per month, mostly $5 and $6." Another grape grower writes, in answer to a circular: "I do not employ female help in my business, except for a few weeks during the time of tying up the vines and in gathering the fruit, for which I pay 50 cents per day, without board. Women might be employed to quite an extent in this business, which is increasing in the country to a wonderful degree." RAISERS, MAKERS, PREPARERS, AND DISPOSERS OF ARTICLES OF FOOD. =135. Bread Bakers.= Nearly all the bakeries in New York are attended by women. I could not learn of any women being employed in bread bakeries to mix or bake, but they are in Germany and France. In France the bakehouse girls enter ovens heated often to 300°, and, it is stated, sometimes to even 400°. Bakerooms are usually of such great heat as to be injurious to the health of any but the strongest and stoutest. Some establishments have day and night bakers. The night bakers are up all night, and must have their bread ready by 5.30 A. M. The day bakers go in at 7, and turn out a batch of bread at 11 A. M. Bakers spend on an average seventeen hours at their work, and this no doubt accounts partly for the absence of women from the occupation in this country: seventeen hours out of the twenty-four are too many for any woman to be on her feet. In this country the bakers are robust, hearty-looking men, and mostly Germans. Their average wages are $6 a week. Some bakers have a scaly eruption produced by frequent contact of the skin with flour. Inhaling the flour in mixing bread I have heard is unhealthy. Some women might object to working in the same room with men, and baking is certainly very warm work in summer. In most European cities the price of bread is regulated by the Government. The cost of materials and the state of the market regulate the price. A fine is the penalty for a violation of the law. In this country, bakers regulate the price of bread by the kind and quality. No law is enforced specifying prices. Some years ago an attempt was made in New York to have bread sold by the weight, but the bakers all opposed it. They might have been tempted to put something heavy in the flour. In large cities some establishments are devoted to one branch only of the business. Baker's bread is more used in free than in slave States. In Northern cities some families prepare their bread, cakes, pies, and meats, and send them to bakeries, where for a small sum they are cooked. It saves a vast amount of labor. Some bakers use potatoes in making up wheat bread. I never knew of rice being used by bakers in this country, but know it is by some bakers in Paris. The modes of baking bread, and the kinds of bread used, vary not only in different, but in the same countries. "Some bakers give the impression their bread is made by women," said a lady in a bakery, to us, "but it is not. A woman could not make up two or three barrels of flour in a day. Men are just as neat bakers as women could be." At three