Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1876 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

—My Gingerbread. cup of water, a cup or molasses, aix Tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one and a half cups of flour, a teaspoon ful of soda, two of cream of tartar, two of ginger; bake very qpickly.—- Cor. Moore's Hural. —Welsh Rarebit—One-quarter pound of rich cheese, cut in smalt bite; put in a frying-pan, heated aud buttered, with a cup of milk; when the cheese is all dissolved add one well-beaten egg, one-haif saltepoonfill dry mustard, heaping teaspoonful of flour, a little huttoir, have four-or five more slices of toast ready; stir the mixture all up together and pour immediately over the hot toast; servo Instantly, as it Is not good when cold. —Dried apples are beginning to appear on the tables, and are not generally welcomed, I think, but if my Friends of the cooking department will base instead of stewing them, I think they will like them better. Bake in a brown earthen pot. not ÜBed for anything else, as the grease would spoil apples. Cover with cold water, and if the fire scorches at all, put a cover on the dish and bake four or five hours; a longer time improves them. Put in the sugar or molasses the last half hour, and mash well with a spoon, and they taste like boiled cider apple-sauce. Use no upper crust qn the pie, but put across. I prefer quartered apples to sliced ones, as the last have lesfl juice.— Mousehold. • ' “ ' i

—Mrs. Rustic’s (strawberry Short-Cake. —One large teaspoonful of sweet milk, one heaping tablespoonftil of butter, one heaping tablespoonful of baking powder worked throughly through, flour enough to roll as for biscuits. Mix quickly, roll to an inch in thickness and bake in a quick oven. Two hours before wanted for use wash and drain through a colander three pints of small-sized strawberries, put them in a dish and sprinkle sufficient sugar over them to sweeten. When the short-cake is done divide in the middle, butter the bottom layer,spread on half of the prepared strawberries and juice, invert the top, butter and spread on the remainder of the berries. Eat while warm, with sweetened cream, or whip cream. —My treatment of roses is this: I procure vessels large enough to allow the roots all the growth required, with opening enough for the drainage of water; plenty of good rich soil, which should be renewed every six months; do not allow the soil to become too dry, or do not water too profusely. After supper, if tea is left, when it becomes cold I often pour enough on to saturate the roots, which is very beneficial; also notice that there are no worms at the root, or rose lice on the stem, as both are very injurious. The above is my treatment of roses, and I am satisfied no one can possess finer or more thrifty looking ones than I have. — Cor. Cincinnati Enquirer.

—The following compound, recommended by a French chemist several years since, may be worth trying on potatoes for destroying the potato beetle. Take twQ and a half pounds of block soap, two and a half pounds of flour of sulphur* two pounds of mushrooms, of the species generally found in low, moist grounds, and thirty quarts of water. Divide the water into two equal parts; put one-half into a cask with the soap and mnshrooms, after they have been bruised; boil the other half of the water in a kettle, with the sulphur in a bag and kept down to the bottom of the water with a weight. The sulphur must be stirred about, in order to better saturate the water. The water thus' boiled must be thrown into an ordinary sized cask until it has acquired a high degree of foul odor,, and the cask then closed up tightly. This solution may be sprinkled over infested trees, or plants of any kind, and it is said to be certain death to all kinds of insects. —Rural New Yorker. —The currant has two enemies which in some seasons and localities, if not interfered with, are very destructive. The more formidable one is known as the currant worm. It is about an inch long, bright yellow, and dotted with small black spots. There worms are very voracious and will strip the bushes of foliage before one is aware of their presence, if not on the watch for them. The remedy is a thorough dusting of white hellebore upen the leaves when they are wet with dew; or better still, put two ounces of white hellebore into a pail, and pour upon the powder a quart of boiling water. Af 1 tei it has stood a few moments fill up the pail with cold water and apply it to the bushes with a syringe. The liquid kills every worm it touches. Applications should be continued while any of the pests remain, and if attacked in time they can soon be destroyed. The other enemy is aTvorm called the currant borer, and its presence is known by the wood shriveling, or the foliage turning yellow. Cut off the infested branches close to the ground and burn them. If currants are grown in bush form, which is the better way, they can seldom destroy a plant, but wheu the plants are pruned into miniature trees with a single stem, the borer is often fatal to them. — Rev. E. P. Roe.