health, and know that they greatly increase the happiness of those who cultivate them. But we are open to conviction, and if any one of reliable judgment can bring sound reasons against keeping these house-gardens, we should be glad to know of them.

LXV.
BAD BUTTER.

OF all the needless discomforts common to boarding-houses and hotels, we know of none so truly inexcusable, nor which subtracts more from one’s enjoyment, than the use of bad butter for cooking purposes. When placed on the table in the butter-dish, if found to be imperfect or quite unpalatable the butter can easily be rejected. To eat good bread without butter, or, if the bread is unsatisfactory, a fine mealy potato with a little salt, is by no means the greatest hardship that you may be subjected to. But imagine yourself seated at the table, and a large dish of fresh peas, green and tender, brought in. You have been hoping, almost impatiently, to see them each day, and now what a feast is yours, in anticipation. You can hardly wait till the soup is removed. Visions of the splendid peas, of sweet and delicious flavor, which you used to eat at your father’s table, are floating before you; and tender remembrances of the dear hand that then so deftly ministered to your childish appetite are rising, until you are fast verging toward sentimentality, when your turn comes to be helped. These peas are the first real country peas, picked right from the vines, you have tasted since your home was established in the city, and you eagerly bid farewell to sentiment, and address yourself to the full enjoyment of visible, tangible things. How you would like to take a real big mouthful in a childlike manner! But you control your eagerness, and, ladylike, demurely carry the spoon to the mouth. O horrors! Have you fortitude and self-possession sufficient to enable you to swallow that detestable morsel? Politeness and unwillingness to exhibit your disgust to others at the table control you. With a shuddering gulp you swallow, but hold your breath till you snatch a piece of bread or a mouthful of water to send after, with some faint hope of removing the vile taste. What is it that so disturbs you? Rancid butter! Is there anything, any taste more revolting and abominable? That delicious dish of peas spoiled, irretrievably, by a spoonful of the nauseous abomination, manufactured by careless dairy-women, and bought by easily gulled grocers, or by those persons possessed of india-rubber consciences, capable of stretching to any imaginable length, who will sell this abomination for good butter. Or it may be some sharp, managing landlady has bought it, knowing its bad character, for economical reasons. Her boarders will not eat very heartily of any dish that is flavored with such butter, and yet they will be compelled to eat something, even if distasteful. We know such ideas of economy—not honesty—are common; but boarders are very foolish who submit to this imposition. If they choose, they can easily teach such unscrupulous managers that being “penny wise and pound foolish,” in the long run, will not secure prosperity.