Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—To mike an excellent gravy for roast meat, put a common dish with a small quantity of salt in it under the meat, about a quarter of an hour befofe it is removed from the fire. When the dish is full, take--it away, baste the meat, and pour the gravy' into the dislj on which the joint is to be served. —For oyster patties in butter, make a batter with the yelk of one egg, or more, according to the quantity of oysters you intend to prepare, a little nutmeg, some beaten mace, a little flour and a little.salt; dip in the oysters and fry them in lard to a nice brown. If preferred, a little parsley may be shred very tine and mixed with batter. The batter may also be made thicker and formed into the shape of a patty, or put into a small tin mold, the oyster being dropped in and povered over, and the whole baked as a pudding would be. * —Many people do not understand - how to have nice baked beans. Bake the beans all day, and if convenient let them stay'in over night, baking full twenty-four hours, and our word for it, they will conic*out in the morning with a flavor that will make your mouth water to taste of them. We sometimes see persons who only have moderate liking for baked beans, who invariably bake them three or four hours, and that is why they do not like them any better. A day and night is none too much time to bake them, having parboiled them only until the skins will crack when the air comes to them.— Household. —A tablespoonful of ammonia in one gallon of warm water will often restore’ the color of carpets, even if dissolved by acid or alkali. If a ceiling hag been whitewashed with the carpet (town, and a few drops should fall, this will remove it. Or, after the carpet is well beaten and brushed, scour it with ox-gall, which will not only extract grease but freshen the colors. One pint of gall in three gallons of warm water will do a large carpet. Table and floor cloths may be thus washed. The suds left from a wash when ammonia is used, even if almost cold, cleanses these new floor-cloths well.—jE’a:change. —A writer in the London Field states that poultry properly fed will acquire all the fatness needed for marketing purposes in a fortnight or three weeks at, most. Their diet should be Indian, oat or barley meal, scalded in milk or water —the former is the best as it -will expedite the fattening process. They should be fed early in the morning, at noon and also in the evening just, before going to roost and given a plentiful supply of pure fresh water, plenty of gravel, sliced cabbage or turnip-tops. If the fowls are required to be very fat some trimmings of fresh mutton suet may be chopped up and scalded with their other feed or they maybe boiled in milk alone and poured over the meal. This renders the flesh firmer than it otherwise would be. When fit to kill, feeding should be stopped for twelve hours or more so that the intestines may become comparatively empty.