The simplest plan is to take a tin pail and invert a perforated tin pie plate in bottom, or have made for it a removable false bottom perforated with holes having legs half an inch high, to allow circulation of the water. The milk b is set on this fulse bottom, and sufficient water is put into the pail to reach the 1 of the surface of the milk in the bottle. A hole may be punched in the cover of pail, a cork inserted, and a chemical thermometer put through the cork, so that bulb dips into the water. The temperature can thus be watched without remo the cover. If preferred an ordinary dairy thermometer may be used and the perature tested from time to time by removing the lid. This is very easily arran and is just as satisfactory as the patented apparatus sold for the same purpose. accompanying illustration shows the form of apparatus described.

Inasmuch as the milk furnished to consumers in larger cities in summer cont at the time of delivery an immense number of miscellaneous bacteria, the al procedure does not fully meet the requirements during hot weather, not only beca such milk will not remain fluid for twenty-four hours unless kept in a good refri ator, but because the bacteria not destroyed by the heating may at times prod digestive disturbances in the very young. Under the circumstances it is best to b the bottles in the water until it boils or to use one of the many steamers now in market. After the bottles have been kept at the boiling point for three to minutes they should be cooled as promptly as possible and kept in a refrigera until used. If it is known that the milk reaches the consumer soon after milki it is safe to adopt the procedure first recommended aud to raise the temperature 165° before removing the pail from the fire. In cold weather the process as rec mended in the first edition is entirely satisfactory.

Before using the dairy thermometer it is best to have it tested, as it may be u liable in the upper parts of the scale.

OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

The Office of Experiment Stations, which is a part of the U Department of Agriculture, has during the past year engaged its almost wholly in preparing for publication works based upon reports of Agricultural Experiment Stations and other institutions agricultural inquiry in the United States and foreign countri Bulletins, reports, and other publicatious from such stations ha multiplied so rapidly that it is absolutely necessary to brief them order to give them general circulation. Therefore, in order to rea the American farmers, the aforesaid bulletins and reports have be abstracted, sifted, compiled, and published in convenient for Twenty-four (24) documents, making over two thousand (2,000) pag have been issued. Among them is the fifth volume of the Expe ment Station Record. It contains abstracts of three hundred and t (310) reports of American stations, sixty-seven (67) bulletins of th Department, and two hundred and twenty-seven (227) reports of fo eign stations and other institutions.

The "Handbook of experiment station work" is a digest of t published work of the American experiment stations during the pa twenty years. There has also been prepared a number of farmer bulletius, based chiefly upon the work of experiment stations. The is now in process of publication a handbook on the culture and uses the cotton plant. This will present a scientific and condensed stat

ment of practical knowledge. It will tend to improve the varieties the cotton plant and advance the methods of culture and stimulate t production and use of cotton-seed products.

During the year seeds of new and rare varieties of foreign plan and vegetables have been distributed to forty (40) experiment statio and to about three thousand (3,000) farmers selected by those statio for the purpose of making full tests.

The Secretary of Agriculture in his report for 1893 called attenti to the fact that the appropriations made for the support of the expe ment stations throughout the Union were the only moneys taken o of the National Treasury by act of Congress for which no accounti to Federal authorities was required. The Fifty-third Congress, hee ing the suggestion, in making the appropriation for the Departme for the present fiscal year provided that—

The Secretary of Agriculture shall prescribe the form of annual financial stat ment required by section 3 of said act of March 2, 1887; shall ascertain whether t expenditures under the appropriation hereby made are in accordance with the pr visions of said act, and shall make report thereon to Congress.

That the stations might have the earliest advice as to the intention of the U. S. Department of Agriculture with regard to their expend tures, schedules for the financial reports of the experiment station were prepared and issued to them immediately after the appropriati bill had passed. This new provision of law, construed with the pr vious legislation on the subject, gives the Secretary of Agricultu ample authority to investigate the character and report upon t expenditures of all these stations. Obeying this law, the Departme of Agriculture proposes to make, through its expert agents, systemat examinations of the several stations during each year, for the purpo of acquiring, by personal presence, detailed information necessary enable the Secretary of Agriculture to make an exhaustive and co prehensively satisfactory report to Congress. It is due to the board of management of the several stations to state that, with great cord ality, they have, almost unanimously, approved the amendment the law which provides for this supervision of their expendture Many of them declare that it will increase the efficiency of th stations and protect good men from loose charges of the misuse public funds; and, furthermore, that it will bring the U. S. Depar ment of Agriculture into closer and more confidential relations wi the experiment stations, and that acting together thus harmonious and intelligently, the efficiency of their service to the agriculture the Union will be vastly advanced.

NUTRITION.

Acting upon the recommendations contained in the report of 189 Congress appropriated ten thousand dollars ($10,000) "to enable t Secretary of Agriculture to investigate and report upon the nutriti

value of the various articles and commodities used for human fo with special suggestion of full, wholesome, and edible rations, 1 wasteful and more economical than those in common use."

Out of this appropriation money will be used to make analyses food materials not heretofore analyzed, and for the investigation the dietaries of the different classes of people in different portio of the country. The relation of food supply and consumption will elucidated. Inquiries as to the best means of improving the metho of investigations along these lines will likewise be diligently ma A large amount of preliminary work has been accomplished duri the year, the results of investigations thus far made in this count and elsewhere have been correlated, and a bulletin containing a résu of these matters is already in press.

The health of all depends largely upon the adaptability of the fo consumed. The capacity for work in each human being rests upon t same foundation. But the most intelligent know very little as to t real composition of their daily food. The kinds or amounts of nut tive material contained in it and its value are generally matters guess-work, if thought of at all. The cost of this ignorance is loss health and waste of money. Unfortunately it is the poor who suff most from the unwise purchase and improper use of food. It is t often true that the poor man's money is the worst spent in the marke and too often true that the poor man's food is the worst cooked a served at home. In this matter of nutrition is a verification of t Scriptural passage: "To him that hath shall be given, and from hi that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath."

From the hygienic standpoint also the demand for increased know edge of this kind is imperative. A large part of the diseases former attributed to old age is due, in greater or less degree, to errors in die

Earnest and intelligent investigation of food and the relative nut tive value of various kinds is needed, and the facts found in the researches should be widely scattered among the people of the Unite States. And it must not be forgotten that here, as elsewhere, tl knowledge which has the most immediate, practical value must based upon research of the highest scientific order.

Coöperation by the agricultural colleges and experiment station will be sought in these investigations. To Mr. Edward Atkinso economist and publicist, of Boston, Mass., and to the distinguishe physiological chemist, Prof. W. O. Atwater, of the Wesleyan Unive sity at Middletown, Conn., the Department and the American peop are very much indebted, because of their earnest, intelligent research in, and unselfish devotion to, the science of nutrients and nutrition.

If such investigations are considered by such men worthy of the diligent and untiring pursuit, how much more ought the same subject to be of interest to the teachers and pupils of the schools of this Repul lic? As civilization advances, the time approaches when the proper us

of nutrients and the correct nutrition of the human body will regarded as indispensable to the proper education of every Americ boy or girl.

A farmers' bulletin, containing an elementary discussion of the nu tive value and pecuniary economy of foods is now nearly ready distribution. Fully one-half of all the money earned by the wa earners of the civilized world is expended by them for food. In t paper the first lessons are given in the proper selection and econo in the use of food materials. But an economy of food is not the o thing desirable. More important than this is the question of cooki food in such manner as will, in the greatest degree, promote the pub health.

The following extract from the farmers' bulletin on foods, abo referred to, was given to the newspapers of the United States so weeks since. It contributed to a discussion of the discrepan between the price of flour to the baker and the price of bread from t baker, which has made better loaves and more nutriment for less mon in many cities throughout the country. All eat bread. They have be benefited. Relatively few make bread, and they have not been unjus treated:

THE COST OF BREAD.

The chief difference in the composition of flour and bread is the proportions water, which makes about one-eighth the weight of flour and one-third that of bread. The average composition of wheat flour and the bakers' bread made from is about as follows:

In making the bread a little butter or lard, salt, and yeast, and considerable wat either by itself or in milk, are added to the flour. The yeast causes carbohydra (sugar, etc.) to ferment, yielding alcohol and carbonic acid in the form of gas, wh makes the dough porous. In the baking the alcohol is changed to vapor and carbonic acid is expanded, making the bread still more porous, and both are mos driven off. Part of the water escapes with them. The amount of sugar and ot carbohydrates lost by the fermentation is not very large, generally from 1 to 2 cent of the weight of the flour used. With the increase in the proportion of wa in the bread as compared with the flour the proportion of nutrients is diminish but the addition of shortening and salts brings up the fat and minerals in the bre so that the proportions are larger than in the flour.

In practice 100 pounds of flour will make from 133 to 137 pounds of bread, average being about 136 pounds.

Flour, such as is used by bakers, is now purchased in the Eastern States at over $4 per barrel. This would make the cost of the flour in a pound of bread about

cents. Allowing one-half cent for the shortening and salt, which is certainly ve liberal, the materials for a pound of bread would cost not more than 2 cents. course there should be added to this the cost of labor, rent, interest on investmen expense of selling, etc., to make the actual cost to the baker.

Very few accurate weighings and analyses of bakers' bread have been made this country, so far as I am aware, but the above statements represent the facts nearly as I have been able to obtain them.

The average weight of a number of specimens of 10-cent loaves purchased in Mi dletown, Conn., was one and one-fourth pounds. This makes the price to the co sumer 8 cents per pound. The price of bread and the size of the loaf are practical the same now as when the flour cost twice as much.

The cost of bakers' bread is a comparatively small matter to the person who on buys a loaf now and then, but in the Eastern States and in the larger towns throug out the country many people, and especially those with moderate incomes and tl poor, buy their bread of the baker. Six cents a pound or even half that amount f the manufacture and distribution seems a very large amount.

In the large cities competition has made bread much cheaper, but even there th difference between the cost of bread to the well-to-do family who bake it themselv and to the family of the poor man who buy it of the baker is unfortunately larg

DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY.

On April 26, 1894, Prof. C. V. Riley, for many years the chief of th Division of Entomology of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, sub mitted his resignation. That communication states: "This action, whic I have for some time contemplated, is taken without suggestion from or consultation with you (the Secretary of Agriculture) or anyone else but purely for the reasons mentioned." Among those reasons is stated "a due regard for the wishes of family and for health."

The services of Prof. Riley to American entomology, extending ove nearly a generation, are fully known and justly appreciated in the United States and in foreign lands. His resignation for the reasons which h cogently stated compelled its own acceptance and released him from arduous and taxing duties. Mr. L. O. Howard, who had during nearly the entire incumbency of Prof. Riley been the assistant entomologist and who had already earned a reputation as a scientific man and a economic entomologist, was promoted immediately to the position o chief of the division, and then, by order of the President of the United States, the division was classified into the civil service, so as to include both the chief and assistant chief.

In the year 1894 diligent attention has been paid to ascertaining the exact localities in the several Eastern States where the San Jose of pernicious scale of California is alleged to have made its appearance The method of the dissemination of this pest has been found, and the nurserymen concerned in its spread have been induced to make strenuous efforts for its destruction.

Insects injurious to stored grains have also been under continuous investigation, and a full report thereupon, with results of remedial experimentation, will soon be given to the public.