Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — DOMESTIC ECONOMY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO FARMER AND'NOUSEWIFE. Faßßera ShoKld Um the Whitewash Brash Freelr-Care of Early riant.—How to Keep Pastore Springs Pure-A Powerful Lok Jaek. Hints for Sugar Makers. As a rule we believe a sugar orchard inclining south and east will produce the most sap, while those with a northwesterly slope produce the best quality of sugar. No sugar maker can afford to use any but the best apparatus for boiling. The quicker the evaporation the less the expense and the better the quality. Do not wait until your buckets are full before gathering. I think it a good rute to gather often and boil immediately. Do not have tbo much storage, for with a modern evaporator and good dry wood a man should be able to boil nearly as fast as a team and two men <an gather. Always maxe your plans to have tne works well cleaned every Saturday, even if it does require extra labor. Strain your sap through a flannel strainer as it runs from the tub. Skim often while boiling and reduce to the required density before drawing from the evaporator. Do nothing by guess. Test your syrup by an accurate thermometer or hydrometer. 219 degrees by the thermometer while boiling and 32 degrees by hydrometer will give you syrup of 11 pounds net to the gallon, the standard syrup. Strain through a heavy flannel or felt strainer and can at once while boiling hot and screw the top down tight to exclude air. Put up like this syrup will hold its flavor and will not crystallize. Use none but full-size gallon cans and never practice any deceit in regard to you product Farm and Home. A Powerful Lou Jack. The cut here shown illustrates a log jack that any Ingenious farmer 'an make. It consists of two hard wood planks nailed nearly close together. Holes are then drilled in which two iron pegs should slide easily. A lever of hard oak wood or of iron Is then required with a short chain and hook. A chain is then hooked to the top of the plank, passed under the log to be raised and hooked to the chain on the lever. The lever

Is then worked similarly to a pump handle. When lowering the handle and allowing the weight to rest on the outer pin, move up the pin in front to a hole higher. When the handle is raised with the weight on the front pin, raise the back pin. By this plan a ton may be easily raised bya single person, as the leverage is only about half an inch with a six foot lever.

Grading Comb Honey. The method of grading comb honey, adopted by the last convention is, perhaps, a good one, and may stand. However, it amounts to nothing in the transaction of business, and is of no practical value, though, it gives employment to theorists. I have no use for the word “Fancy’’ in relation to dark honey. The fact of comb honey being dark excludes all “Fancy.” 1 prefer to use its proper names, such as WhlteClover, Alfalfa, Basswood, Mangrove, Sage, Goldenrod, Aster, Holly honey, etc. These and other distinct varieties sell according to their qualities. Others are classed as dark honeys. Buckwheat belongs to the latter, of course, but being of a distinct variety, it is called “buckwheat honey.” By these means it is possible to convince buyers that the flavor and color of honey is determined by its source. The result of this is that customers do not doubt the purity of the article when a strange flavor is discovered. Sugar syrup tastes unmistakably like sugar syrup honey for it has no other flavor. Producers who ship honey, extracted or comb, should endeavor to prevent leakage, for it is a loss to all concerned and an injury to trade. —Ex. Lime Water. The uses of so homely an article as lime about the household are almost innumerable. One sees the hodman on a new building keep his drinking water in a pail coated with lime and one thinks it is a poor receptacle for the universal beverage. Yet it would not be so good or so pure served in a silver ice pitcher. A teaspoonful of lime water in a glass of milk is a remedy for summer complaint It prevents the turning of milk or cream, and a cupful added to bread sponge will keep it from souring, Allowed to evaporate from a vessel on the stove, it will alleviate the distresses due to lung fever, croup, or diphtheria. It will sweeten and purify bottles, jugs, etc. Lime itself, as every one knows, is invaluable as a purifier and disinfect- : ant. Sprinkled in cellars or closets where there is a slight dampness it will not only serve as a purifier, but will prevent the invasion of noxious animals. It is one of the notable instances of the economy and the bounty of nature that this article, so common and cheap, is serviceable in so many ways.—Philadelphia Record. To Destroy Lice on Cattle. A correspondent writes the Breeder’s Gazette that ordinary water lime or cement dusted over and rubbed into the hair of animals is a cheap, eas.ly applied and safe remedy and an absolutely sure preventive of lice. This is doubtless partly true. Lice

cannot thrive among hair that M tilled with lime dust but the dost will not eta/ upon all parte of the animal, particularly the sides of the neck and the under parte of the body. A bit of rubbing with kerosene or other oil over these parte will be needed to make a thorough job of it. And, by the way, it is not necessary to wait till water lime can be procured, which is not always readily obtained, for any kind of fine dust* sand or clay from the highway will answer about as well Lice cannot live long in either dust or oily surroundings. But one application is never enough. It should be repeated frequently till the dlfliculty is removed. Meeplair Pasture Spring* Pure. Xoo many of the sources of the water supply of our pastures are contaminated by cattle wading in the springs and dropping their excrements within the basin in which the spring is situated, into which all loose material is washed by the rains of summer. Such contaminated water supply is highly undesirable for

any stock to drink from, but most decidedly undesirable for the use of dairy cows. There is almost always a descending stretch of ground, or a descending open ditch, from pasture springs, which permits the keepiug of the water supply pure. The spring should be completely enclosed and roofed over, and the water conveyed by a pipe to a tub or trough below, as shown in the accompanying illustration. Such a plan not only serves to keep the water pure at all times, but also to keep it cooler in summer and warmer in winter, if the spring is ever used for the winter watering of stock. Early Plants. However desirable it may be to secure early vegetables by setting out those started in the hotbed or in the living room of the house, the work of setting should not be attempted too early in the season. It must be remembered that house or hotbodgrown plants are tender and not susceptible to such a degree of cold as is frequently experienced in the early part ot the season. It is therefore safer to omit transplanting until the weather is quite uniform in temperature. Potted plants may be hardened by putting out of doors and so sooner prepared for transplant ng. Earliness of product is governed largely by uninterrupted growth, the setting should therefore be so attended to as to prevent any shock to the growth.

Cherries. The cherry is a profitable fruit If trees of it are located where cheap labor can be obtained, and near a good market The crop of a large tree has been known to sell for 825 at a price of 4 cents to 5 cents a pound. Young trees will not bear heavily, but It is a fruit that begins to bear early, and will soon pay its way. It requires a dry and heavy soil Too much wet causes it to be unfruitful, and sandy soil cannot supply the amount of potash this fruit requires, without heavier potash dressings than most will think It necessary to give. Points In Driving. To drive well you must keep your eye and your mind on the horse. Watch his ears. They will be pricked forward when he is about to shy, droop when he is tired, fly back just before he “breaks" (into a gallop), and before be k cks. Before kicking, too, a horse usual.y tucks in his tail and hunches his bacz a little. When you observe any of these indications speak to him and sharply pull up his head. Odds and Ends. Pudding bags should be made of heavy jean. In packing bottles or canned fruit tor moving slip a rubber band over the body of them. Great improvement will be found In tea and coffee if they are kept in glass jars instead of tin. Cold cream is apt to make pim pies and vaseline used on the face will give one a disfiguring growth of hair. To clean the dingy rattan chair that has never been painted, wash it in hot milk in which a little salt has been dissolved. Stand a wet umbrella on the handle to drain; otherwise, the water collecting at the center, will rot the silk. A large rug of linen crash placed under the sewing machine will catch threads, clippings, and cuttings, and save a deal of sweeping and dusting. When your face and ears burn so terribly bathe them in very hot water —as hot as you can bear. This will be more apt to cool them than any cold application. There is false economy, which costs more than it returns, such as saving old medicine bottles, partially used prescriptions, the tacks taken from the carpet* or working days to save or make that which can be bought for a few Fqr pimples on the face, bathe it occasionally in a soothing lotion composed of a weak solution of borax and warm water. At night use very warm water on the lace; then dry, and rub in the pores an ointment made of flower of sulphur and lard. Always use cotton holders for irons. Woolen ones are hot to the band, and if scorched, as they often ae, the smell Is disagreeable. In ironing a shirt or a dress turn the ' sleeves on the wrong side and leave them until the rest is done, and then turn and iron them. Steel knives or other articles which have become rusty should be rubbed with a Lttle sweet oil, then left for a day or two in a dry place, and then rubbed with finely powdered, unslacked lime until every vestige of the rust has disappeared, And kept in a drv place wrapped up in a bit of flannel

LOG JACK.

SPRING HOUSE AND WATERING TROUGH.