The leaven for this bread is prepared thus: Take a pint of warm water - about 90° - (if a little too hot defeat is certain) in a perfectly clean bowl and stir up a thick batter, adding only a tea-spoon of salt; a thorough beating of the batter is important. Set in a pan of warm water to secure uniformity of temperature, and in two to four hours it will begin to rise. The rising is much more sure if coarse flour or "shorts" is used instead of fine flour.

When your "rising" is nearly light enough, take a pint of milk and a pint of boiling water, (a table-spoon of lime water added is good, and often prevents souring), mix the sponge in the bread-pan, and when cooled to about milk-warm, stir in the rising. The sponge thus made will be light in two to four hours, with good warmth. The dough requires less kneading than yeast-raised dough. The bread is simpler, but not so certain of rising, and you leave out all the ingredients save the flour, water (milk is not essential), and a pinch of salt. It should be made more frequently as it dries faster than bread containing potatoes. Some object to it because of the odor in rising, which is the result of acetous fermentation, but the more of that the more sure you are of having sweet bread when baked. - Mrs. H. Young,