hygienically sealed.  In this, the science of our grandmothers, much of their wisdom and practice clings to the art of producing and effecting the good result which were displayed before us; but if the exhibitors did have recourse to the old cookery books, the manner of showing the exhibits, the attractive booths, the managing ability, the business methods were the attributes of the women of to-day—­the advancing, the farseeing business woman.

There were no foreigners in this class.  The exhibitors of the guava jellies and foreign preserves were men.  Man in all countries has been prone to reach out and gather in the best that women have had to give, and in this branch of trade has so enlarged and sometimes, may I add, adulterated the old recipes, and with his money and his army of employees has established great pickling and preserving plants designed to feed the world’s masses.

In most cases the pureness, the sweetest, the old touch of “homemade” is gone, and only until the domestic woman, by dint of hard pressure, has been driven out into the world to gain her own livelihood, has this pure homemade article been put upon the market.  “Pin-money” pickles are now a household word—­made by a woman in Virginia, who started by making for her friends and neighbors, but whose industry has grown now to immense proportions.

In the exhibits by women at the St. Louis exposition two exhibits were worthy of unusual merit—­one a fruit cake containing 41 varieties of preserved fruits, and weighing 81 pounds, made by Mrs. Rose A. Bailey, of California.  Mrs. Bailey preserved these fruits in sugar only.  Her collection of jellies, etc., received the warmest praise, and so much has been said that she is now contemplating the forwarding of a “Home-prepared fruit agency” to be handled by women only.

The other exhibit was the crystallized rose leaves and violets, by another California woman—­so made that the sugar could be peeled off, leaving the rose leaf or violet intact and perfect in its coloring and form.

These were the odd and new exhibits.  A long line of clear jellies and good pickles and toothsome relishes was most willingly judged and more willingly tasted.  A most attractive exhibit of these were in the booth of Mrs. Nathalie Claibourne Buchanan, representing an old Virginia kitchen, its open fireplace with the fire logs in the background, the high mantel with its rows of preserves and pickles, and a dear old black “mammy” in kerchief and bandana as a most fitting setting to the scene.

    No woman received the highest award, the grand prix, but some
    were given the gold medal.