Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1877 — USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE.

It is veiy positively stated that grasshoppers will not eat peas, artichokes, or flax. A bit of cotton put into a bird’s cage over night will attract the insects. The cotton may be removed in the morning and cremated. Any cow which will not, with good care and treatment, produce 7.000 pounds of milk per year should be sent to the butcher. — N. Y. Herald. Molasses Cake.—Oie egg. one-half cup sugar, one cup molasses, one cup sour cream, one teaspoon saleratus, one teaspoon ginger, a little salt. Nkvbr remove the leaves from bulbs after flowering until they are entirely dried up, for as long as they retain any life they are strengthening the bulb for another season. All bulbs and tuberous roots should be placed on the ground before they sprout, for if they form roots and leaves without soil they destroy their vitality.— N. Y. Herald. Von Bele gives the following method for preparing an ink for marking linen and cotton: Neutralize seventy-five grains of carbonate of ammonia with pnre nitric acid, and triturate forty-five to sixty grains of carmine with the solution. Mordant the fabric with a mixed solution of acetate of alumina and tin salt, and write upon it, when it is perfectly dry, with the ink. Eggs and Potatoes.—Chop cold potatoes the size of a grain of coffee; season with salt and pepper. Melt some butter or lard in a frying-pan, and put in one quart of the chopped potatoes. When quite hot, stir in six well-beaten eggs, and continue stirring them till all is well mixed together and the eggs are done, not hard? Pepper and salt if more is needed, and send to table hot. This will be found a pleasant dish for breakfast.— Christian Union. Good authority states positively that fiaint spread in the fall or winter will ast twice as long as that put on in the spring or summer. When applied in the cool or cold weather it dries slowly and forms a hard surface or crust, while that which is spread in hot weather loses most of the oil by being driven into the wood by the heat, leaving only a dry lead, easily crumbled off. Another advantage gained in fall painting is the absence of swarms of small flies that so often collect on the paint. It is not the fault of a horse if he appears on the street with his hair shaved close to his hide; not his fault if his head is drawn clear up out of shape with c. sort of check-rein; not his fault if his tall is all haggled up or left to drag in the mud; not his fault if his legs are loaded down with flannel leggins/> leather foot-tops and rubber-ball bracelets. It is not the fault of the horse that he suffers this way, but his owner’s. The horse doesn’t like to make such a fool of himself.—Chicago Journal. ■Cold Minced Meat and Eggs.—Take some fragments of any cold roast meat. Trim off all the fat parts and mince it very fine. Fry a shallot chopped small in plenty of butter; when it is a light brown add a large pinch of flour ana a little stock, then the minced meat, with chopped parsley, pepper, salt and nutmeg to taste. Mix well, add a little more stock if necessary, and let the mince gradually get hot by toe side of the fire; lastly, drop in a few drops of lemon juice; serve with sippets of bread fried in butter, and place the poached eggs on the top.