Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—A French loaf cake is thus made: One pound of flour, one pound of sugar, one pound of raisins, a half pound of butter, one cup of new milk, five eggs, and spice to taste. —Meat should be cooked by . a quick fire, as the rapid closing of the outer pores retains all the juices within, and these becoming heated create a natural process of steatning in its own gravy. —One teacupful of sugar, one egg (beat the egg and sugar till light), one teacupful of spur cream, one teaspoonful of soda, nutmeg and cinnamon to suit the taste. This makes a splendid cake, and is called Editors’ Cake. —To make a wedding pudding, take one cup of molasses, one cup of chopped raisins, one cup of milk, one-half cup of butter, one teaspoonful of soda, one dessertspoonful of mixed spices, one egg, four cups of flour. Steam three hours. —A method of curing skins without removing the hair is given by a correspond-i ent in the Fancier’s Journal: “ Take soft water, about ten gallons, one-half bushel wheat bran, seven pounds of salt, two and a half pounds of sulphuric acid. * Dissolve all together and put the skins in the solution, and allow them to remain twelve hours; take them out and clean them well, and again immerse twelve more hours, or longer, if necessary. The skins may then be taken out, well washed and dried. They can be beaten soft if desired.”

—A balky horse is insane on the subject of going. If we can manage to make him think on some other subject he will naturally forget about going and go before he knows it. The following devices have been successfully tried to accomplish the desired end: 1. Tying a string around the horse’s ear close to the head. 2. Hitching the horse to the swingletree by means of a cord irfetead of the tugs; the cord fastened to the horse’s tail. 3. Filling the mouth full of some disagreeable substance. 4. Tying a stout twine around the leg just below the knee and then removing it when he has traveled some distance. Never whip a balky horse, for the more he is whipped the crazier he will become. Let everything be done gently, for boisterous words only confuse him and make him worse. Treat him in the mild manner that you would a crazy man and you will succeed.— Rural Neu> Yorker. —Many housekeepers complain to the butcher at the disproportion between the size of the meat and the money they have paid for it, and, weighing it, find it much less than paid for, but their representations are met with the statement that it is the trimmings which make the difference. Suppose you sent to your grtxser for nine pounds of butter, which he should proceed to weigh, and afterward took a knife and carefully trimmed all the edges where the firkin or the brine had left unsightly lines and marks upon it, and that should amount to half or three-quarters or a whole pound, you would send it back much more quickly than it came. Now, is there any good reason why we should submit to a loss from the butcher sooner than from the grocer? But we have and do, and must .submit to it until housekeepers make a determined effort to right the wrong and insist always upon having as good weight for meat as for groceries. —American Grocer.