When you are furnishing your pantry bear in mind that it is sometimes poor economy to save money. Be a little lavish in pots and pans, bowls and spoons. Your strength is your capital. Do not squander it by doing without what you need in the way of utensils, or wear yourself out washing them again and again in the course of one morning's work, because you have an over-scant supply of necessary vessels.

There are plenty of homes where the abundant food served on handsome china is prepared by the cook with the greatest difficulty because of insufficient utensils. A visit to such kitchens would reveal make-shifts that are usually associated with poverty. Cake and puddings mixed in a soup-tureen or vegetable-dish, in default of regular mixing-bowls, bread set to rise in a dish-pan for lack of a bread-bowl, left-overs set away in the handsome china dishes in which they came from the table because there are not kitchen plates and cups to hold them, worn-out chop-ping-bowls, leaky measuring-cups, dented and dingy tins, and a general "down-at-heel " condition of affairs.

This is not always the fault of the mistress. Often it happens that she has provided all the essentials, and the carelessness of her servants has brought about the dearth and disorder. Unless she goes into the kitchen regularly, and looks well to the ways of her pantries she must expect that loss and breakages will pass unreported. The woman who does more or less of her own cooking will be spared this annoyance at least.

The best ware for pots and pans is usually of agate-iron, although it is difficult to find a make that will not crack or scale. The blue porcelain-lined vessels are always pretty and clean-looking. Of these or the agate-iron should be the double-boilers, the double - bottomed saucepans, the frying - kettle, the pudding-dishes, and sundry other equally useful vessels. Have an omelet-pan as well as a frying-pan, a waffle-iron as well as a griddle, muffin-tins as well as biscuit-pans. And, above all, do not stint yourselves in the matter of bowls. Have of big bowls one or two, of medium-sized bowls three or four, and of small bowls as many as your financial conscience will allow you to get. They are cheap, they take up little room, are easily kept clean, and are always useful, not only for mixing small quantities, for beating an egg or two, but for holding a spoonful of this or half a cupful of that remnant.

Be lavish, also, in spoons for mixing and for measuring, and in knives of various sizes for cutting meat and bread, for paring apples and potatoes. Have a split spoon for taking croquettes and fritters from the boiling fat, meat-forks, cake-turners, and a palette-knife for lifting and turning an omelette. Provide yourself with a board to cut bread upon, with a paint-brush to grease cake-tins, with an iron-handled chain-dishcloth for cleaning pots and pans, with a long-handled mop, a vegetable-grater, a cheese-grater, a vegetable-press, a gravy-strainer, a long-nosed pitcher for griddle-cake batter, and more than one egg-beater.

There are many other no less useful articles that will readily suggest themselves, such as fish and meat broilers, toasters, croquette-baskets, and the like. This paper is not meant to give a complete list of kitchen furnishings, but rather as a plea to the housekeeper to supply herself with those aids which will lighten her labors. Of course she can branch out to any extent, but there is a clearly drawn line between the things she should have and those she can get along without. Some writers of household topics fail to recognize this point of division, and enumerate among the articles necessary to every cook such a collection of border-moulds, pastry-tubes, boning-knives, salamanders, roasters, steamers, sieves, and bains-jfiarie that the young housekeeper of small means is utterly discouraged, while the experienced woman who has kept house long and well without these appliances is amused and scornful, and discounts the value of the entire list.