Friday, January 4, 2013

Canning Meats, Making Money, and Other News From Farm Women, 1939

“For the Farm Woman” by Dr. Jane S. McKimmon, Assistant Director of State Extension, the January, 1939 issue of Carolina Co-operator. Just a reminder, the USDA has current directions for home canning on the web at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2011news/home_canning_guide.html. The following article talks about using a pressure cooker to home can meats. But then it instructs the reader to can at 15 pounds pressure. Only a pressure canner has a gauge that measures pounds pressure. Pressure cookers should not be used to can foods. See canned meats at: http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/GUIDE%205%20Home%20Can.pdf. Canned meats never get freezer burn!
The same pressure cooker which you used for corn and beans last summer can very conveniently and safely preserve backbone, sausage, liver, and other parts of freshly killed pigs. No longer is it necessary for you to eat a larger portion of fresh pork than is good for your health because you want to save it—canned pork is a delicacy for farm families at all seasons of the year. It’s done like this:
Select fresh, clean meat. Discard all fat. Chill the pork 24 hours before canning. Cut into pieces of convenient size and pack in hot sterilized jars. Arrange the pieces so that heat may penetrate readily, which must be done both with partially cooked and raw meats.
Add 2 teaspoonfuls of salt to each quart, and pepper may be used sparingly if desired. Sausage and liver should be packed dry and all other cooked parts covered with broth or with diluted pan gravy to improve the flavor. Leave ½ inch space at the top of the jar when packing.
Do not add liquid to meat which is packed raw as processing will draw out enough liquid to cover the product. Process both raw and cooked meat 60 minutes at 15 pounds pressure and you will have toothsome meats to serve your family or guests at any time of the year. Write for the meat canning bulletin, State College, for more detailed directions.
Hobbies Pay Off
Did you know that a farmer invented the typewriter? Perhaps this bears out the theory of Francis Jenkins, inventor of a system of television, who said that a new thing always originates in a single mind, usually the brain of a poor man. Great inventions are not the product of great wealth, but have almost always been the result of someone’s riding a hobby, a kindly soul tinkering around in the woodshed with perhaps what the neighbors were pleased to call his “crazy” idea.
Of course, we can’t all be great inventors, but we can learn how to utilize the things that are produced on the farm. Many North Carolina farm women are making rag rugs in gay colors and attractive patters so hard to resist by women who live in the city. Some are putting up jars or jams or jellies in odd-shaped and unique little jars, and they always bring good prices. Pine cones and needles, painted with silver, blue, and gold, make attractive ornaments. Some are creating markets for the small food surpluses on the farm.
There are a great many things “right under your nose” that you can sell if you’ll only look and take advantage of them.
Mecklenburg County Woman’s Market
The present success of Mecklenburg County’s market for farm women dates back to what was done in 1935, when it was established in Charlotte on the corner of 2nd and Brevard Streets. The market’s growth was so encouraging that in 1937, the county board of commissioners appropriated $1,000 for more adequate quarters, and it was moved to its present site on the first of January, 1938.
The market did a $12,874 business last year, which was an increase of more than $5,000 over the record sales of 1937. During 1938 about 200 families of the county sold their produce on the market, which is open on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and every Saturday an average of about 35 families have produce on sale. Each seller stands behind her portion of the 15 by 12-foot tables in the market and is responsible for the quality of the things she sells.
Mrs. Ralph Urey of the Dixie Community has been manager of the market for a number of years, and she determines prices by current cash-and-carry prices in Charlotte.
Recently Fannie Caldwell of the Newell Club won a large cookie jar in a contest for table arrangement, while second prize, a carved wood nut bowl, went to Mrs. Clyde Hewitt.
Gourds
Oddly shaped and beautifully colored gourds have a market value and now that women become ornamental gourd conscious, you can see them growing along fences almost everywhere.
The possibilities for the use of gourds are many. Small flower baskets, hanging baskets, candle sticks, and charm strings, into which they may be fashioned, always prove fascinating, both to the one who grows them and the one who buys them. Small round gourds, with the tops cut off and with ferns planted in them, might sell well on the curb markets.
If you do attempt to grow gourds, see what you can do by way of changing their shapes while they are growing. It is interesting to watch the various shapes and colors as the vines bear fruit and odd shapes are always salable.
The neck or some other part of the gourd can be narrowed by tying a cloth band round it. As the gourd grows it will bulge around the band. To have a long, straight handle, train the vine on a fence and let the gourd hang down. The weight of the large part will keep the handle straight.
Budgeted Wardrobe
If you accomplish the feat of dressing well on a small income, it will take a large amount of head work, with much washing, pressing, mending, and sewing; also good taste and care and restraint in budget hunting.
A clothing budget apportioning from 12 to 20 percent of the family’s income is divided as follows: 65 percent for outer clothing, such as coats and dresses; 20 percent for accessories, such as shoes, hats, stockings, gloves, handkerchiefs, scarves, etc.; 12 percent for underclothes; and 3 percent for upkeep.
The coat is the most important garment in a woman’s wardrobe and takes up a goodly slice of the 65 percent of her budget allotted to outer clothing. It should be well cut and fitted because it is seen most often, not only in the season in which it is purchased but in the other years during which it must be worn. Under such circumstances you should not indulge in fads or fancies. When you choose your coat, look for good material, good lines, good workmanship, and a color not too pronounced for you cannot afford to be spotted by an insistent color in which you will appear perhaps more than one year. Better stick to blacks, browns, navies, or grays, which are dependable and go well with almost any other color.
Gaston Community Center
Most of the Home Demonstration Club houses which have been built in North Carolina are growing into real community centers. About 150 members of the men’s club and the Home Demonstration Club in the Goodwill Community, Gaston County, came together last month in the club house for games, singing, and refreshments.
Carrying out their policy of helping the women help the community, these men have added to the club house china in the approved pattern and are now embarked on a rock driveway from the road to the door and paths to other spots.
Women’s News
The Gaston County home agent took her prize-winning girls in the county dress revue to a first Monday meeting of the county commissioners to let them see how well those prize winners could model the dresses they had made themselves.
Lorna Langley became Sampson County agent recently to succeed Minnie Lee Garrison, who was appointed home agent in Polk County.
Josephine Hall, former home economics teacher in Wagram, recently took up her duty as Hoke County home demonstration agent.
The Strowd Hill Club of Orange County recently met in the kitchen of Mrs. Oscar Ray and witnessed a meat-canning demonstration given by the Orange County home agent.
Mrs. Jasper Hargell of Jones County made a new spring suit out of five fertilizer bags, a five cent spool of cotton, and brown buttons taken off an old suit.
A number of farm women in Anson County will soon have electricity in their homes as the REA has already promised that some electric lines will be built in the near future.
‘Eleanor Roosevelt’ is the name given one of the three new strawberry varieties resulting from cooperative breeding investigations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the N.C. Agricultural Experiment Station at State College, and the State Agriculture Department.
The 4-H girls of Chowan County have been making Scotch hats, scarves, and vests as accessories for spring, and their next project will be a cotton school dress.
Hattie Pearl Mallard, a former Jones County 4-H Club girl, is the new Duplin County home agent, succeeding Jayme Martin, who was recently married.


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