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This is a paper on the history of farming in Ontario. It take the reader through the early settlement from 1783 to the modern period of 1888-1912. We see how farming and farm industries developed and how the population was distributed during these times. We see the trends of settlers moving into the Urban centers instead of rural and how the farm industries (making cheese, butter, wool, etc) move off the farm to the city factories. Excerpt: “The farmer’s wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or combination of factories.” Summary by Esther...

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History, Advice, Nature, Science, Instruction

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We cannot ignore the fact that we must eat, and that much as we dislike to acknowledge it, we are compelled to think a great deal about filling our stomachs. This is especially true these days, when prices have soared and soared and taken along with them, far out of the reach of many of us, certain articles of food which we heretofore have always felt were quite necessary to us. About ten years ago the idea of writing a little cook book had its birth. We were in Almora that summer. Almora is a station far up in the Himalayas, a clean little bazaar nestles at the foot of enclosing mountains. Dotting the deodar-covered slopes of these mountains are the picturesque bungalows of the European residents, while towering above and over all are the glistening peaks of the eternal snows. The people of India since Vedic times have eaten curry and always will. (Excerpt from text.)...

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Cookery, Advice, Instruction

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A fifteenth-century Arabic sex manual and work of erotic literature. The book presents opinions on what qualities men and women should have to be attractive, gives advice on sexual technique, warnings about sexual health, and recipes to remedy sexual maladies. It gives lists of names for the penis and vagina, has a section on the interpretation of dreams, and briefly describes sex among animals. Interspersed with these there are a number of stories which are intended to give context and amusement....

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Advice, Erotica, Instruction, Romance

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Bob Brown, after living thirty years in as many foreign lands and enjoying countless national cheeses at the source, returned to New York and summed them all up in this book. Born in Chicago, he was graduated from Oak Park High School and entered the University of Wisconsin at the exact moment when a number of imported Swiss professors in this great dairy state began teaching their students how to hole an Emmentaler. After majoring in beer and free lunch from Milwaukee to Munich, Bob celebrated the end of Prohibition with a book called Let There Be Beer! and then decided to write another about Beer's best friend, Cheese. But first he collaborated with his mother Cora and wife Rose on The Wine Cookbook, still in print after nearly twenty-five years. This first manual on the subject in America paced a baker's dozen food-and-drink books, including: America Cooks, 10,000 Snacks, Fish and Seafood and The South American Cookbook. (Summary from the book jacket)...

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Cookery, Advice, Instruction

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Gardening expert Steve Solomon has written extensively on gardening techniques for the home gardener. Water conservation is the focus of this work, along with more information on how to have the healthiest plants in your garden through fertigation, appropriate plant rotation, and soil preparation. (Summary by Brenda Price)...

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Advice, Instruction, Nature, Science

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Back in the day before automobiles, a good horse trainer and veterinarian was the equivalent of “Mr Goodwrench”. A badly behaving or unhealthy equine was equivalent to breaking down on the highway or running out of gas on a lonely stretch of highway somewhere in Utah. My sources tell me that most of the training methods are ok, but stay away from the medical tips unless you are prepared to become the poster boy or girl for the local SPCA. Listen with tongue in cheek, and check with a professional before attempting any of these techniques on a real animal. Mike Vendetti, narrator...

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Advice, Animals, Instruction, Nature

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One of the beneficial results of the Great War has been the teaching of thrift to the American housewife. For patriotic reasons and for reasons of economy, more attention has been bestowed upon the preparing and cooking of food that is to be at once palatable, nourishing and economical. In the Italian cuisine we find in the highest degree these three qualities. That it is palatable, all those who have partaken of food in an Italian trattoria or at the home of an Italian family can testify, that it is healthy the splendid manhood and womanhood of Italy is a proof more than sufficient. And who could deny, knowing the thriftiness of the Italian race, that it is economical? It has therefore been thought that a book of practical recipes of the Italian cuisine could be offered to the American public with hope of success. It is not a pretentious book, and the recipes have been made as clear and simple as possible. Some of the dishes described are not peculiar to Italy. All, however, are representative of the Cucina Casalinga of the peninsular Kingdom, which is not the least product of a lovable and simple people, among whom the art of livi...

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Cookery, Advice, Instruction

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How to live on 5 cents a day! How to survive financial ruin without losing your house! How to keep to a bare bones budget and still have money left over to buy books! Tough questions! They were tough questions even in the 1870’s, when Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth penned her quirky memoir, the subtitle of which was “How a Lady, Having Lost a Sufficient Income from Government Bonds by Misplaced Confidence, Reduced to a Little Homestead Whose Entire Income is But $40.00 per Annum, Resolved to Hold It, Incurring no Debts and Live Within it. How She has Lived for Three Years and Still Lives on Half a Dime a Day.” Sarah Elizabeth (‘Lizzie‘) Monmouth, born in 1829, was a Civil War widow, living on a run-down small farm in New Hampshire, when her investments imploded. She awoke one morning to find herself poor--an old roof above her, “dearer than life,” but “not a dollar of money left.” For months she was “paralyzed with cold, clammy terror . . . stunned and knew not what to do.” Then her “mind stepped to the front with a bold standard displayed.” She said to herself “Understand, once for all, that I rule and make your plans accordingly....

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Advice, Memoirs