Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1879 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

To take castor oil and not taste it, hold the nose tight so as not to smell, and, better stillT in addition, drink it from a bottle. The oil cannot be tasted. — Exchange. —Pure. air and water are of even more importance than exercise in the care of young animals. They are often huddled together in houses altogether insufficient in size, and in whion the atmosphere is almost constantly impure from the product of respiration. —A poultry breeder says: “Every spring I procure a quantity of cedar bdughs and scatter them plentifully in and around the hon-house. This is all that is necessary, as the odor of cedar keeps away lice. This remedy is cheap, ample and effective, and is well worth trying.!’ —Egg plants should be cultivated more than they are. When peeled and cut in slices, soaked in salt water, dipped in dry meal, and fried or broiled, and served with butter and pepper, they are very nice. Their, eulture is simple—sow the seed, transplant say about three or three and a naif feet each way in rich ground, then hoe as 'often as needed to keep down the weeds. — lowa State Register. —Confinement and want of occupation are among the chief causes why fowls eat feathers. The former is often inevitable in winter, but the latter can be avoided by burying some of their grain food in sand and allowing them to hunt for it, whioh will afford them pastime and healthy occupation. Give them some green food, fresh meat two or three times a week, burnt bones, oyster shells, charcoal, clear water and a clean hennery, and if all this doesn’t cure them of the habit, wring their necks, for they are incurable.—Exchange. —Sometimes the ground-glass stoppers of battles-Jbesome fixed in the neck, and cannot be removed by pulling or twisting. An effectual method is to wrap a rag wet with hot water around the neok and let it remain a few seconds. The heat will expand the neck of the bottle, when the stopper can be removed before the heat penetrates the stopper itself; or, wind a string once or twice around the neck, and, confining the bottle, pull alternately on one and then the other end of the string, thus creating friction, and, consequently, heat. Or a little camphene dropped between the neck and stopper of the bottle will often relieve the stopper. —The following recipe was sent to an English Agricultural Society a number of years ago, and was found to be a sure means of getting rid of those destructive little anhnals—rats: “Melt lard in a bottle plunged in warm water and heated nearty to a boiling point. Turn into it half an ounce of phosphorus for every pound of lard, then add a pint of alcohol or the strongest of whisky. Cork the bottle tightly, and shake it until it is well mixed ana looks milky. Let it cool, and then the lard and phosphorus will have become mixed together, and the spirits will be separated from it, and can be used again for the same purpose, as it only serves to diffuse the phosphate through the lard, which can then be warmea a little and mixed with wheat or corn flour into pellets, and laid into ratholes. It will become luminous in the dark, and attract rats, and being readily eaten by them, it will prove fatal. Some persons mix a little molasses with the dough to make the rats devour it more quickly.” — Western Rural. '' ... •