Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—Bad or foul breath will be removed by taking a teaspoonful of the following mixture after each meal: One ounce liquor potassa, one ounce chloride of soda, one ounce and a half phosphate of soda and three ounces water. —Cincinnati Timex. —Place as many crackers as may lie desired in saucjers and cover with boiling water. When all the water is absorbed cover with thick cream and sugar; then place a spoonful of jelly in the center of each, and season with nutmegs. No nicer dessert'can be desired. —While some dishes are improved for most tastes by the judicious use of good butter, a vastly greater number are spoiled by the injudicious use of bad butter. To put bad butter into pastry, puddings and vegetables does not make the butter good. It simply spoils the pastry, puddings and vegetables. Many dishes are overdone with sweet butter, while others in which it is usually found are much better withoufcit. American cooks have entirely too much faitli in the virtue and potency of grease. — Kansas Farmer. —To make mince-pies take two parts tart apples, one part fresh beef; pare the apples and chop them fine; boil the beef tender, chdp or grind it, and mix together; to a gallon put two pints of cider or vinegar, three pints Sugar, two pints raisins; season to suit the taste, with cinnamon, cloves and any other seasoning you wish. When you are going to bake your pies, if not moist enough, moisten with sweet cream. Have your crustvery short; slice butter over before putting on the top crust; eat warm. — Cor. Cincinnati Timex. —lt is not a good plan to store Swedes, or ruta-bagas, as they are often called, in the cellar of the house. A few for family use may do very well, but it is not uncommon to put in there.all the roots designed for feeding the cattle through the winter. But, as they often are in 1 deep piles and badly ventilated, they are apt to sweat more or less, and send off exhalations to infect the air of the house. They, are liable to injure the health of- the family. We have little doubt that many cases of typhoid fever could be/traced to impunities in the air that is inhaled into the lungs from decaying vegetables in the cellar, and many more from defective drainage about the house. Itougbt always -to be borne in mind that the health of the family is of vastly more importance than a little temporary convenience in storing roots. — Massachusetts Ploughman. —So many things have to be taken into consideration in calculating the weight of hay in bulk it makes it difficult to get at it precisely. For example: fine, newmown hay, like red-top or herd’s-grass, would probably require 500 cubic feet for the ton; timothy, 530; clover, 650; coarse meadow hay, 700 or more. After being stacked thirty days the bulk would be decreased from 5 to 10 per cent., possibly more, according to the size of the stack and the pressure upon it. Again, hay will vary somewhat in measurement according to the time it is cut. If this be done when it is just coming into blossom, as it always should, it will pack closer and weigh more per cubic foot than if left till the seed begins to ripen aud the stalks and leaves have grown coarser and become drier. Good judgment and some experience in measuring"and weighing is required to get at this correctly. A neighbor of mine informs me that lie once had the curiosity to weigh his timothy hay as he put it into the bam in July. He sold it about nine months after, and on re weigh ing it as it came out of the barn lie found, greatly to bis surprise, that it had shrunk to within a fraction of 23 per '■cent.— A. B. Allen, in N. Y. Tribune.