Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1869 — FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

USEFUL RECIPES, ETC. Cooked meal is nearly double the bulk of uncooked, yet quart for quart it Is said to go as &r. The difference is, tlmt much of the food Is undigested unless cooked. It is said that the juice of one lemon a day, taken in water, will cure the most obstinate case of neuralgia. No sugar should lie taken, as it lias a tendency to counteract the effects of the lemon Juice. Two quarts of hot water, one pound of Indian meal and a quarter of a pound of unbolted wheat flour, will make more eggs when fed warm to hens than twice tlic amount of whole grain. So says an exchange. The black knots on plum and cherry trees have been decided on good authority to be neither the production nor the special nest of any species of insect, but a little parasitic plant of the class Fungi. Tlte only cure is to lop off and burn the affected branches, as if left until late in the season they throw off innumbcrablc spores, which lodge on healthy branches and there vegetate. When hogs are kept in pens and cannot hunt green food, they should have clovert nnd other succulent grasses given them oc* 1 casionally. Sods, charcoal, stonccoal or day should be given to them frequently. These tend to correct and prevent diseases, and are very much relished by them. A little attention to this subject will prevent much disease among hogs. If you plow down your weeds before they go to seed they will prove a benefit to your land instead of a curse. If they are allowed to go to seed they will be a source of endless trouble. Plowed under, they arc worth as much as a dressing of manure. Beside enriching the soil they tend to keep it loose. If you add from twenty-five to fifty bushels of lime per acrejto the ground, and harrow it in, it will convert your weeds into plant food.

A lady sends to the Farmers’ Club the following pickle prescription, which she lias used several years with success, and she has repeatedly heard the pickles called superior: “ Pick over the vines every other day, select the perfect fruit, wash clean, and cover with a strong brine for twenty-four hours. Then take them from tlte brine, rinse with clear water, and drain them dry. When dry, pack them close in stone jars, and cover with good vinegar. Red peppers may be added if wc like. Good old vinegar will keep pickles prepared in this way for a year without its being changed. Watered, flashy vinegar will scum over and need to be changed.” Wheat vs. Cheat.—Wheat never turns to cheat, nor does cheat ever turn to wheat. If cheat is not sown with the wheat; and there is nonc*in the ground, there will be none found in the growing crop. Cheat is often found growing so closely among the roots of wheat as to have the appearance of having come from the same seed. But that is not the case. Wheat never will become cheat, however badly it may be damaged or degenerated. The two are quite different plants. —Farm Journal Packing Butter.—lt is of the first importaifte, in packing butter, either for market or home consumption, that the vessel in which it is placed should hot only be clean, but made of a material from winch the butter will not derive any unpleasant. flavor. In speajcing on this subject, the Toronto Globe warns farmers against the uS'c of pine firkins and tubs, and continues: “ The idea of using pine originated with country storekeepers, who generally furnish the package to the farmers’ wives to fill, and desire to go to as little expense as possible rather than to give the buttermaker a good name in the market. Use stone Jars or crocks for packing butter for home use, or to be sold to neighbors or to city consumers. When wooden packages are used, have them made only of the best seasoned white oak, maple, or any kind of good, hard wood: Pine, or any kind of resinous wood, however well it may be seasoned, scalded, or whatever else is done to it, will still give a bad flavor to butter when used js a package; the salt in the butter seems to draw out the resinous flavor from the wood at some time or other after the butter is put in. We should imagine that so cheap and strong an article as glass could lie made much use of for tlxe purpose of making butter packages.”