FoodNet

Hilda's diary of a Cape housekeeper

1902

Page 19

Presented as published in 1902. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
per hundred fowls, as compared with 1 1 lbs., and though their food cost slightly more money, their advantage is accentuated by better returns in eggs. Not only were the eggs of the hens getting the nitrogenous foods more numerous, but they were larger, more fertile, hatched better, and produced far more vigorous chickens than those of the other birds. Both lots of fowls remained in good health throughout. A subsequent experiment has substantially confirmed the foregoing verdicts, though 'the gain in weight was not so pronounced in favour of the winning lots. The experi- ments as to the flooring of poultry-houses were perhaps a little surprising in their results. Two years’ careful inves- 37 Jan. aARDBNING. WELLS AND WATER tigation has shown that fowls remain in as healthy a condition, and lay as many or more eggs, when kept in unfloored houses as they do when kept in houses pro- vided with floors.” Gardening. — I have so often been asked by new arrivals from England, who are contemplating making this land of ours their home — “ Can’t you write us a little book on gar- dening } and give us a few hints when to sow our seeds, as you gave us recipes in Hilda's Where is it to make your Colonial dishes and preserves.” I would advise them to get an interesting shilling pamphlet. Hints on Gardening Generally, by William Gowie, published by Grocott and Sherry, Grahamstown. There is another pamphlet, also a shilling, called Garden Notes for the Colonies and Abroad, by Messrs. Carter, High Holborn, London, which would be useful. If you are living in any part of the colony where rain falls in summer, such as the Eastern Province — Grahamstown, Queenstown — these books would be specially helpful. If you live in the Cape peninsula itself, you might sow your seeds a month later, unless you can water freely. Storing Water. — Water is always needed in the garden. In places where it is scarce many people have large under- ground tanks as well as dams. Artesian Wells are common now-a-days, and air motors are much used for pumping the water up wherever the house stands on higher ground. At the Towers, where one of my brothers lives, they have an “ air motor ” — something like a windmill — in the garden, which sends the water up to the house. I hear there is a man out here now who was very suc- cessful in finding water in Egypt and the Soudan, but I don’t know if this water-finder has been equally successful 38 FRUIT. DOG AND GRAPE. JAM-POTS Jan. in South Africa. In the western part of the Colony, where the rains are so much more regular and the seasons more settled, irrigation is not much resorted to ; but in the eastern districts it is done by leading water by furrows from dams into the cultivated fields. January 2. — Real Summer. — This, like December, is one of our real summer months, the days being at their longest and often very hot, and very light clothing is required by day — in fact, just what one would wear for summer in England. But the nights are cold and dewy, and one must remember too that the absence of the long English twilight gives a feeling of sudden chill at sunset, and it is wise to be provided with a light wrap as protection if out at that time.