Part 6

_Puds in Candy._--Can be made in the same manner, substituting stoned raisins for the figs. Common molasses candy is very nice with all kinds of nuts added.

_Scotch Butter Candy._--Take 1 pound of sugar, 1 pint of water: dissolve and boil. When done add 1 tablespoonful of butter, and enough lemon juice and oil of lemon to flavor.

_Icing for Cakes._--Beat the whites of two small eggs to a high froth; then add to them a quarter of a pound of white, ground, or powdered sugar; beat it well until it will lie in a heap; flavor with lemon or rose. This will frost the top of a common-sized cake. Heap what you suppose to be sufficient in the centre of the cake, then dip a broad-bladed knife in cold water, and spread the ice evenly over the whole surface.

_Saffron Lozenges._--Finely powdered hay-saffron, 1 ounce; finely powdered sugar, 1 pound; finely powdered starch, 8 ounces. Mucilage to mix.

_Chocolate Cream._--Chocolate, scraped fine, ½ ounce; thick cream, 1 pint; sugar (best), 3 ounces; heat it nearly to boiling, then remove it from the fire, and mill it well. When cold add the whites of four or five eggs; whisk rapidly and take up the froth on a sieve; serve the cream in glasses, and pile up the froth on the top of them.

_Candied Lemon or Peppermint for Colds._--Boil 1½ pounds sugar in a half pint of water, till it begins to candy around the sides; put in 8 drops of essence; pour it upon buttered paper, and cut it with a knife.

VALUABLE MISCELLANEOUS RECEIPTS, FOR THE HOUSEHOLD AND EVERY DAY REQUIREMENTS.

_Alum in Starch._--For starching muslins, ginghams, and calicoes, dissolve a piece of alum the size of a shellbark, for every pint of starch, and add to it. By so doing the colors will keep bright for a long time, which is very desirable when dresses must be often washed, and the cost is but a trifle.

_Cider Yeast._--Take cider from sour apples before it ferments, scald, skim thoroughly, and pour, while hot, upon flour enough to make a stiff batter. When cool, add yeast of any kind, and let it rise, stirring it down as often as it tries to run over for several days, then put it in a cool place (where it will not freeze), and you will have something equal to the best hop yeast. It will keep until May without any further labor.

_To Destroy Cockroaches._--The following is said to be effectual: These vermin are easily destroyed, simply by cutting up green cucumbers at night, and placing them about where roaches commit depredations. What is cut from the cucumbers in preparing them for the table answers the purpose as well, and three applications will destroy all the roaches in the house. Remove the peelings in the morning, and renew them at night.

_Fire Kindlers._--Take a quart of tar and three pounds of resin, melt them, bring to a cooling temperature, mix with as much sawdust, with a little charcoal added, as can be worked in; spread out while hot upon a board, when cold break up into lumps of the size of a large hickory nut, and you have, at a small expense, kindling material enough for a household for one year. They will easily ignite from a match and burn with a strong blaze, long enough to start any wood that is fit to burn.

_Remedy against Moths._--An ounce of gum camphor and one of the powdered shell of red pepper are macerated in eight ounces of strong alcohol for several days, then strained. With this tincture the furs or cloths are sprinkled over, and rolled up in sheets. Instead of the pepper, bitter apple may be used. This remedy is used in Russia under the name of the Chinese tincture for moths.

_Substitute for Yeast._--Boil one pound of flour, one quarter pound of brown sugar and a little salt in two gallons of water for one hour. When milk-warm, bottle and cork close, and it will be ready for use in twenty-four hours.

_To make Ley._--Have a large tub or cask and bore a hole on one side for a tap, near the bottom; place several bricks near the hole and cover them with straw. Fill the barrel with strong wood ashes. Oak ashes are strongest, and those of appletree wood make the whitest soap. Pour on boiling water until it begins to run, then put in the tap and let it soak. If the ashes settle down as they are wet, fill in until full.

_Tomato Wine._--Take ripe, fresh tomatoes, mash very fine, strain through a fine sieve, sweeten with good sugar, to suit the taste, set it away in an earthen or glass vessel, nearly full, cover tight, with exception of a small hole for the refuse to work off through during its fermentation. When it is done fermenting it will become pure and clear. Then bottle, and cork tight. A little salt improves its flavor; age improves it.

_To Color Brown on Cotton or Woolen._--For ten pounds of cloth boil three pounds of catechu in as much water as needed to cover the goods. When dissolved, add four ounces of blue vitriol; stir it well; put in the cloth and let it remain all night; in the morning drain it thoroughly; put four ounces of bi-chromate of potash in boiling water sufficient to cover your goods; let it remain 15 minutes; wash in cold water; color in iron.

_To Cleanse and Brighten Faded Brussels Carpet._--Boil some bran in water and with this wash the carpet with a flannel and brush, using fuller's earth for the worst parts. When dry, the carpet must be well beaten to get out the fuller's earth, then washed over with a weak solution of alum to brighten the colors. Some housekeepers cleanse and brighten carpets by sprinkling them first with fine salt and then sweeping them thoroughly.

_To give Stoves a Fine, Brilliant Appearance._--A teaspoonful of pulverized alum mixed with stove polish will give a stove a fine luster, which will be quite permanent.

_Method of Keeping Hams in Summer._--Make bags of unbleached muslin; place in the bottom a little good sweet hay; put in the ham, and then press around and over it firmly more hay; tie the bag and hang up in a dry place. Ham secured in this way will keep for years.

_How to Cause Vegetables and Fruits to Grow to an Enormous Size and also to Increase the Brilliancy and Fragrancy of Flowers._--A curious discovery has recently been made public in France, in regard to the culture of vegetable and fruit trees. By watering with a solution of sulphate of iron, the most wonderful fecundity has been attained. Pear-trees and beans, which have been submitted to this treatment, have nearly doubled in the size of their productions, and a noticeable improvement has been remarked in their flavor. Dr. Becourt reports that while at the head of an establishment at Enghien, or the sulphurous springs, he had the gardens and plantations connected with it watered, during several weeks of the early Spring, with sulphurous water, and that not only the plantations prospered to a remarkable extent, but flowers acquired a peculiar brilliancy of coloring and healthy aspect which attracted universal attention.

_Drying Corn._--With a sharp knife shave the corn from the ear, then scrape the cob, leaving one-half the hull clinging to the cob. Place a tin or earthen vessel two-thirds full of this "milk of corn" over a kettle of boiling water, stir frequently until dry enough to spread upon a firm cloth without sticking, when the wind and sun (away from dust and flies) will soon complete the process. To prepare for the table, put in cold water, set it where it will become hot, but not boil, for two hours; then season with salt and pepper, boil for ten minutes; add of butter and white sugar a tablespoonful of each just before ready to serve.

_To Destroy Lice on Chickens._--The following will kill lice on the first application: Put six cents worth of cracked _Coculus Indicus_ berries into a bottle that will hold a half pint of alcohol: fill the bottle with alcohol, and let it stand twenty-four hours. When the hen comes off with the young chickens, take the mixture, and with a small cotton rag, wet the head of each chicken enough to have it reach through the little feathers to the skin; also, with the same rag, wet the hen under her wings. Be careful that no child, nor any one else uses it, because it a _deadly poison_.

_Cracked Wheat._--For a pint of the cracked grain, have two quarts of water boiling in a smooth iron pot over a quick fire; stir in the wheat slowly; boil fast and stir constantly for the first half hour of cooking, or until it begins to thicken and "pop up;" then lift from the quick fire, and place the pot where the wheat will cook slowly for an hour longer. Keep it covered closely, stir now and then, and be careful not to let it burn at the bottom. Wheat cooked thus is much sweeter and richer than when left to soak and simmer for hours, as many think necessary. White wheat cooks the easiest. When ready to dish out, have your moulds moistened with cold water, cover lightly, and set in a cool place. Eat warm or cold with milk and sugar.

_How to Have Green Pea Soup in Winter._--Sow peas thickly in pots and boxes, say six weeks before the soup is wanted. Place them in a temperature of 60° or so, close to the glass in a house or pit. Cut the plants as soon as they attain a height of from three to six inches, and rub them through a sieve. The shoots alone will make a fair soup. Mixed with dry peas, also passed through a sieve, no one could scarcely distinguish color or flavor from that of real green pea soup. There is, however, considerable difference in the flavor of pea leaves, as well as of the peas themselves. The best marrows, such as Ne Plus Ultra and Veitche's Perfection, yield the most piquant cuttings. Also the more light the plants receive the higher the flavor, plants drawn up or at all blanched, being by no means comparable with those well and strongly grown.

In the spring, a few patches or rows may be sown in open quarters expressly for green cuttings. These are most perfect and full flavored when four inches high. When too long, the flavor seems to have run to wood, and the peculiar aroma of green peas is weaker.

There is yet another mode of making green pea soup at any season at very short notice. Chip the peas by steeping them in water and leaving them in a warm place for a few days. Then slightly boil or stew, chips and all, and pass them through a sieve. The flavor is full and good, though such pea soup lacks color. It is astonishing how much the mere vegetation of seeds develops their more active and predominant flavor or qualities; a fact that might often be turned to useful account in the kitchen in the flavoring of soups or dishes, with turnips, celery, parsley, etc.

_Composition for Restoring Scorched Linen._--Boil, to a good consistency, in half a pint of vinegar, two ounces of fuller's earth, an ounce of hen's dung, half an ounce of cake soap, and the juice of two onions. Spread this composition over the whole of the damaged part; and if the scorching is not quite through, and the threads actually consumed, after suffering it to dry on, and letting it receive a subsequent good washing or two, the place will appear full as white and perfect as any other part of the linen.

_To Remove Indelible Ink Stains._--Soak the stained spot in strong salt water, then wash it with ammonia. Salt changes the nitrate of silver into chloride of silver, and ammonia dissolves the chloride.

_To Cook Cauliflower._--Choose those that are close and white and of middle size, trim off the outside leaves, cut the stalk off flat at the bottom, let them lie in salt and water an hour before you boil them. Put them into boiling water with a handful of salt in it, skim it well and let it boil slowly till done. Fifteen minutes will suffice for a small one, and twenty will be long enough for a large one. If it is boiled a minute or two after it is done the flavor will be impaired.

_To Pickle String Beans._--Place them in a pan with alternate layers of salt and leave them thus for 24 hours. Drain them and place them in a jar with allspice, cloves, pepper and a little salt. Boil enough vinegar to cover them, pour over them and let them stand till the next day, boil the vinegar the second time, and pour it on again. The next day boil the vinegar for the last time, pour it over the beans, and when quite cold, cover the jar tightly and set in a cool closet.

_How to Cause a Baby to Thrive and Grow._--Try the milk first drawn from a cow that is fresh, add one-quarter water, and a little sugar. If the milk constipates, sweeten it with molasses, or mix with it a small quantity of magnesia. Abjure soothing syrups, and for colic give catnip or smellage tea. Give the baby a tepid bath at night as well as in the morning, rubbing him well with the hand. After the bath, let him feed and then sleep. We find open air the best of tonics for babies. Ours takes his naps out of doors in the shade during the warm weather, and his cheeks are two roses.

_To Can Gooseberries without Breaking them._--Fill the cans with berries, and partly cover with water, set the jars into a vessel of water, and raise the temperature to the boiling point. Boil eight minutes, remove from the kettle, cover with boiling water, and seal immediately. If sugar is used, let it be pure white, and allow eight ounces to a quart of berries. Make into a syrup, and use in the cans instead of water. The glass cans with glass tops, a rubber and a screw ring, we have found the simplest and most perfect of the many kinds offered for sale in the market.

_Ready Mode of Mending Cracks in Stoves, Pipes and Iron Ovens._--When a crack is discovered in a stove, through which the fire or smoke penetrates, the aperture may be completely closed in a moment with a composition consisting of wood ashes and common salt made up into paste with a little water, and plastered over the crack. The good effect is equally certain, whether the stove, etc., be cold or hot.

_To Keep Milk from Turning Sour._--Add a little sub-carbonate of soda, or of potash. This by combining with, and neutralizing the acetic acid formed, has the desired effect, and keeps the milk from turning sooner than it otherwise would. The addition is perfectly harmless, and does not injure the taste.

_Strawberry Vinegar._--Put four pounds of very ripe strawberries, nicely dressed, into three quarts of the best vinegar, and let them stand three or four days; then drain the vinegar through a jelly-bag, and pour it on the same quantity of fruit. Repeat the process in three days for a third time. Finally, to each pound of the liquor thus obtained, add one pound of fine sugar. Bottle, and let it stand covered, but not tightly corked, one week; then cork it tight, and set it in a cool, _dry_ place, where it will not freeze. Raspberry vinegar is made the same way.

_Cider Vinegar._--After cider has become too sour for use, set it in a warm place, put to it occasionally the rinsings of the sugar basin or molasses jug, and any remains of ale or cold tea; let it remain with the bung open, and you will soon have the best of vinegar.

_To Give Luster to Silver._--Dissolve a quantity of alum in water, so as to make a pretty strong brine, and skim it carefully; then add some soap to it, and dip a linen rag in it, and rub over the silver.

_To Make Water-Proof Porous Cloth._--Close water-proof cloth fabrics, such as glazed oil-cloth, India-rubber, and gutta-percha cloth are completely water-proof, but do not permit perspiration and the exhaled gases from the skin to pass through them, because they are air-tight as well as water-tight. Persons who wear air-tight garments soon become faint, if they are undergoing severe exercise, such as that to which soldiers are exposed when on march. A porous, water-proof cloth, therefore, is the best for outer garments during wet weather, for those whose duties or labor causes them to perspire freely. The best way for preparing such cloth is by the following process: Take 2¼ pounds of alum and dissolve this in 10 gallons of boiling water; then in a separate vessel dissolve the same quantity of sugar of lead in 10 gallons of water, and mix the two solutions. The cloth is now well handled in this liquid, until every part of it is penetrated; then it is squeezed and dried in the air, or in a warm apartment, then washed in cold water and dried again, when it is fit for use. If necessary, the cloth may be dipped in the liquid and dried twice before being washed. The liquor appears curdled, when the alum and lead solutions are mixed together. This is the result of double decomposition, the sulphate of lead, which is an insoluble salt, being formed. The sulphate of lead is taken up in the pores of the cloth, and it is unaffected by rains or moisture, and yet it does not render the cloth air-tight. Such cloth is also partially non-inflammable. A solution of alum itself will render cloth, prepared as described, partially water-proof, but it is not so good as the sulphate of lead. Such cloth--cotton or woolen--sheds rain like the feathers on the back of a duck.

_To Cleanse Carpet._--1 teaspoonful liquid ammonia in one gallon warm water, will often restore the color of carpets, even if produced by acid or alkali. If a ceiling has been whitewashed with the carpet down, and a few drops are visible, this will remove it. Or, after the carpet is well beaten and brushed, scour with ox gall, which will not only extract grease but freshen the colors--1 pint of gall in 3 gallons of warm water, will do a large carpet. Table floor-cloths may be thus washed. The suds left from a wash where ammonia is used, even if almost cold, cleanses these floor-cloths well.

_To Keep Hams._--After the meat has been well cured by pickle and smoke, take some clean ashes from bits of coal; moisten them with a little water so that they will form a paste, or else just wet the hams a little, and rub on the dry ashes. Rubbed in thoroughly they serve as a capital insect protector, and the hams can be hung up in the smoke-house or wood-chamber without any danger of molestation.

_A Cold Cement for Mending Earthenware_, says a recent English work, reckoned a great secret among workmen, is made by grating a pound of old cheese, with a bread grater, into a quart of milk, in which it must be left for a period of fourteen hours. It should be stirred quite often. A pound of unslaked lime, finely pulverized in a mortar, is then added, and the whole is thoroughly mixed by beating. This done, the whites of 25 eggs are incorporated with the rest, and the whole is ready for use. There is another cement for the same purpose which is used hot. It is made of resin, beeswax, brick-dust, and chalk boiled together. The substances to be cemented must be heated, and when the surfaces are coated with cement, they must be rubbed hard upon each other, as in making a glue-joint with wood.

_How to Make Cucumber Vines Bear Five Crops._--When a cucumber is taken from the vine let it be cut with a knife, leaving about the eighth of an inch of the cucumber on the stem, then slit the stem with a knife from the end to the vine, leaving a small portion of the cucumber on each division, and on each separate slit there will be a new cucumber as large as the first.

_White Cement._--Take white (fish) glue, 1 lb. 10 oz.; dry white lead, 6 oz.; soft water, 3 pts.; alcohol, 1 pt.

Dissolve the glue by putting it in a tin kettle or dish, containing the water, and set this dish in a kettle of water, to prevent the glue from being burned; when the glue is all dissolved, put in the lead and stir and boil until it is thoroughly mixed; remove from the fire, and when cool enough to bottle, add the alcohol, and bottle while it is yet warm, keeping it corked. This last recipe has been sold about the country for from twenty-five cents to five dollars, and one man gave a horse for it.

_Bruises on Furniture._--Wet the part in warm water; double a piece of brown paper five or six times, soak in the warm water, and lay it on the place; apply on that a warm, but not hot, flatiron till the moisture is evaporated. If the bruise be not gone repeat the process. After two or three applications the dent will be raised to the surface. If the bruise be small, merely soak it with warm water, and hold a red-hot iron near the surface, keeping the surface continually wet--the bruise will soon disappear.

_To Prevent Iron Rust._--Kerosene applied to stoves or farming implements, during summer, will prevent their rusting.

_To Color Sheep Skins._--Unslaked lime and litharge equal parts, mixed to a thin paste with water, will color buff--several coats will make it a dark brown; by adding a little ammonia and nitrate of silver a fine black is produced. Terra japonica will impart a "tan color" to wool, and the red shade is deepened by sponging with a solution of lime and water, using a strong solution of alum water to "set" the colors; 1 part crystallized nitrate silver, 8 parts carbonate ammonia, and 1½ parts of soft water dyes brown; every additional coat darkens the color until a black is obtained.

_Remedy for Bums._--Take one teacup of lard and the whites of two eggs; work together as much as it can be, then spread on cloths and apply. Change as often as necessary.

_How Summer Suits should be Washed._--Summer suits are nearly all made of white or buff linen, pique, cambric, or muslin, and the art of preserving the new appearance after washing is a matter of the greatest importance. Common washerwomen spoil everything with soda, and nothing is more frequent than to see the delicate tints of lawns and percales turned into dark blotches and muddy streaks by the ignorance and vandalism of a laundress. It is worth while for ladies to pay attention to this, and insist upon having their summer dresses washed according to the directions which they should be prepared to give their laundresses themselves. In the first place, the water should be tepid, the soap should not be allowed to touch the fabric; it should be washed and rinsed quick, turned upon the wrong side, and hung in the shade to dry, and when starched (in thin boiled but not boiling starch) should be folded in sheets or towels, and ironed upon the wrong side as soon as possible. But linen should be washed in water in which hay or a quart bag of bran has been boiled. This last will be found to answer for starch as well, and is excellent for print dresses of all kinds, but a handful of salt is very useful also to set the colors of light cambrics and dotted lawns; and a little ox gall will not only set but brighten yellow and purple tints, and has a good effect upon green.

_How to Fasten Rubber to Wood and Metal._--As rubber plates and rings are now-a-days used almost exclusively for making connections between steam and other pipes and apparatus, much annoyance is often experienced by the impossibility or imperfection of an air-tight connection. This is obviated entirely by employing a cement which fastens alike well to the rubber and to the metal or wood. Such cement is prepared by a solution of shellac in ammonia. This is best made by soaking pulverized gum shellac in ten times its weight of strong ammonia, when a slimy mass is obtained, which in three to four weeks will become liquid without the use of hot water. This softens the rubber, and becomes, after volatilization of the ammonia, hard and impermeable to gases and fluids.

_Renewing Maroon Colors on Wool._--Wash the goods in very weak lye; then rinse thoroughly in clear water; thus you have a beautiful, _even_ color, although your goods may have been much faded and stained. Though the color thus obtained may not be the exact shade as when new, it is, however, a very pretty one. The above will not answer for other than all woolen goods of a maroon color.