The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-12-04
are Lovingly transferred from the

must be clean n without decay. IL
is not any more fitting to drink a
rotten apple than to eat it. All.
but you never tasted cider before!"
To be sure, but it pays to be decent.
One trouble with much Of our
try life is that it is not decent. If
you will make farm life attractive
to the young let it have all the
sciences. In the home shop there
should be a gasolene engine, with
lathes and all sorts of tools, and a
cider press; these makes the village
saloon insufferably dull.
What an appetite! And yet 1 have
sampled nearly every sort in the Or
chard. and there are over half a
hundred-only a few of them how
ever do not this year bear fruit. Yet
a good appetite is an honest affair
and wholesome. and we are glad to
hear the call for supper. Do you
know samp? Have you ever tasted
1.-THE real oId-fashioned samp? If
not, you have SO far missed the most
perfect food man and nature ever
put their heads togethe rto devise.
Take the very finest ears, right from
the husking. You must not wait for
a flavor of mold to touch eve the
cobs. Dry the ears around the stove
pipe-then persuade your miller to
grind it alone, and to give you the
result at once-it must not lie about
the mill. Then sift out all the fine
meal. and dry the rest on salvers in
the kitchen. When thoroughly cured
put it on the stove in a kettle about
half filled with water. Bring it to
a boil. Then set it back to cook
more slowly-all day. You will
never forget it. if once you have heard
samp boiling on a kitchen stove
the bubbles bursting with a pouff.
pouff. pouff. Stir it gently, but you
must not forget it for a moment. All
day long it must be watched and
stirred and thought of and smelled.
It must go on at daybreak, and it
must gently cook until night. The
odor changes about noontime. 1t be-
comes tempting to the nostrils. 1t
grows irresistible about 4 o'clock. At
6 the fragrance takes possession of
the whole house; it becomes a mys-
terry. The little mother has done
nothing else for two hours but watch
it and smell it. I assure you that a
cook without a good nose is not worth
having. Now the blue bowls are on
the table. A pan Of milk with solid
cream is in the centre. The samp is
yellow as gold, and it is still burst
ing open with little explosions of
heated fragrance. Ye gods! your am
brosia and your nectar are nowhere
compared with samp and milk. The
real samp of our mothers day. 1t
is a lost art. and for these forty
years I have neither tasted nor
smelled genuine samp. Afterward an
apple pie! A pie of Spitzenburg
apples! Our mothers would not cook
any others. and they were right; and
to this day there is no other such
apple for pies. The Astrachan makes
better %jellies, and. for baking, the
York Pippin and the Gravenstein are
ahead; but not for the creation of
that summation Of kitchen art-the
apple pie. Did you ever see one
made? Well, I cannot say how it is
done nowadays, only I suppose it is
like everything else. by measure and
by weight. But then. in my memory
days, a woman did not follow any
rules at all - that is six spoonfuls
of this and two %spoonfuls of that.
Bless my soul! Why. just enough,
and If you have not the cooking in
stinct, so that you know what is
enough, you will not be a cook by
going to a cooking school-not till
you die. But the pie? Yes! 1t was
a compound of goodness. but it had
unity-and it was full of digestion.
remember we'll when my fathers
orchard was almost the only one
west of New England. and that was
not a hundred years ago by any
means; and then the boys came twen-
ty miles to get a pocketful, in the
night. During the last ten years the
1nNl CdoCo pIouuII " oppiSo hoo bSSh
about seventy per cent. in the United
States; that of it's cousin, the pear.
has been two hundred and fifty per
cent; while that other cousin, the
plum, has multiplied three hundred
and thirty-four per cent. 1 have four
apple trees that are one hundred and
sixteen years old, and all four are,
this October, in full fruitage. They
shall have justice and honor, and be
| enabled to bear for fifty years to
come.
In my boyhood the old people
scraped apples when eating them raw,
to avoid indigestion. For a delicate
stomach I could name you half a
dozen sorts: the Wismer. the Deli
cious. the Stuarts Golden. the McIn-
tosh, the Walter Pease. and the
Danchy Sweet. These are creations
of a recent day.
There are already sever thousand
apples catalogued in the United
States. and I suppose a great many
more varieties remain uncatalogued.
What shall the future apple be? Not
seedless, for a seedless fruit is at the
end of evolution. I'VE want seeds
until perfection is reached. Tucked
away in those germs are possibilities
of improvement. "There!" says Ma
ture, take these and try for better
ment. These little brown seeds are
your pledge of possible progress.
When I give you no more seed you
are finished, and I shall take no more
interest in your affairs" A seed