Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1879 — USEFUL INFORMATION. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL INFORMATION.

To Ventilate a Room.—To ventilate a room without draught, make a hole through the room to the outer air, in a corner of the room just above the skirting. Through the hole put one arm of a tube three inches in diameter, and bent at right angles. The arm of the tube reaching to the outer air should be in length equal to the thickness of the wall, and the other arm should be two feet long, standing vertically in the corner of the room; if desired, it can be covered with paper of the same pattern as that on the wall. A tube of the diameter given above is sufficient to ventilate a room of moderate size. A Simple Rat and Mice Exterminator. —A German newspaper gives the following simple method for exterminating rats and mice, which, it states, has been successfully tried by one Baron Von Backhofen and others for some time past: “A mixture of two parts of well-bruised common squills and threp parts of finely-chopped bacon is made into a stiff mass, with as much meal as may be required, and then baked into small cakes, which are put around for the rats to eat.” Several cprrespondents of the paper write to confirm the experience of the noble Baron and his neighbors in the extirpation of rats and mice by this simple remedy. Crows.—Crows may be kept from corn by first pouring hot water on a half bushel of the seed, and then a pint of tar, stirring it quickly. Every grain will become coated with a deljcate varnish of tar, and, if then roiled in airslacked lime before planting, no crow will touch it. But, should this remedy come too late in the season, another equally efficacious may be used, and this is the common one of stringing the field. No crow will enter an angle formed by two suspended strings stretched on poles. A curious illustration occurred some years ago, on a long strip of sowed corn (for fodder) which was protected by a zigzag string running from one end to the other. Within the angles formed by the string not a bundle was touched, but close without them, at each end, the -whole crop was demolished. A crow is a remarkably wise fool, and this is-a complete mode of circumventing him. Cure for Frosted Feet.—Three years ago, says a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, I was a constant sufferer, having had my feet badly frosted the previous winter. The suggestion was made by a friend to bathe my feet in a decoction of oak bark. Knowing that the leaf contains a much larger proportion of tannic acid than the bark, my mode of cure was in accordance with that fact, and I may summarize it as follows: Take a five-gallon stone jar, fill with freshly-gathered oak leaves, and cover with water. Set on the back part of the cookstove, where it will bo subject to a steady heat, but not brought to the boiling point. In four or five days the preparation will be ready for use. Let it be as hot as the feet can well bear, and let them soak from twenty to thirty minutes before bedtime. With four or five applications the cure is complete.