Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1883 — SUGGESTIONS OF VALUK. [ARTICLE]

SUGGESTIONS OF VALUK.

Fob ordinary wood-work, use whiting and ammonia to mb the dirt off. / Copperas mixed with the whitewash upon the cellar walls will keep vermin away. Ceilings that have been smoked by a kerosene lamp should be washed off with soda water. Hellebore spfinkled on tike floor at night destroys cockroaches; they eat it and are poisoned. Good fires should be kepi np during house-cleaning time, even though the doors and windows be kept open. Drain pipes and all places that are sour or impure may be cleaased with lime water, copperas water or eorbolic acid. Salt liberally sprinkled over a carpet before sweeping, will absorb the dust and dirt, and bring out the aolors as fresh as new. A little chloride of lime, dissolved in warm water, and left in a lamp ot can, which has held kerosene, will deodorize it very soon. If stove polish is mixed with very strong soap suds the lustre appears immediately, consequently there is less, dust to breathe and blacken. Paper and plaster are active absorbents, and when they become thoroughly saturated with various effluvia, nothing: but entire renewal will cleanse them. If the wall about the stove has been, smoked by the stove, cover the black patches with gum shellac, and they will not strike through either paint or calcimine. Carpets should be thoroughly beaten on the wrong side first, and then on the right, after which spots may be removed by the use of ox-gall or ammonia and water. Papered walls are cleaned by being wiped down with a flannel cloth tied over a broom or brush. Then cut off a thick piece of stale broad with the crust on, and rub them down with this. Begin at the top and go straight down. Furniture needs cleaning as much as other woodwork. It may be washed with warm soap suds, quickly wiped dry and then rubbed dry with an oily cloth. To polish it, rub with rotten stone and. sweet oil. Clean off the oil and polish with chamois skin. Thick brown paper should he laid under carpets if the patent lining is not to be had; it saves the wear of the fabric and prevents the inroads «*f moths, which, however, will seldom give trouble if salt is sprinkled around theedge when the carpet is laid.