Excerpt: 'Ignorant buying is the junk-piles subsistence. This book is in no way intended to be a book on household efficiency, in the usual sense of the wordit is no religio-culinaris, no domestic Baedecker or home Taylor. It is merely meant to be a means to the purchase and care of the best household equipments and to be an instruction before not after the purchase is made. Further, it is meant to cheat the junk-pile, by inspiring the buyer to get the maximum advantage out of every purchase of the thing he buys and by the proper care of it after he gets it. It is a book which conspires against the aspiring junk heap in the yard or in the store-room. There is so much in the market to-day in the way of household equipments and devices, that a book like this is necessary to give the home-keeper as much of an idea as to what to eliminate as to what to choose. It is necessary, too, to give the home-keeper an idea of the maintenance of what she has elected to buy, as the proper care of possessions adds 100% to their longevity. In every case in this book the very best devices are discussed. If the reader feels that in any case a too expensive article has been delineated at least he (or she) will get from the discussion of the thing, an idea and ideal of what is to be demanded of this sort of device ... and if she (or he) be improvident, will immediately buy a cheap thing instead of waiting until he (or she) can afford a better article if not the best. In short, the purchaser should demand in every purchase the largest collection of best traits. So this book, then, aims to give the purchaser an idea of what things or qualities to buy; to stimulate the manufacturer who is ready to furnish them when given a reason for doing so; to make of every purchase a paying investment, not a mere expenditure; and to cheat the Cr½sus-like junk-man out of his expected heritage.'