Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/419

1913.] fitting lid, a large cylinder, closed at the top, is pushed over the iron plates and the cooking dishes, until its top forms the top of the cooker. The heat finds it difficult to get out of this closely fitting cylinder, so it remains to cook the food, which it does to perfection, from meats and cereals to corn-bread!

The inner sides of these cookers are packed with mineral wool—asbestos. In some of them, no heating-plates are used, but the food to be cooked is allowed to boil for a few minutes, and then, set into the cooker and tightly covered, the cooking process continues, until the food is ready for the table. A “home-made” fireless cooker was exhibited recently at the at Washington. It was made by placing a large pail in a box of tightly packed hay, and is said to have cost only one dollar.

Our street-cars have for some time been heated by electricity. Electric cookers are still more modern, but we have electric toasters, griddles, ovens and ranges of various shapes and sizes, up to large cabinet affairs with heat indicators and clocks by which the cooking may be regulated. The principle used in the cooking apparatus is the same as that used in the car. The current from large wires is fed to smaller wires which offer a sudden resistance, and the heat thus produced soon becomes intense.

so-called Christmas rose is not a rose, though somewhat rose-like in appearance. It is a little plant belonging to the, with five-petaled, waxy, white flowers two or three inches across. It is not yet known just how far north this plant is hardy, but it has been grown successfully in. The accompanying illustrations were taken by of that city. We shall be glad to receive reports from our readers as to other northern latitudes in which it thrives and blooms. We hope that our young people will send photographs of the plants when in bloom. Rh