Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—The skin of a boiled potato placed upop a corn and kept upon it over night is said to cure it. —To Take Ink Out of Linen.—lmmerse the part that has ink on it in boiling hot tallow; when cool, wash out in soapsuds and the linen will be as white as everi —A correspondent of the Cincinnati Times says the striped bug can be prevented from destroying cucumber vines by planting three to five beet seeds m each hill. —Wash floor-cloths in clear, warm water, then go over them again with a wash composed of an egg well beaten and mixed with a pint of warm, clear water. This will give them a newness which will be quite lasting. —Lettuce Salad.—Most housekeepers use vinegar, vinegar and sugar, or vinegar and meat gravy for lettuce, but sour cream from clabbered milk, and sugar added to the lettuce after it is cut up fine, make a most delicious and healthy salad. —ln sowing seeds it is well to remember that, though the soil should be deep and finely pulverized, a loose condition is unfavorable to good growth. After the seeds are sown, a heavy rolling would be a great advantage. The farmer knows this, and we have often wondered that the practice never extended to garden work. — Gardener's Monthly.

—Domestic Hair Renewer.—Steep a handful of sage in a pint of hot water. When cold strain it, adding one tablespoonful of salt, one gill of bay rum or other spirits. Bottle and cork closely. If a very dark shade is desirable put a few rusty nails into the bottle or in the sage while it is steeping. This not only promotes the growth of the hair, preventing it from coming out, but restores the color. — N. Y. Herald. —ln the cultivation of garden crops the hoe and rake should be continually at work. Weeds should be taken in band before they are barely out at the seedleaf, and one-half the usual labor of vegetable gardening will be avoided. Hoeing or earthing up of most garden crops is of immense advantage in nearly every case. One would suppose that in our hot climate flat culture would be much more beneficial; but a fair trial, say on every other row of a bed of cabbages, will show a great difference in favor of the earthed-up plants. —Every country neighborhood has woods which are full of ferns and brakes, which usually die and go to seed without doing any good save as a gratification to the sense of sight. The softer parts, if stripped from the stems and dried in the sun, retain their toughness and elasticity for a long time, and are said to be superior to straw and husks, and even to "excelsior,” for stuffing mattresses. The ticks, when filled, should be stitched firmly with a mattress needle, asing strong linen twine, and making the intervals between the stitches about an eighth of a yard .-^Exchange. —Homeopathic Pudding.—Take a basin or any earthenware mold, the size you wish; you need not grease or flour it. Line it entirely with moderately thin slices of crumb bread, sweeten and boil tender any garden fruit, and when fast boiling pour into the bread; immediately put a layer of crumb over the top and quickly cover it over with a plate, so as to shut in the steam. When quite cold this will turn out a firm pudding the shape of the mold used, and saturated with the juice of the fruit. A little loaf sugar may be thrown over it. This pudding is pa'rticuiarlv suitable to those invalids who may ea't fruit but not pastry.