Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1873 — FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

—Filter for Cistern Water'.—Perforate, the bottom of a wooden.box with a number of small holes; place inside a piece of flannel,' cover with coarsely powdered charcoal, over this coarse river sand, and on this small pieces of sandstone. —Pickle for Hams.—For one hundred pounds of ham take six gallons of water, nine pounds salt, one quart of molasses, three ounces of saltpetre, and one ounce saleratus. When ready to smoke they qan be soaked and then freshened to taste, if too salt. * ■ —Tomatoes in a New Fashion.—The following method of preparing tomatoes for the table, says an exchange, we are assured by one who has made the experiment, is superior to anything yet discovered for tlie preparation of that excellent article: Take good ripe tomatoes, cut them in slices, and sprinkle over them finely- pulverized white sugar,-th.eHAdd-claret wine sufficient lo cover them. ,—Tomato Catsup.-=Was r h'the"Motnatoes and press them through a fine seive to six quarts of juice and pulp; add the same quantity of best vinegar; then set it over the fire to boil. When it begins to thicken, add of pimento, cloves, and pepper each half an ounce, cinnamon a quarter of an ounce, and two-nutmegs finely grated. Boil to tlie consistency of thin mush, then add four tablespoonfuls of salt, and take it out of the vessel. When cold, bottle and cork-tight. Boil in brass or or tin-lined vessel. This can’t he beat. y —An exchange says that last printer, just previous to —the extremely cold weather, a lady bought a large quantity of heavy bod-ticking and made it into huge envelopes, with which she entirely covered her peach trees. Then her neighbors laughed; but now, while their trees arc either dead or barren, she laughs to see her own heavily laden with the choicest peaches, for which -she can obtain the most fabulous prices. —Uliopped CauliflowcY. —Take a fine white head of cauliflower, and chop it fine. Put a piece of butter as large as a butternut into a shallow pan; add three or four tablespoonfuls of strong vinegar. Stew tlie cauliflower, covered over wiili a flat tin, for twenty minutes, or until it is perfectly tender. Serve on slices of toasted bread, or mi a-platter with bits of toast cut into triangles, and weir.brmrned. then laid in points around the dish. This is a nice supper or breakfast dish, —To make court-plaster, take half an ounce ol benzine arid six ounces of rectified spirits; dissolve and strain. Then take one ounce of isinglass and half a pint of hot waterdissolve and strain separately from the formeg. Mix the two and set them aside to cool; when a jelly will he formed ; warm this, and brush it ten or twelve times over a piece of black silk stretched smooth. When dry, brush it with a solution made from four ounces of Chian turpentine and six ounces of tincture of benzine. —To make cheap frames, cut strips of stiff pasteboard about an inch wide the desired length, clip the ends to point, and cover with any nice black cloth, like broadcloth or fine cassimere; lap the ends at the corners of the frames, and fasten with a white or gilt button. Bind your picture and glass together with strips of gummed paper, and glue on to the frame. Hang against a white wall. Bronzed paper, which can lie bought for eight cents a sheet, may be used instead of cloth, in which-case a short strip across the corners of the frame is a great, addition to its comeliness. The grange has reached Vermont. The Ethan Allen Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry is the name of tlie first one, organized in Milton, Chittenden County, Ask for Prussing’s Cider Vinegar and take no other. Warranted to Preserve Pickles.