Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—To make rice pies, take one teacupful of rice, cook it soft; then-add five eggs and five large tablespoonfuls of sugar; grate in one nutmeg, adu one teaspoonful of salt and two quarts of sweet milk. Bake with one crust. This quantity will make five pies. —At this season of the year farm horses are obliged to work very hard, and it is not only right and just, but for the pecuniary interest of their owners, to see that they are well fed. And they ought not only to have good food and plenty of it, but it should be given to them wet. A great many horses are permanently injured by being kept in the summer, when they work, upon dry hay and mesj. —To estimate the quantity of shelled corn on the cobs in any'given space, level them and measure the length, breadth and depth; then multiply these dimensions together, and the product by four. Cat off the last figure, and the result will be the number of bushels of shelled corn and the decimal of a bushel. —Scientific American —A substitute for ink has been devised by Dr. Jacobson, of Berlin, which consists of points, like the leads of ordinary pencils, that can be fitted into holders. The writing at first very much resembles lead-pencil marks, but when moistened immediately assumes a violet tint, and then adheres to the paper like ink. Six good copies can be taken from it with an ordinary copying-press. —Preserved plums- are very nice and not at all difficult to make. Some housekeepers advise that they be stoned first, then weighed, but usually they are preserved whole, being stuck with a needle to prevent the skin bursting, if the large purple plums are used, or scalded and skinned if green gages. One pound of sugar to every pound of fruit is the proportion—cook slqwly until the sirup is thick as honey. Put in glass jars, cover closely and they will keep well for years. —Fruit is kept in Russia by being packed in creosotized lime. The. lime is slaked in water in which a little creosote has been dissolved, and is allowed to fall to powder. The latter is spread over the bottom of a deal box, to about one inch in thickness. A sheet of paper is laid above, and then the fruit. Over the fruit is another sheet of paper, then more lime, and so on until the box is full, when a little finely-powdered charcoal is packed in the corners, and the lid tightly closed. • Fruit thus inclosed will, it is said, remain good for a year. —The best farmer is he who raises the best and largest crops on the smallest surface of land at the least expense, and at tliesame time annually improves his soil; who understands his business and attends to it; whose manure heap is very large and .always increasing; whose corn-crib and smoke-house are at home; who is surrounded by all the necessaries and com forts of life; who studies his profession and strives to reach perfection in it; who keeps a strict account of his outgoes as well as his incomes, and who knows how he stands at the end of each season. Such a farmer, in nine times out of ten, will succeed, and not only make farming a pleasant hut profitable occupation. Try it and see liow it is yourself, reader. — Farmer's Vindicator.