Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1875 — Cleaning the Cellar. [ARTICLE]

Cleaning the Cellar.

The spring brings its annual cleaning, at least to the house, but not always to the cellar -, and yet the cellar is the most important room in the house, so tar as cleaning is concerned. There can be no health in the household when the cellar is left w ith a mass of decaying vegetables, the remains of the winter store. Many very careful people remove even the potatoes from the cellar as soon as danger of freezing is over, and, if there be a good barn cellar, or other place where they may be kept cool and dry, and from contact with the air, it is a good plan. If not, sort them carefully over and raise them up from contact with the ground. All other vegetables should be taken out, and the cellhr as thoroughly cleaned and whitewashed as any other part of the house. If this be done, and proper ventilation is secured, there is no better place to keep milk for butter-making, unless one have a dairy-house made specially for the purpose. One of the most pernicious practices w e know ot is to have a lot of loose boards about the cellar, w inter and summer, contracting mold and fungous growths. When the cellar is cleaned, everything movable—and Ute cellar should not contain any fixtures that may not be? taken down —should be carried out of doors, .thoroughly washed and scrubbed, and become well aired and entirely dry before being taken back. If every tiling have a coat of zinc or chemical, paint, so much the better. There is nothing pays better than thorough cleanliness everywhere, but the rule will especially apply to the cellar.—- Farm and Garden? Chicago Tribune. The Baltimore Gazette, in rather a criticising spirit, says: "We of Maryland rather rejoice, in this day of centennial effusion, that we have no particular spot or date to commemorate.” This is not paying high honor to the memory of the fathers and martyrs of the Revolution, and reminds us. of the man who thanked the Lord that, although he had been a member of the church for twenty years, it hadn’t cost him a cent.— N. F. Observer.