Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1878 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

—Whatever you cultivate, do It well. Whatever stock you have, get the best. Whatever fruit you have, let it bo the choicest. Be at the head of your class. —lowa State Register. —Oil cloths can be easily and quickly spoiled by cleaning them with hot water and not wiping them properly. They should be washed with lukewarm water and wiped perfectly dry with a soft flannel. —At farmer, after careful experiment, has concluded that to card steers is to make them lose flesh. Two yoke fed exactly the one carded and the other not, showed a gain for the yoke not carded. The same result occurred when thp carding was changed to the other steers. —Evening Journal. —To make ginger snaps, take two tablospoonfuls boiling water, three of hot shortening, one heaping of ginger, one teaspoon saleratus; put all in a cup and fill up with molasses; repeat this as often as desired to make a sufficient quantity; when all mixed, put in extra spoonful of shortening and one-half cup brown sugar; mix rather stiffly with flour; bake quickly. —ls the virtue of oatmeal and water was properly understood it would be more generally drank in summer in place of spirits or beer, or even simple ice-water. In the navy, in hot weather, especially in the engineer department, it is regularly served out to the men. On land, especially to those exposed to excessive heat, it is very grateful; say a cupful of oatmeal to a pail of water. —Cor.N.Y. Sun. —One of the most serviceable trailers is the plant commonly called German ivy. It is of most rapid growth, with light-green leaves, studded with pellucid dots and never troubled by insects. As a screen for a window, or covering for a walk, it is most valuable. It is easily propagated, every joint rooting if placed in the earth. The flowers are straw-colored, and often produced in greatest profusion. The Slant is a native of the Cape of Good [ope, and has been introduced many years. It is admirably adapted for baskets. —Boston Traveller.

—For the last five years I have not lost a cucumber or melon-vine or cab-bage-plant. Get a barrel with a few gallons of gas-tar in its pour water on the tar; always have it ready when needed, and when the bugs appear give them a liberal drink of the tarwater from a sprinkler, or otherwise, and if the rain washes it off and they return repeat the dose. It will also destroy the Colorado potato-beetle and frighten the old long potato-bug worse than a threshing witn a brush. Five years ago this summer both kinds appeared on my late potatoes, and I watered with the tar-water. The next day all Colorados that had not been'well protected "from the sprinkling, were dead, and the others, though their name was legion, were all gone, and I have never seen one of them on the farm since. I am aware that many will look upon this with indifference, because it is so cheap and simple a remedy. Such should always suffer both by their own and their neighbors’ bugs, as they frequently do. —Chicago Tribune.