Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1877 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

—Fix up a decoction of wnlnnt-leaves to put on your horses and cows, and drive the flies away. —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 burned at once. —Fanners should make a careful 'distinction between tramps and the honest harvest hands who go about at this time of the season seeking work. —Sometimes, when no corkscrew is handy, one is puzzled how to remove the cork of a bottle. Try this method: Fill the hollow at the bottom of the bottle with a handkerchief or towel, grasp the neck with one hand, and strike firmly and steadily with the other upon the handkerchief.— Atfierican Cultivator. —When planted in very rich soil, tomatoes often produee much wood and little fruit. The best crop ot tomatoes I ever saw was furnished by main stems as free from side growth as a walking stick. All growths except the leaves and flowers attached to the principal stem had been pinched off as tney appeared.— The Carden. Tomato Honey.—To each pound of tomatoes allow the grated peel of a lemon, and six fresh peach leaves, boil them slowly till they are all to pieces, then squeeze them through a bag; to each pound of liquid allow a pound of sugar, and the juice of ono lemon, boil them together until they become thick jelly, then put into glasses. —French Pickle.—Take three quarts of green tomatoes, three quarts cucumbers, and three quarts onions, two good handfuls salt, one ounce celery seed, one ounce allspice, one ounce black pepper, ten cups mustard-seed, one tablespoon tumeric, one pound brown sugar, two tablespoons ground mustard, one gallon vinegar, cauliflower, put all in bi ine, let it stand two days, then boil it from three to four hours; this is splendid. - —A correspondent, discouraged at the many failures of prominent agriculturists about him, wants to know of us the true key of success. In answer we would say, it is an attentive supervision which never sleeps, the exercise of muscles which never tire, the strain of muscles which never re.ax, the employment of eyes which never blanch, and the concentration of the thought which never wanders from the business of the farm.— lowa State Register.

—To Extinguish Kerosen? Flames. — One of the must ready means is to throw a cloth of some kind over the flames, and thus stifle them; but as the cloth is not always convenient to the kitchen, where such accidents are most likely to occur, some one recommends flour as a substitute, which, it is said, promptly extinguishes the flames. It rapidly absorbs the fluid, deadens the flames, and can be readily gathered up and thrown out of doors when the Are is extinguished. —lce-Cream. —To one quart of cream take six ounces sugar, grate in one-quar-ter of a vanilla bean, strain it and put it into your freezer, add the whites of two eggs beaten very light, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar to stiffen them. It your cream is not very rich, boil a littie milk, sweeten it, beat two eggs very light and stir in and cook like soft custard. The flavor will perhaps be better if the vanilla bean is boiled a few minutes in a little milk, which may be added to the cream when cool.