Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1880 — USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE.

The required amount of food for a horse for ordinary work is twelve pounds of oats or any other kind of grain food, and fourteen pounds of hay. A horse weighing 1,000 pounds, and- fed eight , quarts of grain or oats, which is equivalent to eight pounds, should be fed 1 eighteen pounds of hay. Hay is the nerve food for a horse, cattle or sheep, ' and grain is the muscular and adipose or I fat-producing food. Coffee is said by Dr. Gnillasse, of the French navy, to be almost a specific in j the early stages of typhoid fever. He gives to adults two or three table-spoon-fuls of strong black coffee every two hours, alternating with one or two teaspoonfuls of claret or Burgundy wine. The beneficial effect is immediate. A little lemonade or citrate of magnesia | should be given daily, and after a while quinine. Tea drinkers nowadays will do well to apply the following sample test to the tea purchased of their grocers : Turn out the infused leaves, and if they are found a good brown color, with lair substance, the tea will be wholesome ; but if the leaves are black and of a rotten texture, with an oily appearance, the tea will not be fit to drink. The purer the tea, the more the distinctively brown color of the leaf strikes the attention. The mixing that is frequently adopted to reduce prices results in the two kinds of leaves being supplied together. It is important to see that the leaves have the serrated < r saw-like edges, without which no tea is genuine. The choice of a lubricant is frequently ill-made. Common kerosene is too often injudiciously used in place of a thicker or more bland oil, because the heat produced by the friction rapidly vaporizes the oil and leaves the journals dry. Crude petroleum for the same reason is fitted only for very slowly revolving journals, such as water wheels. For very heavy machinery, or for gearing, tallow and black lead rubbed up together is the best lubricant, and also the best for wagon and carriage axles during hot weather. For light-running machinery sperm oil is the best; good olive oil that has not become rancid and acid is perhaps the second best, and for winter use lard oil is excellent, but is rather too drying to be a first-class lubricant. Castor oil is better for axles in winter time, and black lead with it is a help at any time. Very beautiful baskets for holding flowers can be made of the longer and more feathery kind of mosses. A light frame, of any shape you like, should lie made with wire and covered with common pasteboard or calico, and the moss, which should first be well picked over and cleansed from any bits of dirt or dead leaves which may be hanging about it, gathered into little tufts and sewed with a coarse needle and thread to the covering, so as to clothe it thickly with a close and compact coating, taking care that the points es the moss are all outward. A long handle made in the same manner should lie attached to the basket, and a tin or other vessel, filled with either sand or water, placed within to hold the flowers. By dipping the whole structure into the water once in three or four days its verdure and elasticity will be fully preserved, and a block of wood about an inch thick, and stained black or green, if placed under the basket, will prevent all risk of damage to the table from moisture.