The carpenter does not use one kind of tool for everything--he does not use a chisel where a plane could be used not only to better the job but for his own comfort or pleasure. The same thing can be said of the painter, who would not use a whitewash brush for a varnish job. But the housekeeper seems to think it part of her duty, somehow, to use a one-for-all tool, and then wonder why her work is irksome and her job ill done. It is very often difficult to get a maid to use the proper brush, but you will find, if you do your own work, that you will simplify it by using the right brush at the right time. The long handled type for long distance work, the short for local jobs, soft ones for delicate and so on. This careful work too will preserve the finishes of various things which must needs be brushed and save the cost of renewing paints and varnishes. Brush work in the home is the most pregnable of citadels, but one that can be easily fortified against calumnies by a little attention to what a brush is, does, and can be. Of course, a brush is meant to brush. The two main classes of brushes in which you are interested are the household and personal. Of these two we will discuss the household and just touch in passing the personal brush (such as nail brush, clothes, etc.), and will not enter into the paint-brush story even though the paint-brush is in household use on a surprising number of occasions. Bristles and fibers and hair are the brush of the brush. The finest brushes are of bristle and hair and the less fine are of fiber save where bristle would not function any better for the job than fiber. Hair is used in some brushes where fine work and delicate surfaces are involved. For example, the shaving brush is of hair, the silver brush of bristle, the whisk of fiber. A room wall brush, too, is often of hair to save the paper or wall finish. Bristles come from the hog’s (or boar’s) back, and the colder the country in which this quadruped roams the longer and tougher the bristle. Therefore, the Siberian bristle has always been the toughest--and the Chinese have come a close second. We get bristles, too, from France and Belgium. The bristles from the United States are not tough, as we kill the hog too soon--for bacon. However, for a soft brush these bristles are very fine. Japan imports bristles and so did Austria before 1914. The resilient, springy quality in the bristle cannot be duplicated in any other brush material. Due to-day to the disorganized trade conditions, with Europe and Asia, the bristle brush is almost a luxury. The American brush has been conceded to be as fine as the European or magically “imported” brush, as there is not any place to-day where the home is being studied by the brush makers as it is being done in America. Bristles don’t break if bent--and the longer the bristle, the stiffer and stouter is the butt end by which it is securely fastened. Therefore all hail the wild old hog!