Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1874 — FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

—Weeds should he kept down everywhere. Thistles, wild parsnips and carrots, mulleins and burdocks, in neglected corners and fence rows should be cut up by the root, and the tops gathered and burned. Many weeds are now ripening their seeds and if neglected will make work for many years to come. —Cement for Glass, China and Wood. —Steep Russian isinglass twenty-four hours in white brandy, gently boil and stir the mixture until it is well compounded and a drop of it, cooled, will become a thick jelly; then strain it through a linen cloth,hind cork closely. A gentle hgat will dissolve it. Apply to the edges, place them together, and hold them five minutes. —Dyeing Ornamental Feathers Black. —Place them for twenty-four hours in a soda bath that is not too strong, then rinse well and place for twelve hours in an 8 per cent, solution of nitrate of iron; rinse well again and dye with logwood and fustic. If the black appear? reddish, draw the feathers through dilute sulphuric acid and bpil a short time in a weak bath of fustic. —Stiffening Gauze.—Good wheat starch and white wax are employed, cither cold or warm, according to the color. The gauze on removal from the starch is perfectly untwisted, pressed out and clapped with the hands so that the starch may be uniformly distributed. Any meshes that may still appear filled with starch may be freed from it when the gauze is stretched on the drying pad by brushing it with the hand or, better, with a soft brush. Small starched pieces can also be placed on the finishing drum, since the starch remaining in any meshes will stick to the drum when the gauze is removed. In this case, however, it will unavoidably have a spotted luster on the side next the drum.— Harper's Bazar. —ln the training of a little girl great pains should be taSfen to discover what gift or talent she has, if any, and, whatever her circumstances, to fit her for its use. Even putting the money value of such art or accomplishment out of the question, its aid as a resource and strengthener is incalculable. Disappointment and grief come more easily to women than to men; they abide with them longer, and sap more of their life away, simply because they need the tonic of hard, enjoyable work —not the mere drudgery of the bread-winner, but the toil of the artist. Pride, philosophy, even religion, cannot give the new vitality which such work bestows on the faithful votary. It repairs bodily and mental forces like nature itself, slowly, imperceptibly, surely. The father and mother who can find in their daughter such power, and give to her the means of using it, may count themselves happy, and her the inheritor of a royal-heritage. —Pork Raising.—My own theory of pork raising, based upon experience, observation and probably a little philosophy of things, if written for the benefit of others, would he about as follows: During the hot summer months I should feed very Tittle solid feed, such as corn in the ear or uncracked. I would keep hogs upon green feed constantly, cither grass, oats or rye, and feed them at regular intervals, once or twice per day, upon mashed feed, eithershortsychopped oats or rye, buckwheat, etc.; feed in troughs. When fed in this way, and at the same time allowed access to water and shade, liogs will hear crowding through the hot months, a very good time, if not the best, to take on flesh. This puts them in the best condition for corn feeding, which should commence about the Ist of September, when the new crop is still soft and tender. Treated in this way hogs become probably as perfect as any method could make them. Upon the whole, too, I believe it the cheapest and most enonomical.— Cor. of Germantown Telegraph.