Among the adaptations of the old ideas with new and modern improvements is the fireless cooker. Ages ago Norwegian and German peasant women, obliged to be away from the house all day working in the fields, knew the secret of bringing food to the boiling point and then continuing its cooking and keeping it hot by packing it in an improvised box of hay. In the evening when the women returned, weary and worn from their field labor, there was the family dinner all ready to serve. German club women were the first to see the value of this idea adapted to the needs of the German working class of the present day. These German club women revived the hay boxes and distributed numbers of them among poor families and began an educational campaign on their use. The American manufacturer, ever on the alert for ideas, was quick to perceive the economic and commercial advantages of making such an appliance in an up-to-date manner, and so to-day we have on the market numerous fireless cookers. The principle of fireless cooking, though it bears the difficult name of recaloration, is simple enough. It is merely the retention of heat through complete insulation, just as we retain cold in the ice-box by complete insulation. In the first case, a material which is a poor conductor of heat is interposed between the kettle of hot food and the surrounding atmosphere to prevent radiation or the escape of heat into the surrounding air. In the second case, a poor conductor of heat is placed between the ice and the warmer surrounding atmosphere to prevent the contact of the atmosphere with the ice and the consequent equalization of temperatures. A vacuum is an excellent non-conductor of heat and is employed in the Thermos bottles advertised for use on automobile trips, but a vacuum is expensive and difficult to obtain, which accounts for the high price of Thermos bottles. The effort has been to find some insulating agent within the means of the average housewife. This has now been done in the metal-lined cookers. The explanation of the cooking principle is equally simple. Ordinarily we heat food to a certain temperature, say, the boiling point, and then we leave it over the fire for some time, not to get hotter, that would be impossible, but to keep it at the same degree of heat, and to do this we must, on account of radiation into the surrounding atmosphere, keep on supplying heat. In the fireless cooker the heat once generated is conserved, and there is no need to add thereto. Herein lies the economy in fuel. You have only to burn gas long enough to bring the food to the boiling point, and the fireless cooker does the rest. You can put dinner on to cook, and go to work, to the theatre, to visit a friend, or read, or sew, without giving your meal any further attention till time to serve it. This sounds like a fairy tale, but it is absolutely true.