Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" by Edith M. Thomas
page 21 of 567 (03%)
page 21 of 567 (03%)
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makes such very pretty bouquets when you gather huge bunches of it."
[Illustration: THE OLD MILL WHEEL] "No, Mary, I think you are thinking of Alsatian clover, which is similar to white clover. The small, round heads are cream color, tinged with pink; it is very fragrant and sweet and grows along the roadside and, like the common white clover, is a favorite with bees. The yellow hop clover we also find along the roadside. As the heads of clover mature, they turn yellowish brown and resemble dried hops; sometimes yellow, brown and tan blossoms are seen on one branch. The cultivation of red clover was introduced here a century ago, and when in bloom the fields attracted great attention. Being the first ever grown in this part of Bucks County, people came for miles to look at it, the fence around the fields some days being lined with spectators, I have been told by my grandfather. I remember when a child nothing appeared to me more beautiful than my father's fields of flax; a mass of bright blue flowers. I also remember the fields of broom-corn. Just think! We made our own brooms, wove linen from the flax raised on our farm and made our own tallow candles. Mary, from what a thrifty and hard-working lot of ancestors you are descended! You inherit from your mother your love of work and from your father your love of books. Your father's uncle was a noted Shakespearean scholar." Many old-time industries are passing away. Yet Sarah Landis, was a housewife of the old school and still cooked apple butter, or "Lodt Varrik," as the Germans call it; made sauerkraut and hard soap, and naked old-fashioned "German" rye bread on the hearth, which owed its excellence not only to the fact of its being hearth baked but to the rye flour being ground in an old mill in a near-by town, prepared by |
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