are less expensive, but also less attractive, and in the course of time are liable to rust, particularly in summer, or where the climate is at all damp.  The shelves should be wiped off and regulated once a week, and crockery and utensils kept as bright and shining as plenty of soap and hot water can make them.  The pantry requires special care during the summer, when dust and flies are prone to corrupt its spotlessness.  A wall pocket hung on the door will be found a convenient dropping place for twine, scissors, and papers.

INSECTS AND THEIR EXTERMINATION

It is not just pleasant to associate cockroaches and ants with our kitchens and pantries, but where heat and moisture and food are, there insects will be also, for they seem to enjoy a taste of high life and to thrive on it.  Keep the house clean, dry, and well aired, and all dish and cleaning cloths sweet and fresh by washing and drying immediately after use, with a weekly boiling in borax water; dispose carefully of all food, and then wage a war of extermination.  This is all that will avail in an insect-infested house.  Hunt out, if possible, the nests or breeding places of ants and saturate with boiling water or with kerosene.  Wash all woodwork, shelves, and drawers with carbolic-acid water and inject it into any crack or opening where the pests appear.  It has been suggested that ants can be kept out of drawers and closets by a “dead line” drawn with a brush dipped in corrosive sublimate one ounce, muriate of ammonia two ounces, and water one pint, while a powder of tartar emetic, dissolved in a saucer of water, seems to be effective in driving them away.  Sponges wet with sweetened water attract them in large numbers, and when full should be plunged in boiling water.  Another successful “trap” is a plate thinly spread with lard, this also to be dropped into boiling water when filled.  In order to protect the table from an invasion stand the legs in dishes of tar water to a depth of four inches.  Ants have a decided distaste for the odors of pennyroyal and oil of cedar, a few drops of either on bits of cotton frequently sufficing to drive them away entirely.  As for cockroaches, there appear to be almost as many “exterminators” as there are housewives; but what is their poison in one home seems to make them wax and grow fat in another.  Borax and powdered sugar, scattered thickly over shelves and around baseboards and sink, is a favorite remedy with many, but it is an unsightly mess, particularly in summer, when the sugar melts and becomes sticky.  After all, experience has demonstrated that the one really effectual method of extermination is to besiege the roaches in their own bailiwick—­the pipes and woodwork about the sink—­with a large bellows filled with a good, reliable insect powder.  Exit roaches!

THE REFRIGERATOR AND ITS CARE