Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1874 — FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

—For a paste for papering on a board ceiling put in a gill of melted glue to a panful of ordinary paste: —To destroy cabbage-worms make a strong solution of soft soap and water and sprinkle the plants with it. It will destroy the worms and stimulate the growth of the cabbages. —To make potato cakes, take mashed potatoes, flour and a little salt; to make them sweet add a little powdered loaf sugar; mix with just enough milk to make the paste stiff enough to roll; mafce it the size and thickness of a muffin and bake quickly. —To Cook Eggs ala Bonne Femme— Slice an onion, fry it in butter to a light brown, add a teaspoonful of vinegar; butter a dish, spread the onion and vin.cgar.xtver it, break the eggs -inte-tt-and then put the dish into the oven; when the eggs are done strew fried breadcrumbs over them and kerve very hot. —To keep red ants out /of cupboards, etc., dip a few sponges in highly-sweet-ened W’ater and place them in the way of the ants. They will soon be full of the red pests; then dip them in boiling water, which kills them. Repeat the process until the w'hole colony is captured. ». • " —To Stuff a Ham. —Parboil and place the ham on a tray; make incisions over it with a sharp knife some two or three inches deep and stuff these with a dressing made of crackers cooked to a brown crisp and crumbled fine; add salt, pepper, egg, butter, parsley and onion chopped fine, then bake it brown in a moderate heat and serve when cold. —Rice, large pearl sago and tapioca are best when the pudding is made without eggs; sprinkle a little of any one of the above at the bottom of a puddingdish, add a little sitfear and fill up with milk; stir well before placing in the oven; to the sago add a small piece of cinnamon broken up. The rice must bake quite four hours; the sago and tapioca about three. Skim milk will do if you cannot spare the new milk. —By a simple process steel may be made so hard that it w’ill pierce any substance but a diamond. Jewelers, lapidaries and miners, who wish to give their drills this degree of hardness, have but to subject them to the following treatment: The tool is first brought to a white heat. and then pressed into a stick of sealing-wax, left there for a second, and then removed and inserted into the wax in another place. This operation should be repeated until the instrument is too cool to enter the wax. —Cream Renversee. —Mix three tablespoonfuls of flour with a gill of cold milk, and then add a gill of scalded milk. Put in a saucepan over the fiie and stir until it begins to thicken, then take it off and add four ounces of white sugar and the yolks of four eggs, with a teaspoonful of lemon extract or any flavor you like; then beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and stir it in the mixture; place it in a buttered pan or mold and set it in a kettle of boiling water to rise. After it has risen.bake it it in a mild out on a dish upside down. — Cultivator. —To make cucumber catsup, take large green cucumbers just, before turning yellow, wash them, but do not pare them; cut them open; take out the seeds; grate them on a coarse grater. Then put the pulp into a sieve to drain, and when all the juice is out put into a-dish and season with salt and pepper to suit the table. Put into bottles or glass cans with glass covers; then fill full of cold cider vinegar and seal tight. Do not fill the bottles or cans to the top with the pulp, as you will not have room for the vinegar. Leave three inches. This is the way I make it, and we think it very nice. W--—Here are two methods of making good home-made vinegar: 1. To one pint of strained honey add two gallons of soft water. Let it stand in a moderately warm place. In three weeks it will be excellent vinegar. 2. Boil a pint of corn till it is a little soft; put it into a jar; add a pint of molasses and four quarts of water; mix well together and set near the stove. In two days it will be good beer, in two or three weeks it will be first-rate vinegar. The same corn will dp for several months. When the vinegar is made pour it off and add molasses and water to the corn. We have not tested these recipes, but give them as we find them in the books. —The famous dye called henna, which has been in use among Oriental nations from very ancient times, is procured from the shrub Lawsonia alba, of the natural order Lythracece. The plant is often cultivated for the sake of its flowers, which are exceedingly fragrant ; but it is mainly prized for its leaves, which abound in coloring matter. These last, being dried, powdered and made into a paste with hot water and catechu, are employed by the women of the East to stain the nails and tips of the fingqrs of an orange color. The men also use it to dye their beards—the orange being converted into a deep black by indigo—and the manes and hoofs of horses. It' is also used to give to Skinsand leather the hue of reddish-yellow.