The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-22
HOME HEALTH CLUB
HousehoId Drudge

Household Drudgery:-I presume that if you were to ask the average farmer of today to go back to the methods of farming and do his farm work it was done 50 years ago he would laugh at you. It was a com mon thing 10 years ago for the far mer to draw all of the water for his stock from 8 well, either by hand or with the help of windIass or old fashioned sweep. I have a painful personal recollection of this kind of work during the long winters of Min nesota- Also Of all the hay being cut with seythes; the wheat, oats, barley and rye harvested with cradles and have even helped with a, f1ai1 in the threshing of the grain. The best inventive talent has been devoted to Tightening the burdens of the farm and thus enabling one man to pro duce more than was forInerI pro- duced by three.
 The farmer finds he must have all of the latest and the best labor saving devices and l. agree with that most heartily, but what about the house work :? Not only on the farm but in nearly all the homes of working peo- pie, the modern. kitchen range is about the only advantage the house. wife has over her grandma mother's method of doing the household drud- gerry. True, she doesn't save all the scraps of fat and make her own soap like grandmother did, neither does she weave the cloth for the hon esp11n clothes of her children. but she scrubs the kitchen, rtIbs the clothes on the wash -board and what believe is the hardest, most Frequently necessary and most dreaded work of the house hold. washing and drying the dishes. Three times a, day for 365 days for 50 years ldishwashing has been the ap- palling sentence imposed on the bride who celebrates her golden wedding. The worst feature of the burden has seemed to be that it grew heavier in stead of lighter because more, many more dishes are used nowadays than were used 50 years ago.
 It's only during the last ten or fif- teen years that the inventors have seemed to wake up to the situation and we now have just as good and effective labor saving machinery for the household as we do for the far mer. On the up-to-date farm there is now a gas engine which is used in connection with a. storage battery sys- tern for lighting and through this power, the housewife who keeps up her end with the modern farmer, has an electric vacuum cleaner which does away with the sweeping and car pet beating besides keeps her home much more sanitary than a broom ever could. On wash day she simply pushes a button connected with an electric washing machine and in twenty minutes all of the rubbing on a big batch of clothes is done and while these are being wrung through the electric wringer after rinsing, the washer is cleaning the second lot of clothes.
 For several years the big hotels and restaurants have had successful dish washing machines. You see men us- ua1ty do the work there and when men find hard work they try to, and do usually, find machine to do it. [ presume, that it will be claimed by some that because woman suffrage has compelled men to wash dishes that thas finally developed effective large families, but be that as it may, | am glad we have them at last and that woman is no longer compelled to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen after each meal washing and drying the dishes because some of these little machines both wash and dry without breaking, nicking or cracking a single dish or glass, and that's better than any man could do anyway
 dous amount nf work as well as food and fuel A water supply and waste pipes also are most excellent labor saving devices for the household, but I am inclined to think that the ma chimes that are going to be the great est blessing to housewives will be the dishwasher.