The Lexington Leader (Lexington, Okla.), Vol. 24, No. 45, Ed. 1 Friday, July 23, 1915 Page: 8 of 19
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THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE
in the bidding the lessee must be paid in
lull for the improvements. Improvements
for which the lessee gets credit consist of
houses, barns, fences, breaking sod and even
in cases they have been given consideration
for exterminating towns of prairie dogs
which infested the land when they first ac-
quired possession.
The sales are made on forty years' time.
All that the purchaser is required to pav, if
it be the lessee, is five per cent of the pur-
chase price. If other than the lessee makes
the purchase he i> required to pay the live
per cent down and the full amount of the
appraised value of the improvements. The
rule has been established that where the
tract of land is the home of the lessee that
no bids will be made against him but that
he will be allowed to purchase his home at
the appraised value. Where the lease is
held by some one other than the actual
farmer it is expected that the bidding by
foreign investors will run the price of the
land above the appraised value. At the last
sale held two quarter sections near Cherokee
in Alfalfa county were run up to $19,000.
The lessee took the land at the high bid in
each instance.
With the sale of the lands and the trans-
fer of the title from the state to the indi-
vidual the lands become taxable and will
yield a great revenue to the state funds
which are raised by general taxation.
NOTE.—The next article dealing with the Okla-
homa school lands will be relative to the oil lands
owned bv the state.
a
JyyMrs*. CeorgG C. ]
'on roe
SOMEONE has figured out that if every
boy in the country would eat five apples
a day for the next three months it
would require all the apples which have been
produced in the country this year and would
insure a fair price to the grocers.
Another thing about this boy-apple com-
bination is that it is just as good for the boy
as it is for the apple market. Five applet
a day will merely keep the boy's digestive
organs in good working order.
The common fruits, because of their low
nutritive value, are not as a rule estimated
at their real worth as food. Fruit and fruit
juices supply a great variety of flavors and
keep the blood in a healthy condition.
Nowhere is there a greater need of a gen-
erous supply of fruit than on the farm,
where the diet is apt to be restricted in va-
riety because of the distance from markets.
The home canning of fruits and vegeta-
bles is a matter of more importance to those
who grow such products than to those who
must buy them. The cost of labor and
fuel, added to the cost of the raw materials,
make it wiser for many to buy the canned
article.
Aside from the value as food for the fam-
ily is the convenience of canned fruits and
vegetables for emergency luncheons. The
city woman who can send to the corner
grocer need not worry, but the woman in
the country where the grocer is miles away
needs to prepare for times of siege.
The essential points in all canning are
few—absolute cleanliness, sterilization and
suitable containers, which means the de-
struction and exclusion of ferments, molds
and bacteria.
Over a hundred years ago a Frenchman
first made practical application of the meth-
ods of preserving food by putting it in bot-
tles or cans, which he hermeticallv sealed
He then put the full bottles, or cans in
water and boiled them. At that time, and
even until recent years, it was thought that
the oxygen of the air caused the decompo-
sition of food. Scientists have proven that
it is not the oxygen which causes fermenta-
tion and putrefaction, but bacteria and other
small plant growth. So, while Appert's
theory of the cause of the spoiling of food
was incorrect, yet the world owes him a
debt of gratitude, since his method of pre-
serving it by sealing and corking was cor-
rect.
Bacteria and yeast exist in the air, in the
soil and on all vegetable and animal sub-
stances. Bacteria are one-celled and so
small that they can be seen only by aid of
a microscope. In growing, this single cell
divides, forming two cells. This goes on
so rapidly that it has been estimated that
one single bacterium may produce seven-
teen million similar growths in twenty-four
hours. To grow it is necessary to' have
moisture, warmth and proper food.
y easts, which are also one-celled, grow
less rapidly. A bud develops, breaks off
and forms a new yeast plant.
Spoiling of food is caused by the develop-
ment of bacteria or yeast. Most germs re-
quire air to grow, but there is one kind of
bacteria that grows without air, and if it is
sealed up in a can it spoils the contents of
the can.
Bacteria grow best in foods containing
nitrogen, such as meat, fish, eggs, peas,
beans and milk—especially in warm weath-
er. Bacteria do not grow fast in sweet sub-
stances, while yeasts develop very rapidly
in such. Some vegetable foods contain so
much acid that very few bacteria or yeast
attack them, as lemons, cranberries' and
rhubarb.
So it comes about that canned fruits are
more commonly spoiled by yeast than bac-
teria. When fruits are preserved with large
amounts of sugar they need not be her-
metically sealed to protect them from bac-
teria and yeast, since the thick syrup is
not favorable to their growth. However,
these are best put up in small self-sealing
jars, because mold grows freely on moist
sugary substances exposed to the air.
Every housekeeper is familiar with molds
which during warm and moist weather
grow upon all sorts of starchy materials,
such as boiled potatoes, bread, mush, etc.,
as well as fresh canned and preserved fruits!
Molds grow from spores, which are always
floating in the air. When a spore settles
on a suitable article of food it sends out a
fine thread which branches out and works
its way over and into the substance. At
first it seems white or light gray and can
hardly be seen, but soon the mold becomes
colored, and under a microscope looks like
a beautiful flower garden. These spores
of mold are light and are blown about bv
the wind, but they are heavier than air and
settle everywhere. If one settles in a glas-
of preserves or jelly it will soon grow.
Molds do not work so freely in canned fruit-
as raw.
Canning is from all points the most de-
sirable way of caring for fruits, making
only enough rich preserves to serve for
variety and for special occasions.
1 here are several methods of canning
fruits, as follows:
First, by simply stewing the fruit in an
open kettle and then sealing in jars.
Second, by cooking in jars in the oven.
Put the raw fruit in jars filled with syrup,
boiling hot, and place jars uncovered in the
oven on a sheet of asbestos paper or in a
pan with a little water in it; cook about ten
minutes. If fruit has settled, refill and seal
jars.
Tomatoes cooked in the oven are fine.
First stew a few tomatoes and strain. Then
fill cans with fresh peeled tomatoes, pour-
ing in and filling to overflowing with the
stewed tomatoes. Cook uncovered half
hour; refill and seal.
Third, by cooking in jars in a water bath
By this method prepare the fruit and svrup
as for cooking in the oven. Fill the ster-
ilized jars and put covers on looselv. Have
a wooden rack in bottom of wash boiler and
enough warm water to come about four
inches above the rack. Place the filled cans
on the rack, separating the cans by cloth or
ropes, so they will not bump together when
the water boils. Cover the boiler and cook
truit ten minutes from the time the water
boils. Refill cans with svrup and seal
In canning vegetables by this method the
process is much longer. We are not able
to get a high enough degree of heat to kill
the bacteria that cause decay in vegetables
on our stoves, so to make up we need to
cook the vegetables in the water bath for
three or even four hours. I do not like this
way of canning fruits and vegetables, for
several reasons—the long time necessarv to
have a very hot fire in one's kitchen, makinp-
the room very uncomfortable for doing other
(Continued on Page 15)
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The Lexington Leader (Lexington, Okla.), Vol. 24, No. 45, Ed. 1 Friday, July 23, 1915, newspaper, July 23, 1915; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc110683/m1/8/?rotate=270: accessed April 19, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.