Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1873 — FIRM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FIRM AND HOUSEHOLD.

—Pieces of horseradish added to the vinegar on picklbs improves their flavor, and prevents mold. —A teaspoonful of spirits of ammonia added to the rinse water will make rusty black goods look as good as new. —Do not cook vegetables in iron pots, ui less they are enameled. Never cook tomatoes in an iron pot. It makes them bitter. • - ty —A writer in the London -Garden strongly recommends root pruning for over-luxurious trees which do not bear. He says: “In numerous cases I have seen an abundant crop of fine fruit produced by pears and plums the very season after this root pruning has been performed, upon trees from which nothing has been gathered for years previous,” This work must be done, of course, before the trees start in spring. —Tomato Pudding—Place pared and sliced tomatoes to the depth of an Inch or more, in a bright tin basin. Sprinkle sugar over them. Next- a layer of light bread in slices, well spread with butter. Then a deep layer of tomatoes and sugar again, and lastly a layer of bread. and butter on the lop. Flavor with lemon or nutmeg. Bake from one to two hours, according to the size of your dish. We find the past winter that can tied tomatoes are excellent served in this way. —Sowing Wfieat and Oats Together.— The Western Farmer says: The plan ol sowing some oats with spring wheat has been practiced to a considerable extent in some parts of Wisconsin, and probably more this spring than ever before. James Gillis, Cookeville, Wis„ informs us that in his vicinity but little wheat was sown alone, most farmers sowing from a fourth to a third of a bushel of oats per acre Tjadi the wheat. The attacks of the chinch bugs are thought to be prevented to a good degree, by this method. There is little difficulty in separating the wheat from the oats. —Pare «¥ a Canary Bird:—Hang the' cage where the drafts do not strike the bird. Give canary and rape seed, plenty of fresh-water, cuttle-fish bone, ana clean gravel on the bottom of the cage often. Also, give the bird fresh water to bathe in every day. After they have bathed, remove the dish, which should be shallow. The room should not be overheated. A little pepper occasionally regulates them. Do pot give them cake or sugar. When moulting, feed them on rape seed slightly moistened. Hard-boiled eggs and crackers grated are excellent. Bad seed will kill birds. Cabbage and Sweet apples are good for them, and now and then an egg. —A Cheap Disinfectant.—One pound of green copperas, eosting seven cents,., dissolved in one quart of water, and poured down a water-closet, will effectually concent rate and destroy the foulest smells. On board ships and steamboats, about hotels and other public places, there is nothing so nice to purify the air. Simple green copperas, dissolved under the bed in anything that will hold Water, will render a hospital or other place for the sick free from unpleasant smells. For butchers’ stalls, fish markets, slaughter-houses, sinks and wherever there, are offensive putrid gases, dissolve copperas and sprinkle it about, and in a few_ days the smell will pass away. If a cat, rat or mouse dies about the house and sends forth an offensive gas, place some- dissolved copperas in an open vessel near the place where the nuisance is, and it will soon purify the atmosphere.