Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1876 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

—A mixture of oil and 4nk is said to be a good thing to clean kid boots with; the first softens and the last blackens them. —Bleeding from the nose may often be stopped by putting bits of lint into the nostrils, and by raising the arms over the head. —The shaking of currant bushes at noon in a clear day will cause currant worms to drop td the ground, and nbt one in fifty will regain thebush.— Exchoi.gc. —Puff Cake.—Two cupfuls of sugar, one of butter, one of sweet' milk, three of flour, three eggs, one and one-halt tcaspoonfUls of yeast powder, extract of lemon. Bake quick. —To clean an oil painting that is injured by dust and particles of wrapping paper, an exchange says, take the picture out of the frame, lay a coarse towel over it for ten or fourteen days; keep it continually wet until it has drawn out all the filthiness from the picture; pass some linseed oil which has been a long time seasoning over it, in the sunlight, to purify it, and the picture will become as lively on the surface as new. —Oatmeal for a very young infant may be prepared in this way: Take three or four tablespoonfuls ofbest Scotch or Irish oatmeal to a quart of cold water and let it soak all night. In the morning drain oft the water and boil it (not the meal but the water). It will soon thicken and become gruel. You can add salt and sugar if you like, and mix with milk, or, it the child likes it without the milk, it can be eaten that way. The meal that lias been soaked will make a very good dish for the family breakfast— N. x. Timet. - -When bulbs, Buch as hyacinths, crocus, etc., have beeD flowered in water, they should, as soon as the flowers begin to fade, be removed and planted in earth, where they will get a little nourishment. Even then the bulb is much weakened, and it is useless to try to flower bulbs in water twice. All bulbs, with annual roots, which includes pretty much all but the lilies, can be taken up as soon as the leaves are ripe and brown, and be stowed away without the least injury to the flowers of the next season, because the roots will die if the bulbs are allowed to remain in the ground. After taking them up, allow them to dry in the shade for a few days. Then remove the tops, roots and rough skin, and put them away in paper bags, properly labeled, in a cool place in the house until planting time in autumn. Vick's Floral Guide. —A writer in an exchange says the greatest evil to which farriers are exposed by patronizing traveling threshers, is the carrying of foul seeds from one farm to another If one farmer raises red root or Canada thistle, the seeds are sure to be carried all through the neighborhood by these threshers and clover hullers. The remedy suggested is for good, tidy farmers to club together and buy a thresher—not the large six or eight horse-powers, but a good tread power as now made, with a level tread, that will thresh two hundred bushels a day, with one team and three men. “It is far safer,” he says, “more profitable because less expensive, costing not more than one-half, some say not more than one-third as much per bushel to thresh grain as with the traveling machines, and it relieves the house of a small army of men. As long as traveling machines are used from farm to farm, they should be brushed and swept from top to hottom before moving from each station. This is the only precaution that can be taken to guard against the dissemination of foul seeds, except the plan above suggested.”—Practical Farmer.