# The Husbandman and Housewife

THE
HUSBANDMAN
AND
HOUSEWIFE:
A COLLECTION OF
VALUABLE RECIPES AND DIRECTIONS,
RELATING TO
AGRICULTURE AND DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
............... BY THOMAS G. FESSENDEN. ...............
Boyle has observed, that the excellency of manufactures, and the facility of labour would be much promoted if the various expedients and contrivances, which lie concealed in private hands, were by reciprocal communications made generally known; for there are few operations that are not performed by one or other with some peculiar advantages, which though singly of little importance, would, by conjunction and concurrence, open new inlets to knowledge, and give new powers to diligence..........Johnson.
BELLOWS FALLS:
PRINTED BY BILL BLAKE & CO.
Seal. BE it remembered, that on the twenty third day of May, in the forty fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Thomas G. Fessenden, esquire, of said District, hath deposited in this Office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit:
"The Husbandman and Housewife: a collection of valuable recipes and directions, relating to agriculture and domestic economy. By Thomas G. Fessenden. 'Boyle has observed, that the excellency of manufactures, and the facility of labour would be much promoted, if the various expedients and contrivances which lie concealed in private hands, were by reciprocal communications made generally known; for, there are few operations, that are not performed by one or other with some peculiar advantages, which though singly of little importance, would, by conjunction and concurrence, open new inlets to knowledge, and give new powers to diligence'. . . . Johnson."
In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned."
JESSE GOVE,  Clerk of the District of Vermont.
* District Clerk's Office,
* Vermont District, to wit:
* May 23, A. D. 1820.
I hereby certify that the preceding is a true Copy of the record of the preceding title page.
J. GOVE, Clerk.
THE following little work has no other claims to public patronage than what may originate in its utility. The author has compiled from a great number of volumes, written by men of acknowledged merit and standard authority, those directions and prescriptions, which it appeared to him might most benefit the largest proportion of mankind; and he has arranged them alphabetically, that they may be the more easily referred to in cases of emergency, or in the hurry of business Many of the articles, however, he believes have never before appeared in print, and are either derived from personal observation, or been furnished by the author's friends, with a view to publication. Several of the contributors alluded to are medical men, of regular standing, and established reputation. These gentlemen could have no other motive in affording their valuable assistance than what one of them has expressed in a communication to the compiler, viz. "a wish to contribute to the ameliorating of the condition of man." The same gentleman observes, in forming these recipes I have attended solely to such as would be of use to the mass of the people. Therefore I have avoided any composition, into which any ingredients entered, which were not familiar and accessible to ​the great body of the community; and also any which might be dangerous in the hands of persons, unacquainted with the science of medicine.
It is not our wish by the following compilation to furnish weapons for quacks, or infringe upon the province of the regular bred physician. But our object is to suggest simple remedies, for common disorders, where the symptoms admit of no doubt respecting the nature of the complaint, and where the advice of a medical practitioner cannot readily or immediately be procured. On the contrary we would not advise any person to rely upon our recipes, where the disorder appears to be acute, or its symptoms equivocal, but immediately to have recourse to a regular and professed physician. The author does not pretend that his recipes are all infallible specifics in the disorders for which they are recommended. In some cases they may effect a cure, in others, serve merely as palliatives, and give temporary relief till more effectual means can be employed under the direction of a regular practitioner.
THE
HUSBANDMAN AND HOUSEWIFE.
ants.
WHEN you find ants in quantities near home pour hot water on them. The farmer when he manures his land, if he uses ashes, lime or salt sand, will not be troubled with those insects. Dr. Rees' Cyclopædia recommends boiling rain water with black soap, and sulphur, and saturating the ground with it, which is infested with those insects.
apples.
apple tree.
TO propagate apple trees sow the pumice from cider mills, digging it into the earth in autumn. The plants will come up in the spring following. The next autumn they should be transplanted from the seed bed into the nursery, in rows from two to three feet apart, and one foot in the rows. The ground for a nursery should not be very rich but mellow and well pulverised, and kept clear of weeds. The young trees, on being transplanted into orchards should be put into richer land than that to which they have been accustomed.
The best mode of setting out Apple Trees and other Fruit Trees on a light soil.
DIG a hole sufficiently large to prevent the root of the tree when it is to be transplanted from being doubled or placed in an unnatural position, and to give room for the young shoots to extend themselves. Place about the roots of each tree, together with the mould, about half a bushel of small stones, the size of an ordinary apple, or somewhat less, which will give stability to the soil, and prevent the roots from being loosened by the wind.
asthma.
TO cure asthma take of powdered columbo 2 drachms, powdered ginger 2 drachms, camomile flowers 1 ounce. Pour a pint and an half of boiling water on the above ingredients. Take four table spoonfuls of this liquor cold in the morning and at mid-day.
Another Remedy.
MIX 4 ounces of honey, 2 ounces of flour of ​brimstone; 1 ounce of cream of tartar, 1-4 of an ounce of nitre. Take a tea spoonful often.
CUT Turkey figs in half; put a spoonful of sulphur inside and eat them in that state.
TO increase a crop of barley dissolve three pounds of copperas in a pail of boiling water. Add to this as much dung puddle water as will cover three or four bushels of barley. Stir it, and let it steep four and twenty hours; when the seed is drained and spread, sift on fine lime, which fits it for sowing. Steeping the seed about 24 hours in the wash of a dunghill, without any mixture is said to produce a very good effect.
A BARN-YARD should have a high, close and strong fence; be lowest in the middle, and so high in all sides that the greatest rains cannot carry away any of the manure. If not properly shaped by nature it may be done by art, and if the soil be too loose to retain the manure a few loads of clay should be spread over its surface. The cattle should be kept constantly on the barn-yard during the foddering season, and for that purpose water should be introduced. There should be several yards where different sorts of cattle are kept. The sheep should have a yard by themselves at least, and the young stock another, that each kind may have their proper sort of food.
​After the yard is cleaned in the spring the farmer should embrace the first leisure he has to store it with materials for making manure, such as swamp mud, clay, brick dust, straw, fern or brakes, weeds, leaves of trees, turfs, marsh mud, eel grass, or even sand or loam.
THE following mode of planting beans has been recommended by an English writer. The rows are marked out one foot asunder, and the seed planted in holes two inches apart: the lines are stretched across the lands, which are formed about 6 feet over, so that when one row is planted, the sticks to which the line is fastened, are moved by a regular measurement to the distance required, and the same method pursued till the field is completed. The usual price for this work is 9d. sterling per week, and the allowance two bushels per acre."
Sir John Sinclair in his "Code of Agriculture" recommends cutting the tops of beans in order to accelerate their podding. This eminent writer informs us that "it was begun about the year 1804, and has already been tried on more than 200 acres. The operation is performed by means of a sharp edged instrument or knife, 12 or 14 inches long exclusive of the handle; but it may be done by a sickle or reaping hook. The expense has never exceeded 3s. per acre and it is done by contract. At a certain stage of its growth the head of the bean stalk does not seem essential to the purpose of vegetation, but by its luxuriance to exhaust the strength of the plant. The proper time to cut them off, is, when the first blossoms begin to drop: if done sooner a fresh shoot will put forth. As soon as the tops are cut off the pods rapidly increase in size, and the period of ripening is accelerated, The ​timely removal of these parts, where the insects chiefly lodge, materially contributes to the health and vigour of the plant, and probably increases the weight of the crop. The harvest is by this means advanced at least a fortnight. In the ordinary mode of managing a bean crop, their tops are green when reaped, consequently they absorb and retain moisture and require a considerable exposure in the field to prepare them for the stack; whereas without their tops, the crop is sooner in a condition to be carried and less risk is incurred from the effects of frost and wet seasons. The tops are left to rot on the ground."
TAKE a quantity of fourth proof spirits and as much pearl ash as will dissolve in it ; put it in every crack and hole in the bed stead and wash board ; also take a clean strip of linen or muslin ; wet it with the liquor, and put it round the bed post close to the floor.
Or, make a decoction of sassafras bark or root, not so strong as to stain the furniture, and scald the wainscoting of your rooms, once a year.
Or, dissolve camphor in strong spirits and apply the solution.
Or, it has been said that the juice of cucumbers will destroy bed bugs.
Or, simple clear strong lime water, it is affirmed will be as effectual as any of the above.
Mode of preserving. See Meat
TAKE a sufficient quantity of spruce boughs; boil them in water about half an hour, or till the outward skin or rind peels off; strain the liquor, and stir in at the rate of two quarts of molasses to half a barrel. Work it with beer grounds or emptyings, or rather with yeast.
TAKE four quarts of molasses, half a pint of yeast, and a spoonful of powdered race ginger: Put these ingredients into your vessel, and pour on them two gallons of scalding hot, soft clear water;—Shake it till it ferments; and add thirteen gallons of the same water to fill up the cask. Let the liquor ferment for about twelve hours, then bottle it off with a raisin or two in each bottle.
TAKE a heaped half peck of wheat bran, and three or four ounces of hops: Boil them a quarter of an hour in fifteen gallons of clear water: strain the liquor through a close sieve, and sweeten it with two quarts of molasses cool it quick till it is no warmer than new milk, and fill your half barrel. Warm water may be used to fill up the cask if needful. Leave the bung but for 24. hours, that the drink may work and throw off the yeast, and it will be fit for use. About the fourth or fifth day, bottle off what remains in the vessel, especially if the weather be hot, that it may not turn sour or stale. If the cask be new, or not before used for beer, apply yest or beer grounds to ferment it; otherwise it will not be necessary.
The practice which is common of fermenting our small drinks with the sediments or dregs of the same ​ought to be abandoned; for this is the foulest and most unwholesome excrement of the liquor.
MIX two handfulls of bean flour with one handful of wheat flour and stir it in.
PUT six sea biscuits into a bag of hops, and put all into the cask.
THE pods of peas, after being dried it is said are excellent in beer, affording spirit to the beer.
ABOUT the first of May, raise the hive up, and strew some fine salt under the edge, which will drive those insects away.
IN the evening, when the bees have retired, take the hive gently from the stand; spread a table cloth on the ground; set the hive on it, placing something under to raise it three or four inches; then draw up the corners of the cloth, and fasten them tight around the middle of the hive, leaving it so loose below that the bees will have room sufficient between them and the hive.—Then raise the lid of the hive a little, and blow in the smoke from a cigar; a few puffs of which as it ​is very disagreeable to them will drive them down.—Continue raising the lid gradually, and blowing in the smoke all around, and in a few minutes it will be found that they have all gone out of the hive. You may then take off the lid, and cut away as much of the honey as you think proper. If the operation be performed the beginning of July, you may take nearly all, as there will be time enough to provide a sufficiency for their support, during the winter. As soon as you have taken the honey, put on the lid, loosen the cloth, and spread it out, and in an hour or two the bees will have returned into the hive. It may then be replaced on the stand, and on the following day they will be found at work as usual.
This method is very simple, and preferable to driving the bees into another hive ; as you get all the honey, and the new comb, which is still empty, and the young bees, not yet out of their cells are preserved.
THE application of laudanum gives immediate relief.
THE sting of a bee should be immediately extracted with a steady hand, for if any part of it breaks in remedies will in a great measure be ineffectual. For a remedy, the application of a strong solution of salt is said to be speedy and infallible.
THE nearer bells are hung to the ground, other things being equal the further they can be heard. Dr. Franklin has stated that some years ago the ​inhabitants of Philadelphia had a new bell imported from England, and in order to judge of the sound the bell was raised on a triangle in the great street of that city, and struck, as it happened on a market day; when the people coming to market were surprised on hearing the sound of a bell at a greater distance from the city than they had ever heard any bell before. This circumstance excited the attention of the curious; and it was discovered that the sound of the bell when struck in the street, reached nearly double the distance it did when raised in the steeple.
A VARIETY of remedies have been recommended for this complaint. The following is said to have proved very efficacious.
Wash and cleanse the mouth with sweet oil, and get as much into the horse as he will swallow, not exceeding one pint; then rub the throat with Spirits of Turpentine, Sweet Oil and Camphor, equal quantities, and well mixed.
When this disease makes its appearance in the feet, the hoof must be pared off where it presses on the tender parts, and the remainder of the hoof kept soft with linseed oil. Hot oils are then to be used to keep down the rising flesh, such as butter of antimony, vitriol. aqua fortis, and continued till the fungus is suppressed; observing to give them purges often to carry off the humours.
SCRAPE off the eggs of the horse bee, when laid on the horse, every eight or ten days with a sharp ​knife. This practice must be continued during the season of them. The eggs should not be scraped off where the horse can feed, as in that case the young botts may be taken in. It is difficult to remove those eggs which are laid under the throat, with a knife, but they may be destroyed with a hot iron made for the purpose.
BLOOD letting and the copious use of mild oils will always palliate, and sometimes cure that disorder.
A WRITER in the American Centinel gives the following recipes.
Take a table spoonful of unslacked lime, and let it be given with the water or feed of a horse at night and morning for three or four days, and it will completely expel the botts.
MAKE a drench composed of half a pint of new milk, a gill of molasses, an ounce of copperas, two table spoonfuls of common salt, and half a pint of warm water. Give this to the horse, once or twice a day, for a few days, and it will be sure to relieve him.
But the remedy on which we should rely with the most confidence is the following which we are told by a gentleman of undoubted veracity is
APPLY spirits of turpentine to the outside of the breast and stomach of a horse and the botts will ​immediately let go their hold. Our informant assures us, that he has seen horses which seemed to be in the last agonies with this distressing complaint, relieved instantly and apparently restored to full health in five minutes.
THE carbonate of magnesia of the shops, when well mixed with new flour, in the proportion of from 20 to 40 grains to a pound of flour materially improves it for the purpose of making bread. Loaves, made with the addition of the carbonate of magnesia, rise well in the oven; and after being baked the bread is light and spongy, has a good taste, and keeps well. In cases where the new flour is of an indifferent quality, from 20 to 30 grains of the carbonate of magnesia to a pound of flour will considerably improve the bread.—When the flour is of the worst quality 40 grains to a pound of flour, is necessary to produce the same effect. As the improvement in the bread from the new flour depends upon the carbonate of magnesia, it is necessary that care should be taken to mix it it intimately with the flour previous to making the dough. A pound of carbonate of magnesia would be sufficient to mix with two hundred and fifty-six pounds of new flour at the rate of 30 grains to a pound.
BOIL potatoes not quite so soft as common, then turn the water out and let them hang over the fire and dry a short time; then peal and mash them as fine as possible, then take a small quantity of pearl ash, which should be added to new yeast, which is working briskly; add the potatoes to these ingredients, and ​knead them together; then add as much rye meal, or flour as you can possibly work in—the whole should be pounded together with a pestle or something of the kind; no water to be added at any time. After the dough is thus prepared let it stand an hour and an half or two hours before it is put into the oven. Be particular in following these directions and you may make as good bread as can be made from the best rye and Indian meal; indeed many give it the preference. It does not require quite so long a time to bake as common brown bread.
TO every five pounds of flour add one pound of rice that has been previously boiled to a jelly over a slow fire; then, when lukewarm, add your usual quantity of yeast, and make up your bread. Should you judge your jelly to be too thick add luke-warm water; a method by which thirty pounds of flour and six of rice produce eighteen loaves each four pounds and an half weight. Five pounds of flour produce eight pounds of bread; but with the addition of a pound of rice twelve and an half.
PULVERISED chalk mixed with the whites of eggs to the consistence of cream, kept frequently applied to prevent its congealing, is declared to be an excellent remedy for burns and scalds.
A PLASTER composed of Burgundy pitch, bees wax. and a little oil. Or. some say that common tar is the most sovereign remedy that can be applied.
Another Remedy.
TAKE a piece of the thickest coarse brown paper, and dip it in the best salad oil. then set the paper on fire and carefully preserve all the oil that drops for use.
burnt clay
IS an absorbent and acts much like lime as a manure, but not so powerfully. The method of burning it is as follows:— Procure eight loads of clay, cut into spits about as thick as a brick; let it be pretty well dried in the sun and having made a heap of brush and other wood, coals or other combustibles, and laid one upon another, about as large as a small bonfire, in a pyramidical form, bring the spits of clay and lay them round the same two or three spits thick, leaving only room to put in the fire, and light it. The clay will soon take fire, and as it advances outwards lay on some more spits of clay, placing them in such a manner that the fire may be pent up within the heap up and not suffered to go out. After having burnt up the eight loads of clay the heat within will be so great as to fire any thing; and then you may lay on the clay green as it is dug from the pit, being always watchful to keep adding to it, but not so fast as to smother the fire. The heap you may enlarge and Spread out at the foot, keeping the fire constantly burning night and day; for the larger the heap grows the easier burns the clay. This is a cheap dressing for all sorts of land, excepting perhaps light sandy soils and being laid pretty thick about the roots of fruit trees. enlarges, multiplies and accelerates the growth of fruit.
butter—how made.
THE dairy house should be kept neat, should never front the south, southeast or southwest. It should be ​situated near a good spring or current of water. The proper receptacles for milk are earthen pans not lined or glazed with lead, or wooden trays. In warm Weather milk should remain in the pail till nearly cool before it is strained, but in frosty weather it should be strained immediately, and a small quantity of boiling water may be mixed with it, which will cause it to produce cream in great abundance, and the more so if the pans or vats have a large surface.
In hot weather the cream should be skimmed from the milk at or before sunrise, before the dairy gets warm, nor should the milk, in hot weather stand in its receptacles longer than twenty four hours. In winter, milk may remain unskimmed thirty six or forty eight hours. The cream should be deposited in a deep pan, kept during summer in a cool place, where a free air is admitted. Unless churning is performed every other day the cream should be shifted daily into clean pans, but churning should be performed at least twice a week, in hot weather; and this should be done in the morning before sun rise, taking care to fix the churn where there is a good draught of air. If a pump churn is used it may be plunged a foot deep in cold water, and remain in that situation during the whole time of churning, which will much harden the butter. A strong rancid flavour will be given to butter if we churn so near the fire as to heat the wood in the winter season.
After the butter is churned it should immediately be washed in many different waters, till it is perfectly cleansed from the milk; and it should be worked by two pieces of wood, for a warm hand will soften it, and make it appear greasy.
Butter will require and endure more working in winter than in summer.
​Those who use a pump churn must keep a regular stroke: nor should they permit any person to assist them unless they keep nearly the same stroke ; for if they churn more slowly, the butter will in the winter go back, as it is called; and if the stroke be more quick, it will cause a fermentation, by which means the butter will acquire a very disagreeable flavour.
Cows should never be suffered to drink improper water; stagnated pools, water wherein frogs spawn, common sewers, and ponds that receive the drainings of stables are improper.
The operation of churning may be very much shortened by mixing a little distilled vinegar with the cream in the churn The butter being afterwards well washed in two or three changes of water. The whole of the acid will be caried off; or if any remain it will not be perceived by the taste. A table spoonful or two of the vinegar to a gallon of cream.
To take the rancid taste from Butter.
WHEN fresh butter has not been salted in proper time, or when salt butter has become rancid or musty, after melting and simmering it, dip in it a crust of bread well toasted on both sides; and in a few minutes the butter will loose its disagreeable taste.
Butter made from scalded Cream.
AS soon as the milk is taken from the cow let it be placed on a steady wood fire, free as possible from smoke and scalded for thirty minutes—particular care must be taken not to allow it to boil. It must then be placed in a cool situation, and on the following day a thick rich cream will appear on the surface of the milk (which is excellent also for dessert purposes) this may be taken off and made into butter in the common ​way. This method is practiced in England, and it is said that a greater quantity of butter, and of a better quality can be made by this than by the common mode.
Receipt for curing Butter.
TAKE two parts of the best common salt, one part of sugar and one part salt petre; put them up together so as to blend the whole completely: take one ounce cf this composition for every sixteen ounces of butter, work it well into the mass and close it up for use.
cabbage.
MANURING with ashes and lime has a tendency to preserve cabbages from insects; and to guard against the grub or black worm a little circle of quick lime is said to be of service. Lice on cabbages may be destroyed by washing the plants with strong brine. The under leaves of cabbages, when they begin to decay may be taken off and made food for cattle, but decayed leaves should never be given to milch cows as they give the milk a bad flavour.
Method of preserving Cabbages, so as to have them good in the spring.
[From the New England Farmer.]
MAKE a trench in the driest sandy ground, nine inches wide, and of equal depth; in which, place a row of Cabbages, with the roots upwards, contiguous to each other. Fill the cavities about them with some dry straw, and then shovel the earth up to the stalks on each side, almost as high as the roots, shaped like the roof of a house. The Cabbages will come out in May as sound as when they were put in. and be outer green leaves will be turned quite white. As they are not apt to keep well after they are taken out, two or ​three at a time may be taken as they are wanted for use, and the breach immediately closed up with straw and earth as before.
canada thistles.
MOW Canada thistles in the old of the moon in August or any time in that month or in the beginning of September, and rake them into heaps and burn them.
cancer.
THE herb Pipsissawa called winter green, ever green, winter berry, &c. drank as a strong tea, and a strong decoction applied externally has cured inveterate cancers in about a month's time. The application of leaches is said to have produced a similar result.
Another.
SPREAD a plaster of shoe maker's wax on a linen cloth, the size of the sore, with as much corrosive sublimate as will adhere to it.— Let this plaster be kept on the sore for twelve hours—a large one is necessary over the small one to keep it in its place. After this wash the sore once a day with poke root. It can afterwards be treated as a common sore.
Aonther.
FIRST take borax, make it a powder, and cover the wound, then take blue stone and powder it, mix them together, making what is called drawing salve; the salve will be blue. Mix hog's lard, bees wax and rosin; spread the salve with lint and lay it on the wound; let it remain for three days; so continue it till the cancer is taken out, then dust in loaf sugar, ​and every third dressing, put in some burnt alum over the wound—with a soft rag every time it is dressed. After the cancer is taken out make a healing salve of fresh butter, elder and a little bees wax, and you will find the place become quite well, and leave little or no scar behind. "This evidence of cure," says the Richmond Compiler, a newspaper, printed in Richmond, Vir. "has been kept a secret in a family in this state for a number of years, and has succeeded in a number of cases."
Another.
BURN half a bushel or three pecks of green old field red-oak bark to ashes, boil the ashes in three gallons of water, until reduced to one, strain that gallon off, and boil it away to a thick substance, similar to butter, apply a small quantity on a piece of silk or lint to the cancer, no bigger than the place or part affected. The medicine must be repeated every two hours, until the cancer roots are sufficiently killed, then apply healing salve with a little mercurial ointment mixed therein, and dress it twice a day until cured, which will surely be in about twenty or thirty days at farthest.
candles.
To purify Tallow for Candles.
TAKE 5-8 of tallow, and 3-8 of mutton suet, melt them in a copper chaldron, with it mix 8 ounces of brandy, one of salt of tartar, one of sal ammoniac, two of dry potash. Throw the mixture into the chaldron, make the ingredients boil a quarter of an hour then set the whole to cool. Next day the tallow will be found on the surface of the water in a pure cake. Take it out and expose it to the air for some days on canvass. ​It will become white and almost as hard as wax. The dew is favourable to its bleaching. Make your wicks of fine even cotton; give them a coat of melted wax, then cast your mould candles. They will have the appearance of wax in a degree, and one of them (six to a pound) will burn fourteen hours and not run.
canker in trees.
SIR Humphrey Davy, in his "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry," attributes canker in trees to an "excess of alkaline and earthy matter in the descending sap"; and says "Perhaps the application of a weak acid to the canker might be of use; or where the tree is great, it may be watered occasionally with a very diluted acid."
caterpillars. Remedy for.
THE following method of destroying caterpillars is recommended in the "American Gardener's Calender. "Dissolve a drachm of corrosive sublimate in a gill of gin or other spirits, and when thus dissolved incorporate it with four quarts of soft water. This solution will be found to be the most effectual remedy ever applied to trees, both for the destruction of worms of every species, and of the eggs of insects, deposited in the bark. No danger to the tree is to be apprehended from its poisonous quality, which as it respects them is perfectly innocent.
Another.
THE following mode of destroying caterpillars has been recommended, and would probably prove effectual.
​Take live coals in a chafing dish; throw thereon some pinches of brimstone in powder; place the same under the branches that are loaded with caterpillars. The vapour of sulphur, which is mortal to these insects will not only destroy all that are in the tree, but prevent its being infested by them afterwards. A pound of sulphur will clear as many trees as grow on several acres. A chafing dish, or something to contain coals may be fixed on a pole, and put near the nest.
The hon. Timothy Pickering, in a letter to the corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Agricultural society has recommended an instrument, which he has found simple, and more convenient than any he had used for the destruction of caterpillars. It is made by inserting some hog's bristles between a twisted wire, in such a manner as to form a cylindrical brush, which will present bristles on every side. This is attached to a pole of such length as the trees may require, and the caterpillars are brought down by it, and then crushed.
It is likewise affirmed that caterpillars, and other insects which infest our fruit trees, may be destroyed, by casting over the tree a few handfuls of ashes, in the morning before the dew is dissipated from the foliage, or after a shower of rain. The former is the preferable time.
A strong white wash of fresh stone lime applied by the means of a mop or a sponge fixed on the end of a pole is by some recommended. A little spirits of turpentine would, probably, be still more efficacious. And it is affirmed that sprinkling the leaves and shoots of plants infested by those insects when wet, with fine sand will cause the caterpillars to drop off in apparent agony.
It is said to be a good practice to examine the trees ​in autumn, and remove the eggs which are deposited for a next year's stock from the twig, on which they are fastened. repeat the examination in the spring. If those which have escaped notice fasten on a limb it is sometimes best to cut it off. A little oil of any kind it is said will kill all the caterpillars that it touches.
cattle—hoven or swollen.
A PINT of lie made of wood ashes, or about an ounce of pearl ash or potash turned down the throat, will immediately cure cattle which have become hoven or swollen, by eating too much green or succulent food. A proportionably less quantity will answer for sheep. It gives instant relief by neutralizing the carbonic acid gas, which causes the swelling, and other symptoms of the complaint.
cheese—Method of making.
[From the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository.]
THE milk is universally set for cheese as soon as it comes from the cow.
The management of the curd depends on the kind of cheese: thin cheese requires the least labour and attention.
Breaking the curd is done with the hand and dish. The finer the curd is broken the better, particularly in thick cheeses. The best colour of this kind of cheese is that of bees wax, which is produced by Annotta, rubbed into the milk after it is warmed. The dairy woman is to judge of the quality by the colour of the milk, as it differs much in strength. The runnel is prepared by taking some whey and salting till it will bear an egg; it is then suffered to stand over night, ​and in the morning it is skimmed and racked off clear; to this is added an equal quantity of water brine, strong as the whey, and into this mixture, some sweet briar, thyme, or some other sweet herbs, also a little black pepper and salt petre; the herbs are kept in the brine three or four days, after which it is decanted clear from them. Into six quarts of this liquor four large calves' bags or more properly called calves' stomachs are put. No part of the preparation is heated, and frequently the calves' bags are only steeped in cold salt and water. Turning the milk differs in different dairies, no two dairy women conduct exactly alike.
Setting the milk too hot inclines the cheese to heave, and cooling it with cold water produces a similar effect. The degree of heat varies according to the weather. The curd when formed is broken with what is called a treple cheese knife. The use of this is to keep the fat in the cheese; it is drawn the depth of the curd two or three times across the tub, to give the whey an opportunity of running off clear; after a few minutes the knife is more freely used, and the curd is cut into small pieces like chequers, and is broken tine in the whey with the hand and a wooden dish. The curd being allowed about half an hour to settle, the whey is laded off with the dish, after it is pretty well separated from the curd.
It is almost an invariable practice to scald the curd. The mass is first broken very fine, and then the scalding whey is added to it and stirred a few minutes; some make use of hot water in preference to whey, and it is in both cases heated according to the nature of the curd; if it is soft, the whey or water is used nearly boiling; but if hard, it is only used a little hotter than the hand. After the curd is thoroughly mixed with the hot stuff, it is suffered to stand a few minutes to settle, and is then separated as at the first operation. After the scalding liquor is separated, a vat, or what is ​often called a cheese hoop, is laid across the cheese ladder over the tub, and the curd is crumbled into it with the hands and pressed into the vat to squeeze out the whey. The vat being filled as full and as firmly as the hand alone can fill it, and rounded up in the middle, a cheese cloth is spread over it and the curd is turned out of the hoop into the cloth; the vat is then washed and the inverted mass of curds, with the cloth under it, is returned into the vat and put into the press; after standing two or three hours in the press, the vat is taken out and the cloth is taken off washed and put round the cheese, and it replaced in the vat and in the press. In about seven or eight hours it is taken out of the press and salted, the cheese is placed on a board and a handful of salt is rubbed all over it and the edges are pared off if necessary; another handful of salt is strewed on the upper side, and as much left as will stick to it; afterwards it is turned into the bare vat without a cloth, and an equal quantity of salt is added to it, and the cheese is returned into the press; here it continues one night and the next morning it is turned in the vat, and continues till the succeeding morning, and the curd is taken out and placed on the dairy shelf: here they are turned ever, day or every other day, as the weather may be. If it is hot and dry, the windows and door are kept shut, but if wet or moist, the door and windows are kept open night and day.
Cleaning the Cheese.
The cheeses having remained about ten days after leaving the press, are to be washed and scraped in the following manner; a large tub of cold sweet whey is placed on the floor, the cheeses are immerged in it, where they continue one hour, or longer if necessary, to soften the rind. They are then taken out and scraped with a common case knife, with great care, so as not to injure the tender rind, till every part of the cheese is smooth; they are after the last operation rinsed in ​the whey and wiped clean with a coarse cloth and placed in an airy situation to dry, after which they are placed in the cheese room. The floor of the cheese room is generally prepared by rubbing it with bean or potatoe tops or any succulent herb, till it appears of a black wet colour; on this floor the cheeses are placed and turned twice a week, their edges are wiped hard with a cloth once a week, and the floor is cleansed and rubbed with fresh herbs once a fortnight.—They must not lie too long or they will stick to the floor. This preparation of the floor gives the cheese a blue coat, which is considered of great consequence.
Stilton Cheese—how made.
THE Stilton Cheese, which may be called the Parmesan of England, is not confined to Stilton and its vicinity, for man farmers in Huntingdonshire, and also in Rutland and Northamtonshire make a similar sort, sell them for the same price, and give them the name of the Stilton Cheeses.
Take the night's cream and put it into the morning's new milk with the rennet; when the curd is separated let it not be broken as is done with other cheese, but lake it out, disturbing it as little as possible, and suffer it to dry gradually in a sieve; and as the whey separate, compress it gradually till it has acquired a firm consistence then place it in a wooden hoop and suffer it to dry very gradually on a board, taking care at the same time to turn it daily with close binders round, and which must be tightened as the cheese acquires more solidity.
Cheese skippers in.
WRAP the cheese in thin brown paper, so thin that moisture may strike through soon—dig a hole in good sweet earth about two feet deep, in which the cheese ​must be buried about 36 hours, and the skippers will be found all on the outside of the cheese, brush them off immediately and you will find your cheese sound and good.
To prevent Cheese having a rancid nauseous flavour.
PUT about one table spoonful of salt to each gallon of milk when taken from the cows in the evening, for the cheese to be made the next day; put the salt at the bottom of the vessel that is to receive the milk; it will increase the curd and prevent the milk from growing sour or putrid the hottest nights in the summer.
chillblains.
To cure Chillblains before they are broken
WASH them in water as hot as you can bear, and dry them with a cloth; rub them with spirits of turpentine before the fire and keep them warm.
Another Remedy.
A PLASTER of common turpentine applied to chilblains, or frosted heels, will it is said in a few days effect a cure.
china—how mended.
TAKE apiece of flint glass, beat it to a fine powder and grind it well with the white of an egg, and it joins China without riveting, so that no art can break it again in the same place. The composition must be ground extremely fine, on a painter's stone.
chintz, washing of.
How to wash Chintz so as to preserve its beauty.
TAKE two pounds of rice and boil it in two gallons of water till soft; when done pour the whole into a tub; let it stand till about the warmth you use for coloured linens, then put your Chintz in and use the rice instead of soap, wash it in this till the dirt appears to be out; then boil the same quantity as above, but strain the rice from the water. Wash in this till quite clean: afterwards rinse it in the water you have boiled your rice in, and this will answer the end of starch, and no dew will affect it, as it will be stiff as long as you wear it. If a gown it must be taken to pieces; and when dried, be careful to hang it as smooth as possible; after it is dry rub it with a slick stone but use no iron.
cholera morbus.
TAKE a soft cork and burn it thoroughly in the fire when it ceases to blaze, mix it up on a plate with a little milk and water, or any thing: more agreeable, and repeat the dose till the disorder ceases; which it commonly does in the second or third administration of the remedy by correcting the acidity of the stomach.
Another Remedy,
TAKE a small handful of the leaves of either peppermint or spearmint, rather more than half as much of the leaves of tansey, mix them, and put them in a soft thin flannel bag, large enough to cover the stomach and bowels; quilt the bag through in several places so as to prevent the herbs from falling to one place, which would be very oppressive and injurious, ​then put in a sufficient quantity of hot brandy to wet it through, and apply it over the stomach and bowels, about blood heat; wet the bag several times through the day with warm brandy, and change the herbs every evening—it must not be taken off until the patient is quite recovered. The above will render the stomach retentive; then give them every morning or two a teaspoonful of the syrup of rhubarb, and in the latter part of the afternoon, about eight drops of sweet nitre every hour for three hours in succession. By continuing the above for a few days, more or less, according as the child might seem to require it, the writer has had the satisfaction of seeing a great many children perfectly restored, and never knew it fail—but they must not eat or drink any thing the least sour, such as unripe fruits, new cheese or any thing that is hard of digestion; ripe blackberries are very good, or if they should wish old cheese, fresh butter, a little sweet ham or eggs, either boiled or fryed, they may be indulged with safety. The quantity of rheubarb and sweet spirits of nitre is for a child of one year old.
Another.
RICE-WATER, very strong, with much sugar and a little laudanum in it drank plentifully.
cider.
IN making cider see that the mill, the press, and all the materials be sweet and clean and the straw free from must. The fruit should be ripe, but not rotten, and when the apples are ground, if the juice is left in the pumice 24 hours, the cider will be richer, softer and higher coloured. If the fruit be all of one kind, it is generally thought that the cider will be better; as the fermentation will be more regular. The juice of the fruit, as it comes from the press should be placed ​in open headed casks or vats: in this situation, it is likely to undergo a proper fermentation, and the person attending may with great correctness ascertain when the first fermentation ceases; this is of great importance, and must be particularly attended to. The fermentation is attended with a hissing noise, bubbles rising to the surface and there forming a soft spongy crust over the liquor. When this crust begins to crack, and a white froth appears in the cracks level with the surface of the head, the fermentation is about stopping. At this time the liquor is in the fine genuine clear state, and must be drawn off immediately into clean casks; and this is the time to fumigate it with sulphur. To do this, take a strip of canvas or rag, about two inches broad and twelve inches long, dip this into melted sulphur, and when a few pails of worked cider are put into the cask, set this match on fire and hold it in the cask till it is consumed, then bung the cask and shake it that the liquor may incorporate with, and retain the fumes; after this, fill the cask and bung it up This cider should be racked off again the latter part of February, or first of March; and if not as clear as you wish it, put in isinglass, to fine; and stir it well; then put the cask in a cool place where it will not be disturbed, for the finery to settle. Cider, prepared in this manner will keep sweet for years.
Mr. Deane observes "I have found it answer well to do nothing to cider till March, or the beginning of April, except giving a cask a small vent hole, and keeping it open till the first fermentation is over; then draw it off into good casks; and then fine it with skim milk, eggs broke up with the shells, or molasses. A quart of molasses will give a fine flavour to a barrel of cider, as well as carry all the lees to the bottom. But lest it should incline the liquor to prick I put in at the same time a quart of rum or brandy; and it seldom fails of keeping well to the end of summer. Cellars in which cider is kept should have neither doors nor windows ​kept open in the summer, and the casks should stand steady and not be shaken to disturb the sediment.
The casks which contain new cider should be filled perfectly full to permit the froth or pummice to discharge itself at the bung. The pressure of the pummice should be slow that the liquor may run the clearer. Some say that if the cider be racked off in a week after it is made, ceasing the moment it becomes muddy; in ten days a second time, and in fifteen days a third time, it will need no other process for fining or purifying it. In every instance the casks should be clean, and perfectly filled, and when filled for the last time should be bunged up close, and placed in a deep, dry cellar, never to be moved till drawn off for use.
The later the apples hang on the trees, the more spirit the cider will contain. In bottling cider it is recommended to raise the proof of the cider by putting in about two tea spoonfuls of French brandy to each bottle, which will check fermentation, and prevent the bursting of the bottles.
cock-roaches.
IT is said that a few leaves of elder, strewed on the floor of a room infested with cock-roaches will extirpate those insects.
cod-fish.
DUN, or dried cod-fish ought not to be boiled to have it tender; it operates as on an egg, an oyster or a clam, the more you boil it the harder it grows. Let it simmer on or near the fire, in a kettle, two or three hours according as the fish is hard, and then change the water; and before dishing, put this up to near ​boiling heat but not higher. This management does not draw out but revives the glutinous, and enlivens the nutritious substance in them, and leaves the fish tender and delicious.
coffee.
Art of making Coffee.
THE celebrated Count Rumford observes, "There is no culinary process that is liable to so much uncertainty in its results, as the making of Coffee; and there is certainly none, in which any small variation in the mode of operation produces more sensible effects—Of the various modes recommended, we believe the following the most advantageous.
Take of ground coffee one ounce, to one pound or a pint of water; this proportion agrees pretty nearly with that presented by the count;—put the coffee into a coffee pot, the shape of it cylindrical, and the spout placed near the top; pour the water upon it boiling; place the pot over a slow fire or a lamp; there will appear, upon the surface, almost immediately, innumerable small bubbles; in a few seconds these will form themselves into one hemispherical bubble, extending to the side of the pot; on this bursting; ebullition follows, and it must be taken from the fire; throw into it the white of an egg, a small piece of isinglass, hartshorn shavings, or any other tasteless mucilaginous substance; and in three or four minutes the grounds will be carried down, the liquor left perfectly clear and fit for use. If no mucilaginous substance is at hand, in two or three minutes more, the grounds will subside of themselves, and the liquor be left sufficiently clear.
coffee—How made of Rye, &c.
cold.
SWEET oil and loaf sugar made up like a syrup is recommended for a cold, especially when attended with a sore throat.
An excellent vegetable balsam for soreness of the breast, coughs, &c.
DISSOLVE over the fire, one pound of white sugar candy in a quantity of white wine vinegar, say about three pints, until it is reduced by evaporation to one pint; during the operation let as much garlick as possible be dissolved with it. This preparation will answer all the purposes of Godbold's vegetable balsam, and is probably the same.
Another Remedy for a Cold.
IF a person is attacked with unusual chilliness, pain in the head and back, oppression of the breast, on the first appearance of those symptoms bathe the feet in warm water for fifteen minutes, wipe them dry, draw on the stockings and immediately go to bed, and drink freely of strong snake root tea.
Another.—For an ulcerated soar throat.
DROP some good brandy on a piece of refined lump sugar till it has absorbed as much as it will contain, which suffer to remain in the mouth till it be gradually dissolved.—Repeat the same four or five time a day; and in the course of a few days the ulcer will wholly disappear.
colic bilious.
TAKE one quart of hickory ashes, one tea cup full ​of soot, add to it three quarts of water poured on boiling hot, pour it into an earthen pot, cover it close and let it remain twelve hours, then pour it off clear, or filter it through s paper, put it into bottles and keep it in a cool place and it is fit for use. For a grown person take a wine glass full of it, and if that don't remove the pain, repeat the dose every half hour until relieved: if the pain is not very acute, one or two doses will be sufficient; to a child a tea spoonful will do for a dose.
consumption.
TAKE a handful of the herb called Horehound, put it into two quarts of water, boil it down one half—after straining put in some honey or molasses; put it on the fire to incorporate; then add a little old rum, and cork it up Take half a tea-cup full filled up with warm milk; if you cannot readily procure milk warm from the cows, make cold milk blood warm.—Take a tea cup full before breakfast, and another about noon upon an empty stomach.
Dissolve over a chaffing dish of coals in a tight room an equal quantity of rosin and yellow wax. Let the patient remain in the room as long as convenient, and his strength will admit, and repeat the operation three or four times a day.
corks of Wine-Bottles, how secured.
CUT the Cork off even, wipe the Cork and neck of the bottle dry, dip it in a melted composition of wax two ounces, rosin four ounces.
corn, musty, cure for.
IMMERSE it in boiling water, and let it remain till ​the water becomes cold The quantity of water should be at least double the quantity of corn to be purified.
corns.
A remedy for corns on the feet.
ROAST a clove of garlick on a live coal, or in hot ashes, apply it to the corn, and fasten it on with a piece of cloth. This must be made use of the moment of going to bed.
Some assert that if you take a little unwrought cotton, lay it on the part affected, and wear it a week or two the corn will disappear.
It is likewise asserted that chalk formed into a paste will cure corns.
Take the skin of a codfish, after it has lain in the cellar, or a place where it has gathers d moisture a day or two, and bind it on the corn, and keep it till it is perfectly sound.
cough.
Whooping Cough.—THE sulphate of potass (formerly called liver of sulphur) has been extolled as a remedy in this disease. Dose, six grains every four hours for an adult.
Another remedy.
TAKE equal portions of new milk, and the lye strained from ashes of hickory bark, of which one table spoonful may be given every hour through the day to a child of seven years old.
Cough in the early stage of Consumption.
Let ten grains of crude opium be rubbed with thirty grains of volatile alkali, two drachms volatile spirits of ammonia, and one half ounce of peppermint water—of this well shaken, a tea spoonful may be taken three times a day in a little weak tea.
Gentleman' s Magazine.
IT is said that innoculation for the cow pox will arrest the whooping cough.
Another remedy for Whooping Cough.
TAKE dried colt's-foot leaves (that have not been gathered more than a year) a good handful, cut them small, and boil them in a pint of spring-water, till half a pint is boiled away; then take it off the fire, and when it is almost cold, strain it through a cloth, squeezing the herb dry as you can, and then throw it away. Dissolve in the liquor an ounce of sugar candy, finely powdered, and to a child three or four years old give one spoonful of it, cold or warm as the season favours, three or four times a day or oftener if the fits of coughing come frequently, till well. For older or younger person the quantity may be increased, or diminished as thought proper.
This preparation is useful also in asthmas phthysic, shortness of breath consumptions, &c.
N. B. When sugar candy cannot conveniently be had, perhaps honey or good clean brown sugar would answer. Sugar candy is, however to be preferred.
Another.
DISSOLVE a scruple of salt of Tartar in a gill of water; add ten grains of cochineal finely powdered, ​sweeten this with fine sugar. Give to an infant the fourth part of a table spoonful four times a day; and from four upwards a spoonful may be taken. The relief is immediate, and the cure in general effected within 5 or 6 days.
cramp.
RUB the part with camphor dissolved in oil.
croup.
Cure for the Croup, vulgarly called the Rattles.
IT is allowed by the best physicians in the country, that the croup, formerly a very fatal disease, is now successfully treated with a weak solution of corrosive sublimate, to be given in small quantities every fifteen minutes till it causes puking. This medicine, though a dangerous instrument in the hands of ignorance, when judiciously managed has snatched many a child from the jaws of death.
Another remedy for Croup.
[By Dr. John Archer of Hartford County, Maryland.]
MAKE a strong decoction of the Seneka root in the following manner, viz. half an ounce of Seneka, in coarse, powder boil in eight ounces of water down to four. Of this give a teaspoonful every half hour, as the urgency of the symytoms may require, and at intervals a few drops to keep up the stimulus, until it either acts as an emetic or cathartic. Then repeat it in similar quantities, so as to preserve the stimulus of seneka constantly in the mouth or throat.
​If the disease be more advanced, and the breathing more difficult, give calomel frequently and freely, and rub mercurial ointment on the throat and contiguous parts so as to effect the glands of the throat and mouth as quickly as possible, that the mercury may co-operate with the action or stimulus of the seneka.
cucumber.
TAKE a very tight barrel tub; fill it up to the bung with stones, then a little straw, and earth enough over the straw to fill the barrel. Fill the lower half with water, but instead of letting it steep through the earth, it should be passed through a tube, placed in the earth for that purpose, as often as more water is wanted. The bung should be left out and the water kept as high as the hole by repeated waterings. The plants lying so high will be kept out of the way of insects, nor will they suffer by drought. The plants, however, should once in a while be a little sprinkled with water if the season be very dry.
To preserve Cucumbers and Squashes from bugs and flies.
SPRINKLE the plants with a strong infusion of elder leaves; and that of hops is likewise recommended. Or,
Suspend a diamond formed piece of white paper, shingle or other piece of wood by a thread, tied to the end ©f a stick stuck in the ground a small distance from the hill so that the paper will hang directly over the hill, and near the plants. The air by constantly vibrating the paper or shingle will have a tendency to prevent insects from alighting on the plants. Or,
In the morning when the dew is on sprinkle the plants with fine dust of slacked lime.
To render Cucumbers wholesome.
SLICE cucumbers into a basin of cool spring water, and it will render them not only more crisp and fine but much more wholesome, and prevent their rising in the stomach. The water will completely take away the pernicious juice of the cucumber; which is the principal cause of its disagreeing with the stomach.
curculio.
THE curculio is a genus of insects belonging to the Beetle-order. In its maggot state it is bedded in apples and other fruits, producing what is vulgarly called wormy fruit. Poultry and hogs are great devourers of this insect both in the beetle and maggot state. Pasturing orchards with swine sufficient to eat all the apples which fall is a good antidote to the ravages of these insects. Placing little bits of board, about the size of a case knife dipped in tar or turpentine in the tops of fruit trees is recommended, as all terebenthinate substances are very offensive to all kinds of insects. From three to five bits according to the size of the tree are said to be sufficient. They should be placed soon after the trees are in full bloom, and the application of the tar frequently renewed while the fruit hangs on the tree.
currants.
Directions for the culture of the Currant-bush.
THE currant-bush, though a shrub that grows almost spontaneously, requires nevertheless some dressing; in regard to which the following directions may be of service.
​Plant them round the quarters of your garden, that they may have the benefit of the dung and culture annually bestowed thereon, which will consequently make the berries large and the juice rich.
The red currant is preferable to the white, as yielding richer juice and in much greater quantity.
Take the most luxuriant slips or shoots of a year's growth, set them in the ground about eight inches deep, and not less than twenty four distant from each other; these never fail of taking root, and generally begin to bear in about two years. For the rest, let them from time to time be treated as espaliers (but not against a wall) observing to keep the roots, especially in the spring of the year, free from suckers and grass.
currant wine.
PICK the currants clear from the stalk, put them into an earthen vessel, and pour on a gallon of currants one quart of hot water. Mash them together and let them stand and ferment; cover them for twelve hours, and then strain them through linnen into a cask, add a little yeast and when worked and settled bottle it off, In one week's time it will be fit for use.
Another Receipt.
GATHER your currants when full ripe, which will commonly be about the middle of July; break them well in a tub or vat, (some have a mill constructed for the purpose, consisting of a hopper, fixed upon two lignum vitæ rollers) press and measure your juice, add two thirds water, and to each gallon of that mixture (i.e. juice and water) put three pounds of muscovado sugar (the cleaner and drier the better; very coarse sugar, first clarified, will do equally as well) stir it well, ​till the sugar is quite dissolved, and then turn it up. If you can possibly prevent it, let not your juice stand overnight, as it should not ferment before mixture.
Observe, that your casks be sweet and clean, and such as have had neither beer nor cider in them, and if new let them be first well seasoned.
dairy secret.
HAVE ready two pans in boiling water; and on the new milk's coming to the dairy, take the hot pans out of the water, put the milk into one of them, and cover it with the other. This will occasion great augmentation in the thicknes and quality of the cream.
deafness.
PUT a table spoonful of bay salt into nearly half a pint of cold water; and after it has steeped twenty-two hours (now and then shaking the phial) cause a small tea-spoonful to be poured into the ear most affected every night on going to bed, for eight nights successively.
dentifrice.
TAKE of myrrh, Peruvian bark, and calicined oyster shells, all finely powdered, each an ounce, and of powdered charcoal half an ounce; if too black you may reduce the quantity of the last article to a quarter at an ounce. See Teeth in the following pages.
die—Black for linnen.
MIX in a large bottle, with a quart of soft water, two and a half ounces of common aquafortis, and, adding gradually the same quantity of litharge, slightly cork the bottle, occasionally shake it, and keep it in a warm situation; after a few days the liquid may be poured into a deep earthen, leaden, or pewter vessel, in which the linnen to be dried, being first well washed, though not bleached, should be immersed for ten or twelve hours; being then taken out and three times washed and rinsed in cold water, it is to be dipped in a weak solution of common glue, again rinsed and hung in a shade to dry. In a quart of rain or other soft water, three quarters of an ounce of well bruised galls are next to be boiled for eight or ten minutes, when the like quantity of common salt must be added; as soon as the salt is dissolved, the linen should be boiled seven or eight minutes in the liquor, after which it must be taken out, washed, wrung three times as before, and dried in the shade. At this stage of the process the linnen will receive a dark gray yellowish tinge, which disposes it for the better reception of the colour. It is now to be immersed for eight or ten hours, in a liquid composed of three quarters of an ounce each of copperas, or vitriol of iron, and common salt, dissolved in a quart of hot water, after which it is to be again washed, rinsed, and hung to dry in the shade. For striking the black colour, three quarters of an ounce of logwood is to be boiled for seven or eight minutes in somewhat more than half a gallon of rain or river water, when a quarter of an ounce of white starch, previously mixed with a little cold water, to prevent its rising in lumps, must be added; this being perfectly dissolved, the linnen is to be boiled in the liquor for seven or eight minutes, when it must again be rinsed and dried as before. It will then acquire a fine black tinge; but if the die be ​not deep enough, it is again to be dipped and treated in the same manner, as often as may be necessary to effect this purpose. As, however, the linen will not in this state admit of being washed in lie or soap water without losing its colour, it is to be dipped in a cold solution, prepared by boiling seven or eight minutes, an ounce of well bruised galls in a quart of the glue water, wherein an ounce of copperas must then be dissolved. The linen having remained an hour in this liquor, must be pressed and dried in the shade: when it will have acquired a beautiful, deep, and durable black colour capable of being washed with the same security as any other died colour whatever.
dropsy.
MIX a pound of the coarsest sugar, a pint of juice of pelitory of the wall, bruised in a mortar, boil it as long as any scum rises, when cool bottle and cork it. If very bad take three spoonfuls at night and one in the morning.
Another.
MAKE a tea of the roots of dwarf elder, and after every discharge of urine drink a tea cup full.
Another.
COVER the whole belly with a large new sponge, dipped in strong lime water, and squeezed out This bound on often cures without any evacuation of water.
Another.
TAKE a six quart jug of old hard cyder, put therein a pint of mustard seed, one double handful of lignum vitæ shavings, one double handful of horseradish roots; ​let them simmer together over a slow fire forty-eight hours, when it will be fit for use. Take a teacup full three times a day.
drowned persons—directions for recovering.
THE following directions have been published by the Dublin Humane Society:—
"What thou doest, do quickly."
1. Convey the body carefully, with the head a little raised to the nearest convenient house.
2. Strip and dry the body; clean the mouth and nostrils.
3. An adult lay the body on a bed or blanket near the fire or in a warm chamber; if in the summer, expose it to the sun.
4. A child; place it between two persons in a warm bed.
5. Rub the body gently with flannel, sprinkled with spirits.
6. Restore breathing by introducing the pipe of a bellows (where the apparatus cannot be immediately procured) into one nostril, keeping the other and the mouth closed, gently inflate the lungs, alternately compress the breast, and then let the mouth and nostrils free.
7. Apply warm bricks to the soles of the feet, and warm spirits to the palms of the hands, and the pit of the stomach.
​8. Persist in these means for three hours at least, or until life be restored.
Cautions.—1. Never to be held up by the heels.
2. Not to be rolled on casks, or other rough usages.
3. Not to allow into the room more than six persons.
4. Not to rub the body with salt.
General Observations.—On signs of returning life, and if swallowing be returned, a small quantity (often repeated) of warm wine and water, or diluted spirits, should be given; the patient put into a warm bed, and if disposed put to sleep.
Electricity and bleeding are never to be employed, unless by the directions of a medical gentleman.
Dysentery.
Dr. Boyle's remedy for Dysentery.
TAKE new churned fresh butter, melt it over a clear fire, and skim off the curdy part. Give two spoonfulls of the clarified remainder two or three times a day. It seldom fails to effect a speedy cure.
Another remedy.
TAKE two glasses of sweet oil—two glasses West India molasses—two glasses West India rum—simmer well together over a fire till it becomes the thickness of honey, so that the oil may not separate from the rest. While on the fire keep it well stirred, and when taken off, continue the same till cool. Then the parent, if a grown person, should take a spoonful once in ​an hour till he finds the disease abating—then once in two hours, or as the judgment may suggest until cured.
Indian cure for the Dysentery or Bloody Flux.
TAKE the root of cat-tail, (a flag) boil it moderately in sweet milk, and take as much as you please, as it hurts none and will soon cure that complaint.
ear ache.
PUT a clove of garlick into the ear, or apply a poultice of one over it. A blister behind the ear: the juice of rue, or cotton wet with laudanum and put into the ear.
eels, method of roasting.
HAVING skinned and washed some of the finest large eels, cut them in three, four, or five pieces, according to their lengths. Make a seasoning of grated nutmeg, pepper and salt, with a little thyme, sage and lemon peel, all well beaten or shred, and mixed plentifully with crumbs of bread. Strew this well on the eels, stick them across on skewers, tie the skewers to the spit, baste them continually, and let them roast till they begin to crack and appear white at the bone. When taken up send them to the table with melted butter and lemon juice, which will make the best sauce for them, as the seasoning gives them an exquisite relish. They may be fried or broiled thus seasoned, with very good effect,
elder juice, kills skippers in meat cheese, &c.
TAKE the leaves of elder and bruise them in a mortar. Rub the leaves thus bruised over the meat, ​(hams, smoked beef, &c) and if there are any holes in meat in which the skippers have found their way, pour in a little of the juice, and they will roll out in a short time. The application of elder juice does not communicate any bad taste to the meat.
eggs
MAY be preserved by anointing them with lard or any greasy or oily substance for months, and some say years. The oily substance closes the pores, hinders the access of air, and thus prevents putrefaction. They should be anointed soon after they are laid.
Superior mode of cooking Eggs. "A boiled egg is a spoiled egg." Apicius.
BOIL a quantity of water, sufficient, for the eggs you wish to use in a saucepan. Take it off when boiling, and place it a little distance from the fire. Put in the eggs cover them over with the lid, and let them continue in the water for two, three or four minutes, according as you wish them to be done. Eggs thus cooked are far more delicate than those boiled in the usual manner, even one half minute's boiling on the fire being sufficient to destroy that delicate flavour found in coddled eggs. They may be thus cooked even at the table, a kettle with boiling water being brought in, and the water poured from it on the eggs in a basin, which being closely covered immediately, will nearly answer the same purpose.
elixir —Stoughton's.
PARE off the thin yellow rinds of six large Seville oranges, and put them into a quart bottle, with an ounce of gentian root scraped and sliced, and half a ​dram of cochineal. Pour to these ingredients a pint of the best brandy; shake the bottle well, several limes, during that and the following day – let it stand two days more to settle; and clear it off into bottles for use. Take one or two spoonsful morning and evening, in a glass of wine, or even in a cup of tea. As a pleasant and safe family medicine this elixir of Dr. Stoughton is highly recommended.
epileptic electuary, for the cure of the falling sickness, hysterics, &c.
TAKE six drams of powdered Peruvian bark, two drams of pulverized Virginia snake root, and a sufficient quantity of sirup of piony to make it up into a soft electuary. This is said, by a celebrated physician, to have been experimentally found a most prevalent and most certain remedy. One dram of this electuary, after proper evacuations having been had, being given to grown persons, and a less dose to those who are younger, every morning and evening for three or four months, and then repeated for three or four days before the change and full of the moon, absolutely eradicates epileptic and hysteric diseases, and also those strange epileptic saltations called St. Vitus's dance.
eye-stone.
IT is said that a grain of flax seed possesses all the valuable properties of the eye stone.
eye-water.
Edinburgh Eye-Water.
PUT white vitriol the bigness of a nut into two gills of white rose water; with as much fine loaf ​sugar as vitriol. When it is dissolved shake the bottle, and on going to bed wash the eyes with it using a soft clean cloth.
For curing weak and weeping Eyes.
MAKE a strong decoction of camomile boiled in sweet cows' milk; with this let the patient's eyes he bathed several times a day as warm as can be suffered without uneasiness. Persons, almost blind, have been cured by persevering in the use of this prescription. It is proper, however, to observe that frequently 5 or 6 weeks bathing of the eyes is necessary.
For inflamed Eyes.
TO two ounces of water add two grains of lapis caliminaris, and the same quantity of white vitriol.
feathers, bones, &c.—how coloured
FEATHERS, Bones, &c. may be coloured blue, red, green, yellow, &c by the following process. After boiling them in allum water, steep them in an infusion of red wood to form a red—in a blue pot, or juice of elder berries for blue—in lime water and verdigris, or nitrate of copper for green, and in a tincture of saffron for yellow.
fellon.
An effectual cure for a Fellon.
BATHE the part affected in ashes and water; take the yolk of an egg, six drops of the spirits of turpentine, a few beet leaves cut fine, a small quantity of hard soap, due teaspoonful of snuff or fine tobacco; then add one ​table spoonful of burnt salt and one of Indian meal, and it never fails to effect a cure if applied in season.
Another Cure.
VERATRUM Album, White Helebore, or Poke Root, has been recently discovered to be an effectual remedy for this complaint. The finger or part affected should be soaked in warm milk and water, and covered with a thin membrane: a poultice made of wheat bran, and a strong decoction of this root is then applied, and repeated as often as it becomes dry or the pain returns. It operates as a powerful sedative, allays the pain, procures rest and sleep, and produces shortly a healthy action.
fever—Yellow.
THE following has been published in the National Advocate, a New-York paper, as a preservative against this disorder.
Take one pint of milk, and set it to boil, then put in a table -spoonful of cream of tartar, and, when turned into whey, drain the same through a linen cloth ; afterwards set it again to boil, and put in the white of an egg, after its being beat into a paste, and when well boiled, drain it anew, which will give a beautiful clarified whey, which is to be taken sweetened with white sugar to one's taste, in two doses, one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon, an hour before meals, either cold or blood warm to suit fancy.
fever—Typhus.
A BELFAST newspaper give the following as a cure for typhus fever. ​Put one table spoonful of barm (or yeast) into a noggin, (or gill) of warm porter; stir it well, and while warm give it to the patient, repeating it every six hours while any symptom of fever remains; then reduce it to ten or twelve hours, and as the patient recovers, increase the distance of time to once a day. If porter cannot be had give beer; and if neither can be had, give warm water. If barm is not to be procured, make a poker red hot, and put it into half a pint of fresh porter or beer, and give the draught to the patient as warm as he can take it. This remedy has been used by Lady O Brien, in seventy two cases on her estates, seventy of whom recovered; it has also been administered most successfully in the Fever Hospital at Parson's Town, where scarcely a death has taken place since it was introduced.
Another Remedy.
A DUBLIN paper says, Take two gallons of salt water—if it is not convenient take fresh; but if it is salt water it will not require any alkali. Fresh water two gallons; Epsom salts four ounces, tar half a pound—combine those articles, stir the ingredients whenever it is used, and a tumbler full taken as occasion requires, will extirpate the malady.
Another Remedy.
TO half a pint of boiling water put about an ounce of dry pearlash, dip a flannel in it, and wet the whole surface of the body. In 19 minutes prepare a new wash, and repeat the application. Keep wet flannels on painful parts, keeping them wet, until the pain is removed. Give half a pint of warm water, after it has been boiled with a small quantity of pearlash, every 10 minutes till a free perspiration is produced, which in general will be in about two hours; then give half a pint of warm water with or without pearl ash, once in ​20 minutes, for 2 or 3 days. Put half a teaspoonful of pearlash in each of the two first pints, and in the following 1-8 of a teaspoonful to each half pint. Wash the body as above once in eight hours.
fever—Billious.
TAKE a quarter of a pound of Rochelle salts (which are the best for this fever) one or two handfuls of snake root, to be bruised and made into tea—a tumbler full of this tea poured on to the salts to dissolve them. If the indisposition is slight, a wine glass full of the snake root and salts is to be taken every half hour till it operates—if the indisposition is violent a wine glass full is to be taken every quarter of an hour, care must be taken against the patient's vomiting. When the snake roots and salts have operated freely, and the fever is broken or extinguished, a wine glass full of snake root tea alone must be taken every half hour, till the patient is out of danger, or at the discretion of some proper person.
film—Cure for
TAKE the white of a new laid egg, into which stir a large teaspoonful of alum powdered very fine and sifted, until it becomes a curd. Pour this upon a fine Holland or cambric cloth placed over a small bowl, or cup, so as to receive the liquor, and to leave it to filtrate of itself. The liquor thus obtained, which is very limpid and clear, and is seldom more than a teaspoonful, is to be dropped into the eye in small quantities, five or six times in the course of a day, or as often as can be borne.
fish sauce.
TAKE three well beaten yolks of egg, two anchovies, a quarter of a pound of butter, with as much flour ​as will lie on the point of a case knife, two spoonsful of elder vinegar, a small bunch of sweet herbs, and a little pepper, salt and nutmeg. Stir these all on the fire till the liquor is thick, but it must not be suffered to boil. If it be not sufficiently sharp, squeeze in in a little lemon juice, and pour it over the fish.
fleas.
TO keep off fleas keep in or or about your bed, a sprig of penny royal, or put on your bed clothes a few drops of the essence.
flies.
TWO drachms of the extract of Quassia, dissolved in 1-2 pint of hot water, and sweetened with sugar, and set in a place frequented by flies will destroy them.
founder in cattle.
THERE are two species of founder in cattle, that is in horses, cows and sheep, though the same disease, pass under different names i. e. the hove, when resulting from too freely feeding on green clover, and when arising from eating too much grain, potatoes, bran or the like, the founder, commonly so called.
Cattle have been known to die from all these causes; but the disease is the same, and requires the same process of cure; which if seasonably administered is effectual and sure.
The founder shows itself by the swelling of the body, by symptoms of violent pain, by gripings, voiding ​blood, stiffness of the limbs, trembling, groans, debility, and after a time by the shedding of the hoofs and hair from the effect of a burning fever. The cause of this violent derangement of the animal system is repletion of nutriment in the stomach. The powers of digestion are overdone; and acidity arises on the stomach, which corrodes the coats, causes inflammation and fever, with violent pain. The food instead of being converted into nutriment and assimilated, is decomposed, and the carbonic acid is generated, either in gas or in union with the water. In the former case the gas or wind is sometimes let out with a knife, and the life of the beast saved, but it is a dangerous resort, and happily a less violent and more efficacious remedy is at hand, by the chemical agency of which the carbonic acid is obviated, and a complete cure is effected by neutralising the acid, and thus destroying its corrosive quality. By the combination of an alkali with the carbonic acid, a neutral salt, called the carbonate of the alkali is produced, which is perfectly innoxious, and passes off without detriment.
Take of potash a lump of the size of an egg or apple, for a cow, more for a horse and in proportion for a sheep; dissolve it in water, and from a bottle pour it down the throat of the beast. If necessary repeat the dose in smaller quantities. An immediate effect will be seen in the abatement of the symptoms. In a beast of size a pound of Glauber's salts to work the whole off might not be amiss but the cure is principally to be attributed to the alkali—When potash is not at hand a lie made of ashes on the occasion will answer the purpose. Pour water on the ashes, and take the liquor in larger quantities in proportion as it is of less strength.
fowls.
CORN given to fowls should be crushed and soaked in water; this helps digestion, and hens will lay in winter that are so fed that would not otherwise.
Feed your fowls in winter with bones, pounded fine; and they will need less corn, and will lay as plentifully as at any season of the year. The bones supply the carbonate of lime, which is necessary for the production of the shell, and a part of the yolk of the egg. — Egg shells, oyster shells, chalk or unburnt lime answer a similar purpose.
Bombay method of dressing a Fowl.
THE fowl being trussed, incisions are made in every part, the same as when a fowl is about to be carved, but without severing the joints. The breast is cut as for taking out slices, and the legs scored across. The whole fowl, inside and out, is then rubbed well with pepper and salt, and a little Cayenne pepper, so as to be very highly seasoned. After this, it is enclosed in a good thick paste, composed of flour, milk and butter; one end of which is left open to fill it with water; this being done, it is closed up, put into a cloth, and boiled 3 or 4 hours ; when it becomes a rich and most relishing dish.
frost-bitten feet.
TAKE the fat of a dung-hill fowl, and rub the place or places affected with it, morning and evening over a warm fire; at the same time wrapping a piece of woollen cloth, well greased with the same fat, round the frost-bitten parts In two or three days they will feel no pain, and in five or six days will be quite cured. ​Note — If the inner bark of the elder, or the leaves of plantain, are first simmered in said fat it will be the better.
Successful treatment of Frozen Limbs in Russia. — By Mr. Eaton.
THIS remedy was warm goose grease, and was not applied^ as Mr. Eaton says, in the cases to which he was an eye witness, until the second day after frozen ; the frost bitten parts had by that time become quite black and mortified ; they were well smeared with that ointment, and the operation often repeated. The directions were never to permit the parts to be dry, but always covered with the grease. The consequence was, that by degrees the circulation extended lower down, the blackness decreased till the toes were merely discoloured, and at length circulation was restored to them. This is the general practice of the Pussian peasants; but, if a part is discovered to be frozen before the person comes into a warm room, the frost may be extracted by only plunging the part in cold water, or rubbing it with snow till the circulation returns.
garlick sirup and oxymel, for old and asthmatic coughs.
FOR the sirup, macerate one pound of sliced garlic in a close vessel, containing two pounds of boiling water, for twelve hours, and add four pounds of double refined sugar to the strained liquor. This sirup may be taken to advantage, by a teaspoonful or two at a time, whenever the cough is troublesome, and it is particularly calculated to be used on such occasions during the night. Garlic is not only a powerful expectorant, but a good diuretic, and even a sudorific, provided the patient be kept tolerably warm. For these pur​poses, however, the oxymel of garlic is still better than the sirup. It is thus easily prepared: Boil a quarter of an ounce each of carraway and sweet fennel seeds in a glazed earthern vessel, with about half a pint of vinegar; when they have boiled a short time, add an ounce and a half of garlic cut in slices, cover the whole closely up, and let it stand till cold ; then express the liquor, and mix it with half a pound of clarified honey, placing it in a boiling water-bath to dissolve. This medicine, it is said, if persisted in, will not only relieve, but absolutely cure an obstinate asthmatic cough.
geese.
IT is said that geese may be advantageously fed on turnips, cut in small pieces, similar to dice, but not so large, and put into a trough of water.
GLASS.
Seasoning Glass.
PLACE the glass in a vessel of cold water, and heat the water gradually till it boils. Glasses of every description, thus prepared, will afterwards bear boiling water poured into them without injury.
gluten.
GLUTEN may be obtained from wheat flour by the following process: the flour is to be made into a paste which is to be cautiously washed, by kneading it under a small stream of water, till the water has carried from it all the starch ; what remains is gluten. Gluten is found in a great number of plants; Proust discovered it in acorns, chesnuts, apples and quinces; bar​ley, rye, oats, peas and beans; likewise in the leaves of rice, cabbages, cresses, hemlock, borage, saffron, in the berries of the elder, and in the grape,
gout.
APPLY a leek poultice to the part affected. The steam of hot water is said likewise to cure the complaint by removing obstructions.
Another.
TAKE nitre, rhubarb, sulphur, and guiaccum, of each half an ounce, mix the whole in a pound of treacle, and take a teaspoonful going to bed.
Gout in the Stomach.
THIS admirable remedy of the celebrated Dr. Hartley for that dangerous malady, the gout in the stomach, which often proves so fatal, is thus simply prepared: take cordial confection, and aromatic spices, each one dram and a half, sirup of ginger, six drams, orange-peel water, two ounces, and simple cinnamon water, six ounces.
Make a mixture, of which take three table spoonsful occasionally.
gravel.
A Remedy for the Gravel, extracted from an English periodical publication.
DISSOLVE three drachms of prepared Nitre in a quart of cold water, and take half of this quantity in the course of the day. Continue this simple medicine for ​a few days, and that painful complaint (the gravel) will be removed. It may be taken at am time of the day — but it is best after a meal This simple remedy can do no injury ; and it is certainly worth trying by those afflicted with the painful disease for which it is recommended.
Another.
BOIL 36 raw coffee berries for one hour in a quart of soft spring or rain water — then bruise the berries, and boil them again another hour in the same water ; add thereto a quarter of a teaspoonful of the dulcified spirit of nitre, and take daily a half pint cup of it any hour that is most convenient.
Another.
Recipe for the Gravel.
TAKE a double handful of water-melon seeds, and throw them into about a half a pint of gin : let them stand for a week in a warm place, being frequently shaken together. When so prepared take half a wine glass full two or three times a day, or as often as you require any thing to drink, at table or otherwise.
grease spots.
To remove Grease Spots.
APPLY powder of white tobacco pipe clay, or French chalk, (that is steatite or soap stone) put blotting paper over it, and apply a hot iron at a little distance — This will take out much of the grease by repetition. Good ether or hot oil of turpentine will take out the remainder. Where you can venture to wash the place, a good washing with hot soap and wa​ter will answer every purpose. You may thus efface grease spots from paper, should any ligrht stain remain at the edges, brush it with a camel's hair pencil, dipt in very strong spirits of wine, or ether.
Spots of tallow, wax, grease, &c. it is said may be removed from woollen cloth by laying to the surface a piece of blotting paper, and pressing it with a flat iron moderately heated.
gripes in Horses er Cattle.
ON perceiving the first symptoms of the gripes in a horse, ox, cow, &c. fold a large sack, or coarse sheet or cloth and let it remain some time in boiling water, then, conveying the vessel to the stable, clap the hot sack or cloth on the animal's loins, covering it over with a warm blanket The animal must be kept in a close place, free from any admission of cold air. The pain is usually removed in less than eight minutes, and the cure is certain where the animal stools soon after the application.
gun barrels, to give a beautiful brown Colour to.
SCOUR all the spots of rust carefully from your gun barrel and polish it bright; then take a piece of roll brimstone and lay it on some burning coals, hold the barrel over the smoke of the brimstone for some minutes, carefully turning it that it may have access to all parts of it. After which put it into a cellar, or some damp place, where let it remain about twelve hours ; on taking it out it will be found to be covered with a fine efflorescence, which wipe off carefully with a fine woollen cloth. If any part of the barrel has not taken the colour polish the spot anew and pursue the same process as before; when you find the barrel ​completely covered, rub it over with oil and polish it with a hard brush, or a piece of soft pine wood.
hæmorrhage.
IT is said that the most violent Hæmorhages may be stopped by the volatile flour of alkali.
hams.
Receipt for curing Hams.
FOR twenty-four hams, take six pounds of fine salt, three pounds of coarse brown sugar, or two pounds of molasses, and one pound of salt-petre pounded fine; mix all these together, and rub every ham with the mixture and pack them down in your cask let them remain five or six days, then unpack them, and let those which were on the top, be put at the bottom of the cask, and sprinkle a little salt over them; so let them remain for five or six days, and then make a pickle that will bear an egg, and pour over till it covers them; so let the whole remain for one month, and they will be fit to smoke. For twelve hams, use half the above ingredients.
hands numbed or trembling.
WASH the hands so affected, in a strong decoction of wormwood and mustard seed, to be strained and used when cold.
harrowing grain in the spring.
WE have not room now, for an essay, if the subject required it, but we must recommend the Farmer to ​pass the harrow over his fields of small grain. We are confident that it must have a fine effect, in giving it an early start, and enabling it to outgrow most of its enemies — The reasoning is plain and obvious — It acts like a fresh ploughing of maize, just before a good rain — the surface of the ground is softened about the stalk, gives it room to expand, and numerous bugs and insects, are routed, covered over and destroyed.
At all events it is easy to make the trial.
Let a few breadths be harrowed, the same way the grain was plowed in — numerous plants will be torn up, and the operation will, apparently, menace universal destruction; but it will be found, that what remains will spread and thrive much better and more than make up for the little destroyed.
Perhaps, for this operation, the common old wooden tooth harrow, with blunt teeth, would answer as well if not better than any other— and it is well if it can be made to answer any purpose well. At all events this harrowing is strenuously recommended by some of the best Pennsylvania farmers, therefore, we repeat, make the trial on a small scale and you will know in another year.— American Farmer.
heart burn
hessian fly.
IMMERSE the seed wheat ten or fifteen seconds in boiling hot water; cool it suddenly; dry it with lime or gypsum sprinkled upon it, and sow it immediately. This process will assist the growth, in addition to its killing the nits of the fly, which by a good glass are said to be discernable near the sprouts of the grain that are infected.
horses.
How to shoe Horses.
LET nothing be cut from the sole, binder or frog, except the loose rotten scale No opening of heels on any occasion — it infallibly causes in time the disease called hoof bound — No shoes to be fitted on red hot. Shoes always to be made of the best hard and well wrought iron, with not a convex, but a flat and even surface next the ground, so that the horse may stand in a natural and easy position. No caulks for either heel or toe of fore or hind feet. The web of the shoe not so wide as usual, nor so thick nor strong at the heel, and never to project beyond it, in order that the foot may stand perfectly level, and the frog be not prevented from touching the ground. It is as absurd to pare down the frog as is usually done, as it would be to pare away the thick skin, which nature has placed over the human heel! All the horses in England are now shod according to the above directions.
For different diseases in Horses. — Hide Bound.
TO cure this, it will be necessary to put your horse on a pretty liberal diet; also every day a mash of bran ​or boiled rye should be given him; and twice a week give him half an ounce of brimstone in his bran.
Scratches.
CUT the hair off close, and wash the legs with strong soap-suds or urine ; put on a turnip poultice a few days, mixed with hog's fat and linseed oil; it will soon effect the cure.
Hoof Bound.
TAKE a phlegm lancet, and open the hoof at the edge of the hair, to give it liberty of spreading. Then grease it daily with woodchuck, skunk or dog's grease, that it may grow
Scouring.
GIVE your horse two quarts of the liquor, wherein garden rhubarb, flax seed and mallows, have been boiled ; or boil white-oak bark, and white-pine together ; give him one quart of this morning and evening till well.
hydrophobia.
TAKE the plant called Scull Cap, gathered either before dog days begin or after they are over (that is before the 30th of July, and after the 10th of September,) and cure it in the shade. Cut it fine, and bottle it up close. Of this powder make a decoction as strong as common tea, and give it to an adult, half a pint night and morning, fasting; to a child of three years old one gill; to a child of eight years, one and an half gill; to a child of twelve years, two gills. The patient in every third day during the period of taking the decoc​tion, must miss taking it, and instead of it must take two teaspoons full of roll brimstone with molasses in sufficient quantity to procure a free passage. Continue this course for forty days. The patient must abstain from butter or milk, or any thing of a greasy nature in his diet, and wholly from spirituous liquors. It is important also that he should not wet his feet.
N. Y. Evening Post.
indian corn.
E. BRACKET of Salem county, N. J. raised upon one acre of ground one hundred and ten bushels of Indian Corn. The method of cultivation, which he pursused was as follows :
1st. Ploughing and ameliorating the soil as usual.
2d. By furrowing at the distance of seven feet each way.
3d. By filling, (or nearly so) those furrows with manure.
4th. Covering up said manure by two furrows on either side.
5th. Planting the seed corn in those two latter furrows, at the distance of 10 inches per grain asunder.
6th. Ploughing, &c. said corn all one way.
N. B. The space between the rows for the tillage of the same was five feet, from which the weeds, &c. were kept cleansed.
By the foregoing method the ground is fitted for a succeeding crop of winter grain ; the usual mode of ​stirring about the manure exposes a great proportion thereof to the sun's beams by which means the life of the substance becomes rarified, and it looses much of its virtue.
Preparation of Indian Corn for planting,
DISSOLVE one ounce of salt petre in two and an half pints of warm water; soak the seed 12 hours. It will come up earlier, be sooner ripe, and the birds will not destroy it. It is thought, however, by some farmers that when seed is planted early, or the ground is wet, soaking the seed is injurious by weakening the germinating principle.
influenza, coughs, or colds. Cure for.
A PINT of boiling water; one ounce of rock candy; half an ounce of Gum Arabic; when cold add one ounce of Paragoric ; half an ounce of Antimonial Wine. Take half a wineglass of this mixture, on going to bed and whenever the cough is troublesome half that quantity. For children a table spoonful on going to bed, and when the cough is troublesome a tea spoonful,
ink.
Indelible Ink. Take nitrate of silver 2 drachms, rain water 2 ounces, Tincture of galls 30 drops — the linen should be first wet with a solution of Pearl ash in water and suffered to dry previous to writing on it.
Another kind.
THE purple precipitate of Cassius is recommended in the Italian journals as an indelible ink, much superior to that of silver. That part of the linen on which is to be the writing is to be moistened with a solution ​of recently made muriate of tin, and when dry to be written on with solution of gold, and then washed with water. The writing, which will become black is not at all affected by washing, and with great difficulty by other agents, and not before the cloth is destroyed.
A good writing ink.
TAKE four ounces of Nutgalls well pulverized, two ounces of Copperas and two ounces of Gum Arabic and one quart rain water; mix and shake them well and often.
ink powder.
TAKE six ounces of gall nuts and as much Gum Arabic and Copperas. Let them be well pulverized and kept from the air. Put them into three pints of rain water, and one pint of vinegar Shake the ingredients well and keep them warm, and in about seven days your ink will be fit for use.
insects that infest Apple Trees.
TAKE a quantity of unslacked lime, mix it with as soft water as you can procure, to the consistency of a very thick whitewash; apply this mixture, with a soft paintbrush to the apple-trees, as soon as it is judged that the sap begins to rise, and wash the stem and large boughs with it, taking care to have it done in dry weather, that it may adhere and withstand rain. In the course of the ensuing summer this will be found to have removed the moss and insects, and given to the bark a fresh green appearance, and the tree will also be perceived to shoot much new and strong wood; at least, it did so in Nova Scotia. "The trial is simple, and can neither be attended with much expense, trou​ble or danger." It is obvious that this whitewashing of trees, for it is nothing more, though particularly recommended for appletrees, might be useful to trees of other kinds.
iron stoves. Cracks in, how mended.
WHEN a crack is discovered in a stove, through which the fire or smoke penetrates, the aperture maybe completely closed in a moment with a composition consisting of wood ashes and common salt, made up into a paste with a little water, and plastered over the crack. The good effect is equally certain, whether the stove, &c. be cold or hot.
itch, cure for. See Ointment.
jaundice. Cure for.
TAKE half a pint of cinders from the back of a chimney, and pulverize them; add to this an equal quantity of the bark of a young white pine tree — put them together in two quarts of water, and boil them down to one quart, then strain it and let it settle. Take a wine glass full of it three mornings in succession, then omit three mornings, then take it three mornings, and so continue till you have taken nine glasses, which generally effects a cure.
Another.
Another.
TAKE a large handful of the bark of black alder, cut small; boil in a quart of hard cider and drink freely when cold. The bark of the common wild black cherry tree, pulverised, and infused in cider, or spirits, is said to be efficacious in removing this disorder.
Another.
BLOOD root powdered and given in doses of 15 or 20 grains.
Another.
[From the New- York Medical Repository.]
TAKE salt of tartar one ounce, of castile soap, gum arabic each half an ounce, of spirits or brandy one pint. The ingredients should be frequently stirred with a stick, and shook well together, and after standing four or five days the medicine will be fit for use. The dose is two thirds of a wine glass, mixed with one third of a wine glass of water, every morning for three days in succession, when it may be left off for two or three mornings, and taken again in the same way, if necessary, until the disease begins to disappear. Where the case is bad, it should be taken every morning until relief is procured.
Saponaceous draught for the Yellow Jaundice.
TAKE from two to four scruples of Castile or Venice soap, according to the age and state of the patient, and the disease, boil it in six ounces of milk till reduced to four; then add three drams of sugar, and strain it for a draught. This quantity is to be taken every morning and afternoon for four or five days, and is esteemed a most prevailing medicine against the jaun​dice. The celebrated French physician Barbette, relates his having cured with a similar saponaceous draught, a young woman of the most dreadful epileptic fits, with which she had been afflicted nearly a year. After once purging her, he gave her twice a day half a dram of Venice soap, boiled in six ounces of milk till reduced to three, for each dose; which, in about thirty days completely cured her.
lambs.
WHEN lambs are not owned by their dams feed them as follows: Boil 1-4 of a pound of tormentil 1 in a gallon of water a quarter of an hour, and strain it: add 1-4 with the cows milk. which reduces the milk to a proper thinness, and remedies the purging quality of the milk.
lambs—Shearing of.
THE largest lambs should be sheared at the time of the new moon, in July. Their fleeces will yield as much the next year, and the wool will be better, and as cold storms rarely happen at that time of the year, lambs will do better without their fleeces than with them.
leather.
How to make Leather Water Proof.
Another.
TAKE one pint of drying oil, two ounces of bees wax, two ounces of spirits of turpentine, one ounce of Burgundy pitch, melt and mix them carefully over a slow fire. Those to whom the smell of turpentine may be disagreeable may add a few drams of some cheap essential oil, as of lavender, thyme and the like. With this composition new boots and shoes are rubbed either in the sun or at some distance from the fire, with a sponge or soft brush. The operation to be repeated as often as they become dry, until they become fully saturated. The shoes and boots, thus prepared, ought not to be worn until they have become perfectly dry and elastic, as in the contrary case the leather will be too soft, and wear out sooner than the common kind, without this preparation.
German Method of Blackening Leather.
TAKE two pounds of the bark of elder, and the same quantity of the filings of iron rust ; steep them in two gallons of river water and put them in a cask or earthen vessel closely stopped. After it has stood two months, put to the liquid, when well pressed out, one pound of powdered nut galls, and' a quarter of a pound ofcopperas; then, after stirring it over a good fire, press out the liquid, with which the leather must be three or four times brushed over, when it becomes of an excellent and most durable black.
lice on Apple Trees.
THE lice which infest Apple and other trees issue from their abodes, and appear on the body of the tree as hard vegetable barnacles, and ascend to the limbs early in June, when they may be easily destroyed by a swab with hot water. This will destroy them more ​effectually than scraping the trees. They are almost invisible to the naked eye ; but discoverable by myriads by a magnifying glass.
Lice on Cattle.
COLLECT a quantity of dry dirt and put it in a box or tub in the barn; and occasionally sift or strew some of the dirt over the body of each creature. It is said upon good authority, that if cattle are ever so much infested with lice, this process, a few times repeated, will remove them.
lip salve.
TAKE a quarter of a pound of hard marrow from the bone, melt it over a slow fire, as it gradually dissolves pour the liquid into an earthern pipkin ; then add to it an ounce of spermaceti, twenty raisins of the sun stoned, and a small portion of alkanet root, sufficient to give it a bright vermillion colour. Simmer these over a slow fire tor ten minutes ; then strain the whole through muslin, and while hot stir into it a teaspoonful of the balsam of Peru. Pour it out into small boxes, and as soon as it stiffens it will be fit for use.
lock-jaw.
BRANDY and Opium mixed have been successfully administered in the Lock Jaw.
lungs, weakness of.
WEAKNESS of the lungs may be remedied by a free use of Kaskarilla, and tincture of myrrh. A decoction ​of Kakarilla may be made by steeping half a pound of it in two or three quarts of water. A wine glass full of it may be taken two or three times a day; About two teaspoonsful of the tincture of myrrh may be taken daily in a teacup of water, or the decoction of the Kaskarilla.
mangoes, how made.
manure.
IT has been well remarked that "manure is the great sinew of agriculture, as money is of war, and the making the best of every advantage or opportunity for increasing the quantity of it, is one of the most prominent traits in the character of a good farmer " The following extracts from that very valuable work by Sir Humphrey Davy, entitled "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry" highly deserve the attention of every farmer
As different manures contain different proportions of the elements necessary for vegetation, so they require a different treatment to enable them to produce their full effects in agriculture.
All green succulent plants contain saccharine or mucilaginous matter, with woody fibre, and readily ferment. They cannot therefore, if intended for manure, be used too soon after their death.
When green crops are to be employed for enriching a soil, they should be ploughed in, if possible, when in flower, or at the time the flower is beginning to appear: for it is at this period that they contain the largest quantity of easily soluble matter, and that their leaves are most active in forming nutritive matter. Green crops, pond weeds, the paring of hedges or ditches, or any kind of fresh vegetable matter, re quire no preparation to fit them for manure. The decomposition slowly proceeds beneath the soil; the soluble matters are gradually dissolved, and the slight fermentation that goes on checked by the want of a free communication of air, tends to render the woody fibre soluble without occasioning the rapid dissipation of elastic matters. ​When old pastures are broken up and made arable, not only has the soil been enriched by the death and slow decay of the plants which have left soluble matters in the soil, but the leaves and roots of the grasses living at the time and occupying so large a part of the surface, afford saccharine, mucilaginous, and extractive matters, which become immediately the food of the crop, and the gradual decomposition affords a supply for successive years.
Dry Straw of wheat, oats, barley, beans, and peas, and spoiled hay, or any similar kind of dry vegetable matter, is in all cases, useful manure. In general such substances are made to ferment before they are employed, though it may be doubted whether the practice should indiscriminately be adopted.
When straw is made to ferment it becomes a more manageable manure ; but there is likewise, on the whole, a great loss of nutritive matter. More manure is supplied for a single crop; but the land is less improved than it would be, supposing the whole of the vegetable matter could be finely divided and mixed with the soil.
It is usual to carry straw that can be employed for no other purpose, to the dunghill, to ferment and decompose ; but it is worth experiment, whether it may not be more economically applied when chopped small by a proper machine and kept dry till it is ploughed in for the use of a crop. In this case, though it would decompose much more slowly and produce less effect at first, yet its influence would be much more lasting.
Wood-ashes imperfectly formed, that is wood ashes containing much charcoal, are said to have been used with success as a manure. A part of their effects may be owing to the slow and gradual consumption of the charcoal, which seems capable under other circum​stances than those of actual combustion, of absorbing oxygene so as to become carbonic acid.
Manures from animal substances in general require no chemical preparations to fit them for the soil. The great object of the farmer is to blend them with earthy constituents in a proper state of division and to prevent their too rapid decomposition.
The entire parts of the muscles of land animals are not commonly used as a manure though there are many cases in which such an application might be easily made. Horses, dogs, sheep, deer and other quadrupeds that have died accidentally, or of disease, after their skins are separated are often suffered to remain exposed to the air or immersed in water, till they are destroyed by birds or beasts of prey, or entirely decomposed; and in this case most of their original matter is lost on the land on which they lie, and a considerable portion of it employed in giving off noxious gasses to the atmosphere.
By covering dead animals with five or six times their bulk of soil, mixed with one part of lime, and suffering them to remain for a few months, their decomposition would impregnate the soil with soluble matters so as to Tender it an excellent manure; and by mixing a little fresh quick lime with it at the time of its removal, the disagreeable effluvia would be in a great measure destroyed; and it might be applied in the same way as any other manure to crops.
Fish forms powerful manure in whatever state it is applied: but it cannot be ploughed in too fresh, though the quantity be limited. Mr. Young records an experiment in which herrings spread over a field and ploughed in for wheat, produced so rank a crop, that it was entirely laid before harvest. ​It is easy to explain the operations as a manure. The skin is principally gelatine; which from its slight state of cohesion is readily soluble in water, fat or oil; is always found in fishes, either under the skin, or in some of the viscera; and their fibrous matter contains all the essential elements of vegetable substances.
maple sugar—how made.
SCALD your buckets for catching sap before tapping the trees.
The sap should be kept clean from dirt through the process of boiling.
Avoid leaving your sap long in an iron kettle, as the rust will give it a dark colour.
When nearly boiled down to sirup (or thin molasses) a little lime thrown into the kettle will be of use.
At this stage of boiling as well as in sugaring off, care should be taken to avoid heating the top of the kettle too hot, or any other way burning, as it will injure the colour, as well as the flavour of the sugar.
When the syrup is boiled down, turn it while hot, into a clean wooden vessel, let it stand two or three days and settle : then turn it carefully from the dirt at the bottom and strain it.
Hang it over a gentle fire, and when it is warm, stir in one pint of milk to four or five gallons syrup, which will rise as it begins to boil, and must be taken off with a skimmer, ​If you wish to make your sugar very nice, cool it until one half or two thirds will grain, turn 'it hot into a tight cask; let it stand undisturbed in a cellar, or other cool place until it is grained at the bottom-Turn off the molasses and turn the cask bottom upwards over some vessel to catch what will dram out: let it stand as long as any will drop, then set your cask upright, and what moisture remains will settle to the bottom, leaving the top dry and of a superiour quality.
If you wish to make dry sugar without draining, there are various modes of ascertaining when it is boiled sufficiently; perhaps as sure a method is to drop some on snow and let it cool, if it is brittle as rosin it is done.
mead or metheglin, how made.
FOR every gallon of wine or metheglin to be made, take one pound and a half of honey, half an ounce of tartar or Bologna argol, and three fourths of a pound of fruit. If for white wine, white argol should be used with white currants, and if for red wine, red argol, with red currants or raspberries. Prepare the honey, by mixing it with as much water as will, when added to the juice of the fruit, allowing for diminution by boiling, &c. make the proposed quantity of wine. This being well boiled and clarified, infuse it in a moderate quantity of rosemary leaves, lavender, and sweetbriar; and when they have remained two days, strain it to the expressed juice of the fruit, put in the dissolved argol, stir the whole well together, and leave it to ferment. In two or three days put it in a seasoned barrel, keep filling it up as the liquor flows over, and on its ceasing to work sink in it a bag of Seville orange and lemon peel, with cinnamon, cloves and nutmegs, and closely bung up the cask. If kept for six months or more, in ​the cask, and at least nine in the bottles, it will be truly excellent. In a similar way may be made all fruit wines, by thus substituting honey for sugar,
measles in swine.
ABOUT once a week, mix two spoonsful of madder in their food, which prevents obstructions, acting as a diuretic, and at the same time an astringent. And, on some other day in the week, give a spoonful or two of an equal quantity of flour of sulphur, and saltpetre, well pounded and mixed.
meat
MAY be preserved fresh many months, by keeping it immersed in molasses. A joint of meat, or any provision, suspended in a flannel bag will keep sweet much longer than by most of the modes commonly practised. The cooler and dryer the meat is, when the flannel is put round it the better, and the flannel should be perfectly clean.
Another way to preserve Meat.
PUT fresh meat in a close vessel, containing vinegar, which will preserve it a considerable time. Tainted meat may be rendered good, by pickling it in pearl ash water, for some time. Before it is cooked, however, it should be dipped in vinegar, a short time, and then salted in brine.
To cure Putrid Meat.
PUT the meat intended for making soup into a saucepan full of water; skim it when it boils; then throw into the sauce pan a burning coal, very compact and ​destitute of smoke; leave it there for two minutes, and it will have contracted all the smell of the meat and the soup. If you wish to roast a piece of meat on the spit, you must put it into the water till it boils, and after having skimmed it, throw a burning coal into the water, boiled as before — at the end of two minutes, take out the meat, and having wiped it well in order to dry it, put it on the spit.
Another.
WHEN meat has become tainted, after having been pickled, or salted down, the following process, it is said will cure it: Take a sufficient quantity of charcoal, and after taking out the meat, and throwing away the offensive pickle repack it in the barrel, lay pieces of charcoal between the pieces of meat, and making a new pickle, and adding a little salt petre. In about five or six days the meat will become as sweet as it was when first packed.
On keeping meat.
THERE are two points to be considered with respect to meat. The longer it is kept without salt, the tenderer it becomes. If it receive salt in this state it will become correspondingly tender, and the smaller the quantity of salt, used in its preservation, the looser, sweeter and more palatable will be the meat.
Beef. Let it lie in a cool place, without freezing, about a week; use eight ounces pulverized salt petre, and six quarts of fine salt to a barrel — put water to these in a convenient vessel; roll the pieces of beef separately in this; pack them in the cask lightly; and in two or three days fill it up with water You need not be alarmed if it become a little slippery in the spring, provided it is not tainted. The plate pieces of ​a fat beef are about as good as tongue, and keep as well as pork.
Ham. For the same reason, hams improve by laying a week or eight days, if the season admits of it without freezing For an average for one ham use one ounce of salt petre; or if large two ounces; pulverise it, and with fine salt and water, wet the hams and lay them into a barrel. Prepare immediately a weak pickle, to the taste as salt as the ham is wanted, and after two days cover the ham with it. In two weeks broil a slice, if necessary, add a little fine salt; which is better than freshening it, if too salt. In three or four weeks smoke it. Six or eight pieces may be smoked in a week in a common oven- Lay them on sticks of wood ; place some walnut or maple chips within the lid ; raise this a little and put some coals to them. The smoke thus produced is much better than the smoke of a common chimney.
Russian method of salting meat.
BOIL over a gentle fire six pounds of common salt, two pounds of powdered loaf sugar, three ounces of saltpetre, and three gallons of spring water. Carefully scum it, while boiling; and when quite cold, pour it over the meat, every part of which must be covered with the brine. In this pickle, it is said, the meat will pot only keep for many months, but the hardest and toughest beef will thus be rendered as mellow and tender as the flesh of a young fowl ; while either beef, pork, or even mutton, will have a fine flavour imparted by it. In warm weather, however. the blood must be expressed from the meat, and the whole well rubbed over with fine salt, before it is immersed in the liquor. Young pork should not be left longer than three or four days in this pickle, as it will then hp quite sufficiently softened; but hams, intended for drying, may remain a fortnight before they are hung up; when ​they should be rubbed with pollard, and closely covered with paper bags to prevent their being flyblown.
meat cakes.
AFTER separating the fat and sinews from the flesh of a leg of mutton, beat it well, in a marble mortar, with pepper, salt, and onion or garlic juice, or sweet herbs, according to your taste. Make the meat, thus prepared, into flat rakes, and keep them closely pressed between two dishes for twelve hours, then fry them with butter, in which they are to be served up.
moles.
THE Hon. Jacob Rush of Philadelphia, from some experiments made is of opinion, that dried cod fish, cut into small pieces and put into the earth, will drive away moles from gardens. Take a small round stick of about an inch in diameter, sharpened at the point, and perforate the ground in the roads of the moles; drop in a small piece of fish, and cover the hole with a lump of dirt and your garden will be rid of these mischievous animals.
moths, how to preserve Furs and Woolens from,
murrain.
CLEANLY stables, dry sweet straw for litter, often changed, sweet clear water, the rack staves and trough annointed with tar sulphur and assafoetida mixed; a free use of salt slightly mixed with sulphur. Should one of the cattle be infected, remove him from the rest. Fumigate the stable with vinegar poured on hot stones, and rub the noses of the sound with the above mixture, and in case of death bury the animal deep with the hide on.
murrain, remedy for.
MIX a pint and a half of wine which has stood several days exposed to the air, with two ounces of hens' dung; give it to the beast every evening for four times, or more if needful.
This is a plain simple remedy, but it possesses great powers. These ingredients abound in a volatile salt, which will have great effects in this disorder as is abundantly proved by experiment.
muslin or linen , a composition for washing.
TAKE of water, or water saturated with lime, about twelve parts, in which, assisted by heat when necessary, infuse from two to six parts of what is usually called sub-carbonate of potash, or sub-carbonate of soda, or both, according to the purposes for which the said composition is intended. To this alkaline liquor when hot, in the copper or otherwise, add from four to seven or more parts of common soap, sliced or macerated, or in any form best calculated to incorporate it with the mass, and afford a compound of the consistence of ​cream or butter, or even of tallow or of ordinary soap. When the whole composition is sufficiently incorporated, if in a hot state, stir it in the copper till it becomes cool, or transfer it to another vessel and do the same. The composition will be stronger or weaker in proportion to the purity of the sub-carbonate of potash, or of soda made use of, or of both, when both are employed together; it will be therefore necessary to be particularly attentive to this circumstance. It will be also better to strain off the sediment of the lime water and alkali, or alkalies when mixed.
musquetos.
TO prevent the bite of musquetoes, rub the oil of pennyroyal, a little weakened on the hands and face.
mustard, how mixed.
BOIL a sufficient quantity of horse radish in the best white wine vinegar, add to it half as much mountain or good raisin wine, and a little double refined sugar; then make it up to a proper consistency with the best unadulterated Durham flour of mustard, stop it up close, and it will keep for years. Mustard thus made has an inconceivably fine spirit and flavour. Common keeping mustard may be made by only substituting water for the vinegar, with or without garlic, and a little salt. The flour of mustard should be gradually mixed with the boiling water or vinegar, to a proper thickness, and rubbed perfectly smooth.
Another way for immediate use.
MIX the mustard with new milk by degrees, to be quite smooth, and add a little raw cream. It is much softer this way if not better, and will keep well.—A ​tea spoonfull of sugar to half a pint of mustard is a great improvement, and softens it.
nail.
How to extract poison from a rusty Nail.
TAKE a bean, after splitting it apply one half (flat side) to the wound, bind it on, let it remain till it comes off itself, and the poison will be extracted and the wound healed.
nettle, medical virtues of.
THE common stinging nettle, apparently as useless and troublesome a plant as any that has been stigmatized with the name of weed, is one of the most efficacious medicines we have in the vegetable kingdom: in the form of a strong decoction or infusion taken in the quantity of a pound a day, it is a most valuable strengthener of general or partial relaxation. In that of a weak decoction or infusion, it proves an admirable alterative, and deobstruent in impurities of the blood, and in obstructions of the vessels. And in that of expressed juices, taken by spoonfuls as the exigency of the case requires—it is the most powerful styptic in internal bleedings known. Externally applied as a fermentation or poultice, it amazingly discusses inflammation, resolves swellings. In the common sore throat, thus applied and, internally as a gargle dependence may safely be put on this common plant.
English Magazine.
oil essential, how obtained from Flowers.
TAKE a clean earthern pipkin or deep dish, in which place a layer of cotton previously steeped in some inodorous oil, as pure Florence oil, or the oil of the benny seed when fresh and tasteless. On this place a layer of the fresh gathered leaves of the rose, tuberose, sweet pink, jasmine or other odoriferous flower or plant; over this layer place another of cotton which has been steeped in oil as before directed, and thus continue till you have filled the vessel with alternate layers of leaves and cotton,, or you have the desired quantity, when cover it up closely, and let it stand for four or five days, when the oil will be found to have fully imbibed the odour of the leaves; then take them out, express the oil carefully from the cotton, and bottle it up for use.
oil or tallow, how extracted from papers, &c.
HAVING got ready some common blotting paper, gently warm the spotted part of the book or paper damaged by the grease, and, as it melts, take up as much as possible, by repeated applications of fresh bits of the blotting paper. When no more can be thus imbibed, dip a small brush in the essential oil of well rectified spirits of turpentine, heated almost to a boiling state, and wet with it both sides of the paper, which should also be at the same time a little warm. This operation must be repeated till all the grease is extracted; when another brush, dipped in highly rectified spirits of wine, being passed over the same part, the spot or spots will entirely disappear, and the paper reassume its original whiteness, without the least detriment to the paper or the printing or writing thereon.
oil of balsam of gilead, how obtained.
THIS excellent family oil, which should be kept in every house, is made in the following simple manner. Put loosely into a bottle of any size, as many balm of gilead flowers as will reach to about one third part of its height, then nearly fill up the bottle with good sweet oil, and after shaking it a little occasionally, and letting it infuse a day or two, it is fit for use. It must be very closely stopped, and will then not only keep for years, but be the better for keeping. When it is about half used, the bottle may again be filled up with oil, and well shaken; and, in two or three days, it will be as good as at first. The most alarming cuts and bruises of the skin which are so frequently rendered worse by spirituous balsams, salves, &c. are completely cured in a few days, and sometimes in a few hours, by this incomparable oil.
ointment for the itch.
SULPHUR two ounces, crude sal ammoniac two drachms, hogs' lard or butter four ounces, essence of lemon half an ounce.
Another.
FRESH butter one pound, red precipitate of mercury one ounce, burgundy pitch two ounces, spirits of turpentine two ounces.
ointment for excoriations.
MUTTON tallow half a pound, lard half a pound, bees wax one ounce, red lead one ounce.
opodeldoc, how made.
TAKE one quart spirits of wine, half a pound white soap, two ounces gum camphor, 1-4 of an ounce oil Origanum; cut the soap fine, and put altogether into a tin canister, or some safe vessel, and dissolve the whole on a moderate fire, stirring it often with a pine stick. When nearly cool, and before it coagulates, put it into proper vials. This is an excellent application for bruises, sprains, &c. in man or beast.
pancakes, of Rice, how made.
PUT three spoonsfull of the flour of rice, with grated nutmeg, into a pint of milk and a pint of cream, and let them boil till they become as thick as pap; stirring in, while boiling, half a pound of butter. Then pour it into an earthen pan, and when cold put in three or four spoonsfull more of rice flour, a little salt some sugar, and nine eggs well beaten. Mix all together and fry them, with a very little butter, in a small pan, These are a very delicate pancake.
pancakes, of a pink colour, how made.
PANCAKES of a beautiful pink colour are easily made by the following simple process. Boil, till tender, a large blood beet-root, bruise it in a marble mortar, put to it the yolks of four eggs, two spoonsfull of flour, three of cream, half a grated nutmeg, sugar to palate, and a glass of brandy. Mix them well together, fry them carefully, and serve them up with a garnish of green sweetmeats,
paper, how made water proof.
IMMERSE any kind of paper in a strong solution of alum water—thoroughly dry it, immerse and dry it again.
paper hanging, easy method of cleaning.
CUT into eight half quarters a quartern loaf of two days old, it must be neither newer nor staler. After having with a pair of bellows blowed all the dust from the paper, begin with one of these pieces at the top of the room, holding the crust in the hand, and wiping lightly downward with the crumb, about a yard at each stroke till the upper part is completely cleaned all round. Then go around again with the like sweeping stroke downward, always commencing each successive course a little higher than the upper stroke had extended, till the bottom be finished. This operation, if carefully performed, will frequently make very old paper look almost equal to new. Great caution must be used not by any means to rub the paper hard, nor to attempt cleaning it cross way or horizontally. The dirty part of the bread too, must be each time cut away, and the pieces renewed as soon as at all necessary.
plaster of paris.
ONE hundred weight of plaster of Paris is a small quantity for an acre. It should be sown in a moderate rain, and when the air is calm. There is no doubt of its being useful in almost any soil, but on that of a light and loamy kind its good effects are more readily seen. The plaster should be ground as fine as flour. Indeed it is impossible to make it too fine.
​It is recommended in order to ascertain the quality of plaster to place a quantity pulverised in a kettle, over a fire, and when it is heated it emits a sulphurous smell. If the ebullition be considerable it is good. If small, indifferent. If it remain an inert mass it is worthless.
pease split.
PEASE may be split or hulled by being run through a common grist mill with but a small stream of water to turn the mill stones so that they may move slow. The upper stone should be hoisted as high as possible without letting the pease thro' whole. The advantages of splitting pease are that they will cook better, are preserved from bugs and other insects and they will fetch double price in market. The refuse peas and dust will answer for hogs. They may be cleaned by a fan or winnowing mill.
peas. Russian method of preserving green for winter.
PUT into a kettle of boiling hot water any quantity of fresh shelled green peas; and after just letting them boil up, pour them into a colander. When the liquor has drained off, pour them into a large thick cloth, cover them with another, make them quite dry, and set them once or twice in a cool oven, to harden a little; after which, put them into paper bags, and hang them up in the kitchen for use. To prepare them, when wanted, they are to be first soaked well for an hour or more, and then put into warm water and boiled with a few sprigs of mint, otherwise a little butter.
pickle, Pococke's.
TAKE four gallons of good water, one pound and a quarter of Muscovado sugar, two ounces of salt petre, and ten pounds of salt. Put the whole into a clean pot, and let it boil, taking off the scum carefully as it rises; when no more rises take it off the fire and let it stand till cold. Then having put the meat you wish to keep, into the vessel you wish to keep it in, pour the liquor over the meat till quite covered, in which condition it must be kept. Beef preserved in this manner has been as sweet after lying in the pickle ten weeks as if only three days salted and as tender as a chicken.
If you intend to preserve your meat a considerable time, you must once in two months boil the pickle again, simmering it as before, putting in two ounces of sugar, and two pounds of salt. This same pickle will be good twelve months.
This pickle is incomparable to cure hams, tongues, or beef which you intend to dry, after drying them to put them in paper bags, and then hang them in a dry place.
Unless in cold weather rub the meat with fine white salt, and let it lie in all the night before you put it into the pickle.
pickle, Hambro.
TAKE six pounds of salt, eight ounces brown sugar, six ounces salt petre: dissolve by boiling in four gallons of water. When perfectly cold apply it to any kind of fresh meat, which should be completely covered with the pickle.
pickling, receipt for.
AFTER cleansing your cask, put first a layer of white oak leaves, and then a layer of cucumbers, or whatever your pickles consist of and so on to fill your cask; intersperse between each layer dill seed, mustard seed, horse-raddish, &c and to every twenty cucumbers one bell of pepper. Form a composition of clear salt and water, not hardly sufficiently strong to bear an egg, to every gallon add one quart of good vinegar, scald and skim this pickle, and after cool to a degree of blood warmth, add it to your cask, and cover it tight.
If rightly performed, this method will preserve pickles the year round, and forms a very agreeable sauce.
piles, cure for.
TAKE a lump of strong British alum about two inches in length, which smooth down with a knife to the thickness of three quarters of an inch—apply this morning and evening, first wetting it with water. In five to seven days the cure will be complete.
pimpled face, cure for.
TAKE an ounce each of liver of sulphur, roche alum and common salt, and two drams each of sugar candy and spermaceti; pound and sift these articles, then put the whole into a quart bottle, and add half a pint of brandy, three ounces of white lily water, and the same quantity of pure spring water; shake it well together, and keep it for use. With this liquid the face must be freely and frequently bathed; being ​always attentive first to shake the bottle; and, on going to bed lay all over the face a linen cloth which has been dipped in it. In ten or twelve days, at farthest, it is said, that it will effect a complete cure. One thing is certain, that nothing in this composition can prove injurious.
plate silver, to give a lustre to.
DISSOLVE a quantity of alum in water, so as to make a pretty strong brine, which you must skim very carefully; add some soap to it, and when you wish to use it, dip a piece of linen rag in it and rub over your pieces of plate. This process will add much to its lusture.
plums, peaches, &c. how kept fresh through the year.
BEAT well up together equal quantities of honey and spring water; pour it into an earthen vessel, put in the fruits all freshly gathered and cover them quite close. When any of the fruit is taken out, wash it in cold water, and it is fit for immediate use.
poisons.
THE following useful directions in cases of poison are given by Dr. John Stone of Birmingham, England.
1st. When the preparations of arsenic, mercury, or any metal, or when any unknown sustance or matter has been swallowed, and there have speedily ensued heat of the mouth and throat, violent pain of the stomach, itching and vomiting—immediately drink a plenty of warm water, with common soap scraped or ​dissolved in it. Two or three quarts of warm water, with from three or four ounces of soap to half a pound will not be any too much.
2d. When any of the preparations of opium, hen bane, night shade, hemlock, tobacco, fox glove, or stramonium, or any poisonous fungus mistaken for mushrooms or spirituous liquors in excess, or any other unknown matters have been swallowed, exciting sickness without pain of the stomach, or producing giddiness, drowsiness or sleep—give instantly one table spoonful of flour of mustard in water, and repeat it in copious draughts of warm water, constantly until vomiting takes place. If the person becomes so insensible as not to be easily roused give the mustard in vinegar instead of water, and rub and shake the body actively and incessantly.
3d. When spirits of salt, or aqua fortis have been swallowed or spilt on the skin immediately drink or wash the part with large quantities of water, and as soon as they can be procured, add soap, or potash or chalk to the water.
Another practitioner observes that when mineral poisons, technically called oxides, whether of copper or arsenic are taken internally, one table spoonful of powdered charcoal is a complete antidote, mixed with either honey butter or treacle, taken immediately:—Within two hours administer either an emetic or cathartic: in this way the effect of the poison is prevented.
For the poison of insects take vinegar and sweet oil of each one part, strong spirit three parts, mixed; apply it very frequently.
poll evil, in Horses.
AT first this disorder requires no other method of cure than what is common to other boils, and inflamed tumours. But sometimes it degenerates to a sinuous ulcer, through ill management or neglect.
There is a small sinus under the poll bone, where the matter is apt to lodge, unless care be taken to keep the part firm with a bandage: But instead of that the farriers generally use to thrust in a long teat, which raises the flesh and opens a way into the sinus. And thus an ulcer is created where there needs be none.—All therefore that is further necessary on this head is, to caution the practitioner against such ill methods. And if the tumour has a very large cavity, it is better to lay it open, than to thrust foreign substances into it. And if it acquires an ulcerous disposition it must be treated as such. Gibson's Farriery.
pomatum.
TAKE the marrow of any animals' bones, and having strained it, perfume it with sweet scented oil, Russian or Antique, and it is fit for use; and it is said to have the power of quickening the growth of the hair, perhaps by communicating a softness to the skin; and opening the pores about the roots of the hair.
potatoes.
IT is said that late potatoes, or such as are not ripe make the best seed, and that planting such restores a degenerated variety.
How to obtain new varieties of Potatoes.
TAKE the apples of potatoes, or potatoe balls, in the beginning of October, before the frost has hurt them. Hang them up by the foot stalks in a dry closet, where they will not freeze. Let them hang till March or April. Then mash the apples, wash the seeds from the pulp, and dry them in a sunny window. Sow the seeds in a bed about the first of May. When the plants are four or five inches high, transplant them into ground well prepared, one or two plants in a hill.—They will produce full grown apples and some of the roots will be as large as hens' eggs. English farmers hold it to be absolutely necessary to renew their potatoes from the top seed once in fourteen or fifteen years.
To raise Early Potatoes.
TAKE potatoes whole, and cover them with horse litter of a moderate warmth; let them remain till they put forth shoots of four or five inches in length, which they will do in two or three weeks. Then take them carefully from the litter, and plant them with the shoots standing upright, so deep in the earth that the shoots may be just seen peeping out of the ground.—They should be thus set in a dry soil, with more horse dung. By such means, it is said that potatoes may be obtained at least four weeks earlier than by the common method.
A good method of Planting Potatoes.
PLOUGH a deep furrow, place a quantity of cut straw, old hay, decayed leaves, or the mould of rotten leaves, or other vegetable substances, and lay the seed potatoes on it, and cover as usual. The potatoes will be of the best quality, which are thus produced. Large potatoes, which are planted whole, will produce ​better than if they were cut before planting. Pick off the blows and balls.
Harvesting Potatoes.
POTATOES may be spoiled by bad management in harvesting. They should be dug in cool overcast weather, and picked immediately after the hoe free from sun and air, and kept moist with much dirt about them. If dug in fine weather, and they remain exposed to the sun, they will sweat in the summer, and be soft waxy, and strong. By lying to dry in the sun they generate poison, operate as physic, and sometimes prove fatal.
Feeding stock with Potatoes.
IT is best to steam, boil, or bake potatoes for feeding stock. Sir John Sinclair asserts that "there is something injurious in the juices of the potatoe, in a raw state, which cooking eradicates or greatly dispels."
It is said that an excellent fodder for horned cattle may be collected from potatoe tops. It is practiced in many places in the southern states to reap about two thirds the length of the potatoe tops and dry them on mowing land in the usual way of haymaking. Several tons may be collected from an acre, and no damage to the potatoes, if taken as soon as they are ripe, and before the leaf begins to fall.
potatoe pudding.
No. 1. ONE pound boiled potatoes, half a pound of sugar, four ounces of butter, one pint of flour, one quart of milk and five eggs.
No. 2. ONE pound boiled potatoes, mashed, four ounces of butter, one quart of milk, the juice of one ​lemon, and the peal grated, half a pound of sugar, half a nutmeg, seven eggs, two spoonsfull of rose water. Bake one and an half hour.
potatoe starch.
WASH and pare potatoes, grate them upon large tin graters, and fill tubs about half full with the pulp: Then fill them up with water: Stir it well once a day three or four days, and take off all the scum. About the fifth day take out the pulp, and put it into shallow earthen pans, such as are used for milk, as much as will cover the bottom an inch thick, and put water upon it. Every morning pour off the water, break up the starch and add fresh water. When it has thus become very white, leave it in the pans till it is quite dry, then put it into paper bags, and put it into a dry place to keep.
poultry.
THE reason why hens do not lay in winter is the want of lime to form the shell. Let them have access to wheat which contains lime, or to lime itself, and they will lay as well in the winter as any other time. Pounded bones will answer the same purpose with lime.
Corn given to fowls should be crushed or soaked in water. This helps digestion, and hens will lay in the winter that are thus fed that would not otherwise.
pruning fruit trees.
THE best time for pruning fruit trees is when the tree possesses the greatest quantity of sap, which is about the middle of June. If a limb of any ​considerable size is cut several inches from the body in March, the stump will become dry and crack open nearly to the body, and before the new growth can heal over the wound, the stump will rot, and this defection will soon penetrate to the heart of the tree, and cause it to perish.
pudding, good and cheap.
TAKE a quart of milk, four eggs, and two large spoonsfull of flour, with a little salt and grated ginger; beat them up into a good smooth batter, and put it into a buttered baking dish. When it comes out of the oven, pour over it some melted butter and serve it up.
Baked Beef or Mutton Potatoe Pudding.
THIS economical article is thus made: Boil a sufficient quantity of well pared mealy potatoes, till they are so thoroughly done as to be ready to crumble in pieces; drain them well in a colander or sieve; pick out every speck, or hardness, and mash them as fine as possible; make them up into a thickish batter, with an egg or two, and some milk, and placing of steaks or chops, well seasoned with salt and pepper, at the bottom of a baking dish, cover them with a layer of the batter; and so alternately, till the dish is filled; taking care to have the batter at the top. The dish should first be well buttered, to prevent sticking or burning, and in that case, the bottom as well as top, may consist of potatoe butter. This pudding, when properly baked will be of a fine brown colour.
pudding, Orange.
GRATE the rind of two Seville oranges, and beat it in a marble mortar, with half a pound of good fresh butter, the same quantity of loaf sugar, and the yolks ​of sixteen eggs, till the whole mass become of a like colour. Then pour it into a baking dish lined with puff or paste.
pumpkin seeds
AFFORD an oil with the greatest facility and abundance. One gallon of seeds it is said will yield about half a gallon of oil. They may be pressed like rape seed or flax seed The oil is clear, limpid, pale, scentless, and when used for sallad instead of sweet oil has merely a faint insipid taste: it burns well and without smoke.
radishes.
TO have a constant succession of radishes for the table, the seeds should be sown once a fortnight from April to August. As they are uncertain in their growth, the best method is to put the seeds between rows of other plants; and they are so easily pulled that they need not incommode the plants among which they grow.
rats.
TAKE one quart of oat meal, four drops of oil rhodium, one grain of musk, two nuts of nux vomica powdered; mix the whole together, and place it where the rats frequent; continue to do so while they eat it, and it will soon destroy them.
Another method of destroying Rats.
TAKE equal quantities of unslacked lime and powdered oat meal; mix them by stirring, without adding ​any liquid, and place a small quantity in any place infested by rats. They will eagerly swallow the preparation, become thirsty, and the water taken will swell the lime and destroy them.
rattle snake, cure for the bite of.
TAKE of the roots of plantane or hoarhound, (in summer, roots and branches together) bruise them in a mortar, and squeeze out the juice, of which give as soon as possible one large spoonful; if the patient is swelled you must force it down his throat, this will generally cure; but if he finds relief in an hour you may give another spoonful, which it is said will never fail. If the roots are dried they must be moistened with a little water. To the wound may be applied a leaf of good tobacco, moistened with a little rum.
rennet or runnet.
WHEN the rennet is to be preserved for use the calf should be killed soon after he has sucked; for then the curd is entire and undigested.
Dairy women usually preserve the maw and the curd contained in it, after salting them; and then by steeping this bag and curd, make a rennet to turn their milk for making cheese. But a method which seems to be more simple and equally good in every respect, is, to throw away the curd, and after steeping it in very strong pickle, stretch out the maw upon a slender bow inserted into it, which will soon be very dry, and keep well for a long time. Take an inch or two of the maw, thus dried, and steep it over night in a few spoonfulls of warm water; which water serves full as well as if the curd had been preserved, for ​turning the milk. It is said that one inch will serve for the milk of five cows.
In the Bath papers, Mr. Hazard gives the following receipt for making rennet: "when the raw skin is well prepared and fit for the purpose, three pints of soft water, clean and sweet, should be mixed with salt, wherein should be put sweet brier, rose leaves and flowers, cinnamon, mace, cloves, and almost every sort of spice; and if these are put into two quarts of water, they must boil gently, till the liquor is reduced to three pints, and care should be taken that this liquor is not smoked. It should be strained clear from the spices, &c. and when found to be not warmer than milk from the cow, it should be poured upon the caul or maw; a lemon may be sliced into it, when it may remain a day or two; after which it should be strained again, and put into a bottle, where if well corked it will keep good for twelve months. It will smell like a perfume; and a small quantity of it will turn the milk, and give the cheese a pleasing flavour. He adds, "If the maw be salted and dried for a week or two near the fire, it will do for the purpose again almost as well as before." Another receipt is as follows; after the maw has been well cleaned and salted, and dried upon sticks or splints, take boiled water two quarts, made into a brine that will bear an egg. Let it be blood warm, put in the maw either cut or whole; let it steep twenty four hours, and it will be fit for use. About a tea cup full will turn the milk of ten cows. It should be kept in glass bottles, well corked.
Whatever kind of rennet the dairy woman chooses to prepare she should keep it in mind, that this animal acid is extremely apt to turn rancid and putrify, and take care to apply a sufficient quantity of salt to preserve it in its best state. It should be as much salted ​as possible, and the strongest kind of salt should be used.
rheumatism.
LIGHT infusions of ginger alone taken twice or thrice a day, have been found very efficacious by the French surgeons in Rheumatic affections. The pains are rendered at first excruciating; follows copious persperation, and in two or three days the symptoms gradually disappear and the patient is cured, or at least released for a period.
Another remedy for Rheumatism.
TAKE half a pint of spirits of turpentine, half a pint of linseed oil, half a pint of strong vinegar, half a pint of fine salt, mix these ingredients well together, and rub the part affected with a piece of red flannel, warmed and steeped in them, as hard and as long as the patient can bear it, or till you find considerable irritation produced on the surface of the skin. This operation may be repeated three days successively, provided a cure is not sooner effected.
Another.
ONE ounce of camphorated soap; one drachm of tincture of cantharides one drachm of liquid ammonia caustic; three drachms of oil of Thyme. Put a little in the palm of your hand, and rub the part affected well three or four times a day.
Another.
TAKE one ounce of gum camphor; one quart o spirits; add as much of the bark of the root of ​sassafras, as the spirits will cover; steep ten or twelve hours; take half a wine glass full at bed time, early in the morning, and at eleven o'clock. At the same time rub the part affected, with this compound; the dose may be increased if necessary; the effect is a violent perspiration. Exposure to take cold must be avoided.
rice jelly.
THIS is one of the best and most nourishing preparations of rice, particularly for valetudinarians or convalescents. It is thus made: Boil a quarter of a pound of rice flour, with half a pound of loaf sugar, in a quart of water, till the whole becomes one uniform gelatinous mass; then strain off the jelly and let it stand to cool. A little of this salubrious food eaten at a time, will be found very beneficial to those of a weakly and infirm constitution.
ring worm—Cure for.
FINE starch reduced to powder, and kept constantly applied on and around the parts affected with the ring worm, will soon cure that teasing and infectious cuticular distemper. On the head ring worms sometimes come to running sores, which must once or twice a day be washed with soap and water, and dressed with basilicon ointment keeping the rest of the head dry, and constantly covered with powdered starch. The body must be kept gently open with sulphur and cream of tartar.
Another remedy.
COVER the part with common writing ink.
rocks, blasting of.
LIEUT. Wainhager, a German, has discovered that saw dust, particularly of soft wood, mixed with gun powder, in equal parts, has thrice the strength of powder alone, when used in blowing rocks.
rollers.
THE roller is the most useful implement for breaking hard clods expeditiously, and smoothing the surface of land when in tillage, ever yet invented. It is likewise of use to grass lands laid down for hay; and heavy rollers would prevent those ant hills, by which so many pastures are deformed. Rollers are made of various substances; as wood, freestone, granite or cast iron; but on the whole the two latter are to be preferred. It is of importance, that the weight of the roller should be in proportion to the surface on which it is to be employed. The best plan, is that of having two rollers, each about two feet and an half in length, and both placed in one frame, so as to roll clear of one another. This is the most suitable both for corn crops and sown grass, as it neither tears up the tender soil, nor injures the young plants. Besides the labour in turning is much less severe on the frame and on the cattle Every farm ought to be provided with rollers of different diameters and weights, so as to suit the several purposes to which they are destined; those of a small diameter are generally applied to land in tillage; and those of a large diameter, with double shafts, to grass land. Heavy rollers are of great use, for destroying worms, slugs and other vermin in the soil.
An intelligent farmer maintains, that if draining is the first, manuring the second, and cultivation the third, rolling ought to be considered as the fourth ​principal operation in the processes of agriculture.—Its importance indeed, is every day becoming more apparent, and new advantages are derived from its use both on arable and on grass lands.
Wheat should always be rolled in the Spring, after frosts, as it makes the soil adhere more closely to the roots of the plants, encourages vegetation and strengthens the stems, and renders the grain more perfect.—When any crop of grain is sown with artificial grasses, rolling is particularly necessary; to make an even surface, bruising all clods, and pressing down any stones it may not be thought necessary to carry off, to facilitate the future operation of the scythe. Oats in a light soil, may be rolled to advantage, immediately after the seed is sown, unless the ground be so wet as to cling to the roller. After turnips are sown in drills, they ought to be immediately rolled, to make the soil compact, and to promote their speedy germination.—Not only for turnips, but for all other crops, rolling, particularly during the night, is found to be an efficient means of destroying slugs, snails, the wire worm, and other vermin, so destructive to young plants. Flax ought to be rolled immediately after sowing; it makes the seed vegetate equally, and prevents after growth; the bad effects of which are visible in every step of the process for dressing flax.
The other advantages of rolling arable land are, that it renders a loose soil more compact and solid. This encourages the growth of plants, by pressing the soil to their roots. It likewise keeps in the moisture, and prevents drought from penetrating. When the soil is worked up lightly, moisture either filters through it too quickly, or is easily evaporated. In a dry season this may occasion a very material difference in the crop more especially in a light soil. Rolling is executed to most advantage across the direction of the ridges, because more adapted to ensure full benefit to ​the furrows which otherwise may not be properly gone over.
When a large field is to be rolled, a number of rollers ought at once to be set at work, otherwise an opportunity may be lost never to be regained. Code of Agriculture.
roofs of houses.
A material for roofing, cheap and durable is formed by dipping sheets of paper, (such as button makers use) in boiling tar, and nailing them on boards or laths exactly in the same manner as slates. Afterwards the whole is to be painted with a mixture of pitch and powdered coal, chalk or brick dust. This forms a texture which completely resists every description of weather for an unknown length of time.
rotation of crops.
MR. DEANE recommends the following course of crops. On light warm soils the first year, Indian corn well manured, pease or potatoes. The second year, rye, barley or buck wheat. The third and fourth years clover. The fifth year wheat. The sixth and seventh clover. On cold and stiff soils, first year oats or potatoes. Second year potatoes well manured. Third year flax or wheat. Fourth year grass, and so on till it needs to be broken up again.
The following has been recommended by an able writer in the Albany Argus.
Medium course in sandy soils; 1st year, potatoes dunged; 2d, rye, with turnips after harvest consumed on the field; 3d, oats and clover, or barley and clover; ​4th, clover; 5th, wheat, with turnips after harvest consumed on the field; and 6th, peas or lupins. We have by this course eight crops in six years, and five of these ameliorating crops.
Medium course in sandy soils; 1st year potatoes dunged; 2d year wheat with turnips as in the preceding course; 3d year Indian corn and pumpkins; 4th year barley and clover; 5th year, wheat and turnips as before. In this course we have nine crops in six years, five of which are ameliorating crops, and
Medium course in clay soils; 1st year oats with clover; 2d, clover; 3d wheat; 4th, beans, dunged; 5th, wheat.
rowell in horses
IS a kind of issue, or artificial wound, made in the skin of a horse, by drawing a skein of silk thread or hair, through the nape of the neck, or some other part, answering to what surgeons call a seton.
Horses are rowelled for inward strains, especially about the shoulders or hips, or for hard swellings that are not easily dissolved. The rowell may be made in almost any part, and should always be not far from the diseased part, and about a hand breadth beneath it.—The two ends of the rowel should be tied together, that it may not come out, and be smeared with lard or fresh butter before it is put in, and drawn backward and forwards that the putrid matter may discharge itself.
What are called rowels by English farriers are made as follows: An incision is made through the skin, about three eighths of an inch long. Then the skin is separated from the flesh with the finger, or with the end ​of a blunt horn, as far as the finger will easily reach. Into this a piece of leather made very thin and round shaped is introduced, about the size of a crown piece, having a large hole in the middle of it. Previous to introducing the leather, it is covered with lint or tow, and dipped in the same digestive ointment. Also a pledgit of tow, dipped in the same ointment, is put in the same orifice, to keep out the cold air.
Clark's Farriery.
rust, or mildew in wheat.
THIS disease is occasioned by a minute parasitic fungus or mushroom on the leaves, stems, and glumes or chaff of the living plant. The roots of the fungus, intercepting the sap, intended by nature for the nutriment of the grain, render it lean and shrivelled, and in some cases rob it completely of its flour; and the straw becomes black and rotten, unfit for fodder.
The same fungus is generated on many other vegetable substances besides wheat Those receiving the infection at different seasons of the year, form, as it were, conductors from one to the other, in which fungi germinate effloresce, disseminate and die, during the revolutions of the seasons. The fungus having arrived at maturity in the spring on a few shrubs bushes or plants, its seeds are taken up the next humid atmosphere, (hence the erroneous idea that the rust or mildew is caused by the fog alone) wafted into the adjoining fields, and the nearest wheat is sure to suffer the most from it. In damp weather also, its seed is more immediately received into the leaves of trees and shrubs, or into their barks and fruits, or the stems of plants, through the medium of those valves or mouths, with which nature has supplied them, for the admission of moisture.
​Among the causes of rust, besides those above mentioned may be reckoned, 1. Having the land in too rich a state for wheat crops. 2. Where too frequent a repetition of wheat crops takes place.
Remedies against Rust.
1. Cultivating hardy sorts of wheat; 2. Early sowing; 3. Raising early varieties; 4. Thick sowing; 5. Changes of seed; 6. Consolidating the soil after sowing; 7. Using saline manures; 8. Improving the course of crops; 9. Extirpating all plants that are receptacles of rust; and 10. Protecting the ears and roots of wheat by rye, tares and other crops. The above remedies are enlarged upon by Sir John Sinclair, in "The Code of Agriculture," but his observations are too voluminous to quote in this place. His 10th remedy, however, is as follows:
"A CURIOUS and most important circumstance, connected with the rust in wheat remains to be stated. In the northern counties of England, where it is the practice to sow what they call meslin, (blend corn) or a mixture of rye and wheat, it has been there remarked, that wheat, thus raised is rarely infected by the rust. It is singular that the same circumstance has been observed in Italy. In an account drawn up by Professor Symonds, on the climate of that country, it is recorded as a known but extraordinary fact, "that wheat, mixed with rye or tares, escapes unhurt." It would appear from tares being so useful that the seed of the fungus must be taken up by the root, and that if the root be protected it is sufficient. This seems to be countenanced by other circumstances, as that by treading the ground, and thick sowing of crops of wheat, the crop is less liable to be affected by this disease; the access of the seeds of the fungi to the root being rendered more difficult. Mr. Knight is decidedly of opinion that the disease is taken up by the root, and indeed if it ​were introduced at the ear of the plant, how could it descend, and infect solely the stem, which is the case unless when the disease is inveterate.
If a field be evidently affected, and the progress of vegetation stopped, the only way to preserve the straw and the grain, if any has been formed from being entirely lost, is to cut it down immediately, even though the crop should not be ripe. The straw is thus preserved either for food or litter; and it is maintained, that any nourishment in the stem, will pass into and feed the grain, and makes a greater return than could well be expected.
It has been recommended to sprinkle wheat while growing, which appears to be in any degree affected with this disease with a solution of salt and water, which may be applied by mean of a mop. The sprinkling should be several times repeated, so that every part of the plants may be wetted, and it is said that wherever the brine touches the rust disappears.
rye.
IT is said to be a good practice on a rich and heavy soil to sow winter rye at the last hoeing of Indian corn and hoe it in. The plants of rye in such case being mostly on the corn hills, escape injury from frost.—The stubble of rye should be ploughed as soon as possible after reaping so that by being buried early it may answer the better purpose for manure.
Spring Rye.
SOW a peck of oats with a bushel of spring Rye, to prevent blasting. It is easily separated by a winnowing mill
Rye Coffee.
WASH Rye in several waters to free it from dust, blighted grain, &c. boil it in water until some of the grain cracks open, then drain it, and dry it in an oven, then burn it as other coffee. Barley is said by some to be superior to rye for making coffee, and is prepared in the same manner.
salt.
SALT is highly recommended as a manure by most writers on husbandry. It may be applied either by itself, or mixed and dissolved in compost. But if it be applied directly to young and tender plants unmixed and undissolved it often destroys them. It is said to be highly beneficial to flax when spread over the ground at the time of sowing the seed, at the rate of about two bushels of salt to one of the seed. A little salt planted in the hill with Indian corn we are told will preserve it from worms.
When the English farmer intends to turn his land to tillage in autumn he sows a double quantity of salt, in order to destroy grass, rushes, weeds, fern, worms, snails, &c. The whole is, by that means converted into a rich manure, which supports three successive crops, and leaves the soil, after all in good condition. It is said to be an excellent practice to keep salt under cover, in such a situation that cattle or sheep may have recourse to it at pleasure. Those cattle however, which have not been accustomed to so free an use of salt should be brought to it by degrees.
salt rheun.
TAKE one ounce of salts of tartar, dissolve in twenty-six spoonsfull of fair water; then take one spoonful of pure lime juice, and add a lump of loaf sugar, as large as a walnut. Let it dissolve, then add a spoonful of tartar liquid, dissolved as above, and give it the patient, before eating, twice in twenty-four hours.
Another Remedy.
TAKE tar, and flowers of sulphur, each one part, sweet cream, or fresh butter, two parts; simmer to an ointment, and apply it to the part daily, and keep the air from it by dressing it with a linen cloth, besmeared with the same. This will likewise cure the itch.
sand.
NO manure is so good as sand to loosen and soften a clayey soil. A clay soil has more of the food of plants in it than any other soil, and wants only to have its cohesion sufficiently broken to give a free passage to the roots of vegetables. A layer of two and an half inches thick will not be too much for land in tillage if it be a stiff clay. The benefit of sanding does not appear so much the first year, as in a year or two afterwards. For the oftener the land is tilled the more thoroughly is the sand mixed with the clay. But sand, laid on clay land, in grass will produce a great effect.
It is a rule, says Sir John Sinclair, in regard to sandy soils, never to pick off any small stones that maybe found in them, as they contribute to prevent evaporation, and to preserve moisture. It is another rule frequently to renovate the strength of such soils, by laying them down with grass seeds, and pasturing them ​for a few years, as they are apt to be exhausted by aration, if corn crops are too frequently repeated.
sausages, bologna—how made.
TAKE four pounds of lean buttock beef, cut it into fine pieces, and put into it one pound of dried suet, with an equal quantity of dried bacon. Season it with alspice, pepper, bay-salt, and saltpetre, adding thereto a little of the powder of bay-leaves. Then, mixing the whole well together, tie it up in skins about the thickness of the wrist, and dry them in the same manner as tongues.
scab in sheep—Ointment for.
RUB together in a mortar a pound of quicksilver and half a pound of Venice turpentine, till the globules of the quicksilver disappear, then add half a pint of oil of turpentine and four pounds of hog's lard, and mix the whole into an ointment. The method of using it is to begin at the head of the sheep, and proceeding from between the ears along the back to the end of the tail, divide the wool in a furrow till the skin can be touched; in the mean time, while the furrow is making, a finger slightly dipped in the ointment is to be drawn along the bottom, where it will leave a blue stain on the skin and the adjoining wool. From this furrow, similar ones must be drawn down the shoulders and thighs to the legs as far as they are woolly; and if the animal be much infected, two more should be drawn along each side parallel to that on the back, and one down each side between the fore and hind legs. Immediately after being annointed it is customary to turn the sheep among the other stock without fear of the infection being communicated, and we are assured by Sir Joseph Banks, that there is scarcely an instance ​of a sheep's suffering any injury from the application. In a few days the blotches dry up, the itching ceases, and the animal is completely cured. We should, however, recommend, on using this ointment, that the animal should be housed for a few days from the weather should it prove stormy or damp, and not permitted to get wet, a caution requisite in all cases where mercury is used.
sciatica—Remedy for.
THE following remedy has been tried with success in England and much recommended in France.—Oil of turpentine, two gross; honey, 4 ounces. Divide it into three doses, and take one in the morning, one at noon, and one at night.
Doubtless this would be much aided by a strong cathartic, abstinence, and friction externally with oil of turpentine.
The gross is two penny weights, six grains troy.
scratches.
SCRATCHES is a disease in horses, sometimes called Malanders. It is caused by corrupt blood, over hard labour, &c. and appears in chops or cracks on the inside of the fore legs against the knee, discharging a red sharp humour.
To cure this disease wash the cracks with warm soap suds or old urine; then rub them twice a day with an ointment of hog's lard, mixed with two drachms of sublimate mercury. Or apply a poultice of the roots of marsh mallows and flax seed, softened with linseed oil, tying it on with a roller. Continue that till the ​seeds fall off and the sores become clean. Afterwards a mixture of turpentine and quicksilver will be a good application.
Another Remedy.
MAKE a strong solution of copperas in water, so that the water is completely saturated with it. Apply this to the part affected, rubbing it gently with a cob each time. A few applications of this kind will, generally, cure the complaint entirely. [See likewise page 66]
scull cap. See Hydrophobia.
sealing wax, red—how made.
TO every ounce of shell lac, take an ounce each of rosin and vermillion, all reduced to a fine powder; melt them over a moderate fire, and when thoroughly incorporated and sufficiently cool, form the composition into rolls or sticks of any length or thickness and either round or flat at your pleasure. On account of the dearness of shell lac, seed lac is usually substituted, even in what is denominated the best Dutch sealing wax. Boiled Venice turpentine may be used with good effect, instead of rosin.
seeds—how preserved.
IF seeds are intended to be sent a great distance, or it is wished to preserve them a long time, they should be wrapped in absorbent paper, and surrounded by moist brown sugar.
Seeds of Indian Corn, how selected.
GATHER your seed corn from such stalks only as produce two ears, and the crop will be more abundant.
sheep, scab in.
EVERY part of a sheep's body is liable to be attacked with this disease, which may be radically cured if attended to. It is more obstinate on the lips and nose, than any where else, because the animal rubs those parts while eating. The cheapest and simplest remedy, is an ointment composed of three parts of grease to one of turpentine. [See page 116.]
sheep, Fish, food for.
IT is a fact, though not generally known, that sheep will greedily eat any kind of salted fish, whether dry or pickled, although dry seem the most suitable for them; and it is found by experience that sheep that have as much fish as they can eat are always healthy, have good lambs, and do not loose their wool; and require much less hay or other food. It is not expected that farmers remote from the sea-shore can afford their sheep as much fish as they would eat; but, if they give them fish instead of giving them salt, they will find a great advantage. Smoked Alewives and Herrings are most convenient for them; larger fish should be cut or broken in small pieces. The cheaper kinds of fish, such as scale of all kinds, broken, refuse, and even those that are partly damaged, if they are only salt, will answer the purpose.
IT is generally the case with herring catchers that they are obliged to cull out and throw away great ​numbers, sometimes half they take, because they are to bear inspection; such might be salted and smoked or dried in the sun, put up in dry casks, afforded at a low price—by which means, thousands of barrels might be saved which are now suffered to rot on the shore.
sheep ticks.
HEAT one gallon of tar, and eight pounds of salted butter, melted in another vessel, and mixed gradually with the tar; boil it gradually a while, constantly stirring it; then pour it out to cool—part the wool, and rub in the ointment, so as to affect the whole skin. This should be done in October. Give sheep plenty of salt.
Another remedy.
SHEEP may be dipped or washed in half hogshead tubs, or other suitable vessels, filled with a decoction of White Hellebore, Poke Weed or Skunk Cabbage, (the plant has all these and several other names. The sheep, or lamb, may be seized by the legs, and plunged into the decoction, with the back downward, taking care that none of the decoction enter the mouth, nose or ears. On taking the sheep from the tub, squeeze the fleece, gently, and suffer it to drip into the vessel.
sheep, smearing of.
IMMEDIATELY after the sheep are shorn, soak the roots of the wool that remains all over with oil or butter, and brimstone, and three or four days afterwards wash them with salt and water. The wool of the next season will not only be much finer and softer, but the quantity will be in greater abundance.
shoe blacking.
TO one egg, beaten up, add a table spoonful of ivory black, or lamp black. See likewise the article "leather," in the preceding pages.
shrub, with brandy or rum,
PUT a quart of the finest French brandy into a large bottle, with the juice of two large lemons, the outer rind of one, and about a quarter of a nutmeg; let it stand three days closely corked, and then add a pint and a half of old mountain wine, and three quarters of a pound of loaf sugar; mix them well, and strain the liquor twice through a flannel bag; then bottle it for use. Incomparable rum shrub may be made nearly in the same manner, by procuring the best old Jamaica rum, and substituting it for the brandy. Both might perhaps be improved by having only half the lemon peel, and the like quantity of Seville orange-rind.
shrub, Currant.
IN a quart of rum or brandy, put three quarters of a pint of the strained juice of red or white currants, and the rind of half a Seville orange, with a little nutmeg. When it has stood a day or two closely corked, add a pint of white wine, with three quarters of a pound of loaf sugar, and straining it, as soon as the sugar is dissolved, through a flannel bag, bottle it for use. Red currants will be best for the brandy, and white ones for the rum. Good raisin wine may be used instead of mountain or sherry.
sick-headache, Pills for.
TAKE Castile soap one drachm and a half; rhubarb, in powder, forty grains; oil of juniper twenty drops; sirup of ginger a sufficient quantity to form the whole into twenty pills. The dose is two or three of these pills to be taken occasionally.
sirup of sugar.
DISSOLVE one pound and three quarters of powdered double refined sugar in a pint of water, by means of what is called the water bath, or balneum mariæ; that is, by setting the vessel which contains it in a saucepan, kettle, or copper of water, over the fire, till the sugar be thoroughly dissolved, and the sirup properly formed. This, besides other advantages, prevents the danger of the sugar's boiling over, which is much to be apprehended in the common mode of boiling sirup in large quantities. After it has stood a few hours, take off the scum, and pour the sirup into a stoae jar or bottle for use.
sirup, for Coughs, &c.
THIS excellent remedy cannot be made too public.—It is thus prepared. Take six ounces of cumfrey root, and twelve handsfull of plantain leaves; cut and beat them well; strain out the juice; and, with an equal weight of sugar, boil it to a sirup.
sirup, for the Scurvy and Scorbutic Eruptions.
TO four beer quarts of good rich sweet wort, add half a pound of sassafras, an ounce of sarsaparilla, and ​four ounces of daucus seed, commonly called wild carrot. Boil them gently over the fire for three quarters of an hour, frequently putting the ingredients down with a ladle, then strain the same through a cloth. To each beer quart of this liquor put one pound and a half of good thick molasses. Boil the same gently for three quarters of an hour, scumming it all the time; put it into a pan and cover it till cold, then bottle it for use. Be careful not to cork it too tight. The dose recommended is a moderate tea cupfull in the morning at rising, and the same quantity on going to bed. It was continued by the communicator till he had taken nineteen or twenty wine bottles of it; during the period of taking it he abstained from animal food, fish, greens, or high seasoned sauces.
size and form of stock.
[By Henry Cline, Esq. Surgeon. Com. Board of Agriculture, 1805.]
IT is the intention of this communication to ascertain in what instances crossing the breed of cattle is proper, and in what prejudicial; and the principles upon which the propriety of it depends.
It has been generally understood that the breed of animals is improved by crossing with the largest males. This opinion has done much mischief, and would have done more if it had not been counteracted by the desire of selecting animals of the best forms and proportions which are rarely to be met with in those of the largest size. Experience has proved that crossing has only succeeded in an eminent degree in those instances in which the females were larger than in the usual proportion of the females to the males; and that it has generally failed when the males were disproportionally large.
​The external form of domestic animals has been much studied, and the proportions are well ascertained. But the external form is an indication of internal structure. The principles of improving it must therefore be founded on a knowledge of the structure and use of the internal parts.
Of these the lungs are of the first importance. It is on their size and soundness that the strength and health of an animal principally depends. The power of converting food into nourishment is in proportion to their size An animal with large lungs is capable of converting a given quantity of food into more nourishment than one with smaller lungs; and therefore has a greater aptitude to fatten.
Chest. The size and form of the chest indicate the size of the lungs, of which the form should approach to the figure of a cone having the apex situated between the shoulders and its base towards the loins: a circular form of chest is preferable to one deep and narrow, for though the latter may have greater girth, the former will have greater internal space in proportion.
The Pelvis. The Pelvis is the cavity formed by the junction of the hip bones with the rump bone. This cavity should be large in a female that she may be enabled to bring forth her young with less difficulty; when this cavity is small, the life of the mother and her offspring is endangered.
The size of the pelvis is indicated by the width of the hips, and the space between the thighs; the breadth of the loins is always in proportion to that of the chest and pelvis.
Head. The head should be small, by which the birth is facilitated to the offspring; it also indicates the ​animal to be of a good breed, and occasions less weight of unprofitable substance to the consumer.
Horns are useless to domestic animals, and occasion a great weight of bone in the head. The skull of a ram with horns weighed five times as much as that of one without horns, each being four years old. A mode of breeding which would prevent the production of horns, would therefore afford a considerable saving.
The length of the neck should be proportioned to the height of the animal, that it may collect its food with ease.
Muscles. The muscles and tendons, which are their appendages should be large, by which an animal is enabled to travel with greater facility.
Bones. The strength of an animal does not depend on the size of the bones, but on that of the muscles; many animals with large bones are weak, their muscles being small.
Animals imperfectly nourished during growth have their bones disproportionally large. If this originated from a constitutional defect, they remain weak during life; large bones may therefore indicate an imperfection in the organs of nutrition.
Of the improvement of Form.
The chief point to be attended to for the improvement of form, from Mr. Cline's principles, is the selection of males for breed of a proportionally smaller size than the females, both being of approved forms; the size of the fœtus depends on the size of the female, and therefore when the female is disproportionally small, her offspring has all the ​disproportion of a starveling, from want of due nourishment.
The larger female has also a greater supply of milk, and her offspring is therefore more abundantly provided with nourishment after birth.
When the female is large in proportion to the male, the lungs of the offspring will also be greater; by crossing in this manner, there are produced animals with remarkably large chests, as has been often noticed: the advantage of large lungs has been already pointed out.
In animals where activity is required, this practice should not be extended so far as in those which are intended for the food of man.
The size of animals is commonly adapted to the soil which they inhabit; when the produce is scanty, the breed is small: the large sheep of Lincolnshire would starve, where the small sheep of Wales find abundant food.
Crossing may be attended with bad effects, even when begun on good principles, if the above rule be not attended to throughout; for instance, if large ewes were brought to Wales, and sent to the rams of the country, the offspring would be of improved form; and, if sufficiently fed, of larger size than the native animals, but the males of this bred would be disproportionately large to the native ewes, and therefore would produce a starveling ill formed race with them.
The general mistake in crossing has arisen from an attempt to increase the size of a native race of animals; being a fruitless effort to counteract the laws of nature; which, from theory, from, practice, and ​extensive observation, Mr. Cline concludes to be decidedly wrong; for in proportion to this unnatural increase of size, they become worse in form, less hardy, and more liable to disease.
Observations by the Editors of the Retrospect of Discoveries.
IN this very excellent communication of Mr. Cline's, which is fraught with valuable information, there is one position which can be only understood in a general sense, namely; that females of the largest size give most milk in proportion: small cows are often known to give more milk than large; the quantity of milk seems to depend on the particular breed, and on the supply of food.
Fatness also does not seem to be inconsistent with every disease of the lungs, though no doubt it is with most, at least if we may argue from the human race to brute animals, as nothing is more common than for fat people to be asthmatic.
The directions for breeding given by Mr. Cline are certainly the best calculated to produce fine healthy animals, and of course the most wholesome meat; but there is some doubt whether this would be agreeable to the breeders, as the exuberant fatness, which has been so fashionable among them for some years past, and which in all probability is inconsistent with the health of the animal: a prodigious fatness is justly considered as a state of disease in mankind, and there is no reason why it should not be so in beasts also: as a confirmation of the opinion that the excess of fat does not improve the quality of the meat, it is pretty generally acknowledged that the average of mutton in the London markets affords a much more coarse and unpalatable food than what was in general to be had some years back, before the prodigiously fat breeds became ​so prevalent. There is great reason to believe that the fine flavour of the meat may not solely proceed from an adequate age of the animal, but may also depend on particularity of breed, as much as great fatness or quality of wool; and if the breeders of sheep would attend a little to this circumstance in future, they would confer a singular favour on all those who eat mutton, who are at least as numerous as the tallow chandlers and clothiers, whose interests they have hitherto chiefly studied in this matter, next to their own.
slaughtering of cattle.
THE practice of slaughtering cattle by puncturing the medulla spinalis, or as it is now called pithing cattle, is extending through all parts of the kingdom (Great Britain) by the perseverance of the Board of Agriculture. The want of skill in the operation, and the prejudices arising from established customs, we are sorry to observe, however, render the system less general than it should be. It is perfectly ascertained that the spinal marrow may be divided without immediate death, should the wound be inflicted below the origin of the nerves that supply the diaphragm, and allow the animal the power of respiration; but if the puncture is made into the cavity of the skull, so as to divide the medullary substance above the origin of these nerves, death is instantaneous, and without the least apparent sensation of pain. If a line be drawn across the head from the root of each ear (about an inch and an half from the horns) the centre of this line is the spot in which the puncture should be made, an awl or a common penknife is as good an instrument as can be used.
smut in grain, Remedy for.
SEE the article "wheat," in the following pages.
snow—To preserve meat in.
MEAT that is killed in December, may be kept in perfection if buried in snow until spring, This is an excellent method of preserving fresh and good the carcases of turkies and other fowls.
Set any open cask in a cold place, put snow and pieces of meat alternately: Let not the pieces touch each other, nor the sides of the cask. The meat will neither freeze, grow dry, nor be discoloured; but be as good in all respects at the last of March as when it was first put in. The surfaces of the pieces should be a little frozen, before they are put into the snow, that the juice of the meat may not dissolve the snow. The cask should be placed in the coldest part of the house, or in an out house.
snuff, cephalic—how made.
TAKE half an ounce each of sage, rosemary, lillies of the valley, and the tops of sweet marjoram, with a drachm each of asarabacca root, lavender flowers, and nutmeg. Reduce the whole to a fine powder, and take it like common snuff, as often as may be necessary for the relief of the head, &c. There are few so generally useful and innocent cephalic snuffs as the above.
TAKE Virginia leaf tobacco, dry it well and make it into a high flavoured snuff, to this add one twelfth part of the finest roseate rappee, and a small quantity of the real maccabaw; of betony, eye-bright, marjoram, thyme-syriac, flowers of marum-syriac, equal quantities, dried and reduced to a fine powder; to these add one twentieth part of the leaves of assari, dried and powdered, also of cloves dried fully and powdered one fiftieth part; the essential oils of cinnamon, nutmegs, lavender, and balsam of Peru, of each a small quantity; mix these well together with the snuff, and put the whole into an earthern pan, pressing it very close together. After it has stood four days, add thereto eau de luce in the proportion of one ounce to every pound of the above snuff, together with orange-flower, lavender, and rose waters, just sufficient to make the whole a little moist. Then put it into bottles for use; of this a pinch may be taken at any time for the complaints mentioned.
soap, Receipt for making.
FOR one leach tub of ashes, take half a bushel of lime—after having well covered the bottom of the leach with straw and sticks, put first a bushel of ashes, then two quarts of lime, upon which pour boiling water, to slake the lime; continue to fill the leach in this manner. For each barrel of soap, take twenty-eight pounds of clean grease, and three pounds of rosin; melt them together with two pails full of the lie first drawn from the leach—when it has boiled half an hour, pour it into the barrel and fill it up with lie as fast as it can be drawn, stirring it well as the lie is added.
​If a sufficient number of leach tubs are used, four barrels can be made with ease in half a day—and if the ashes are good, with entire success.
soap, saving of.
FOR the use of private families, where linen is dirty by perspiration or grease it will be of great service towards rendering it white, to steep it for some time in a clear liquor, made by mixing one quart of quick lime in ten gallons of water, letting the mixture stand 24 hours, and then using the clear water, drawn from the lime. After the linen is steeped in this liquor it should be washed as usual, but it will require much less soap to be used.
soda, in washing.
A FEW ounces of soda will soften a hogshead of the hardest water. It is said to be greatly superiour in washing to either potash or pearlash. It gives a delicate whiteness to the linen without the slightest injury, and never, unless excess is used in the least affects the hands. To glasses, decanters, table spoons, &c. it gives a lustre equal to the highest polish, without labour, if washed in water, in which a small quantity has been dissolved.
soiling.
BY this term is meant, the feeding of stock in a house, shed, or fold, with cut green food, instead of making the grass into hay or pasturing the field.
Various articles are used for that purpose, as tares and lucerne; also barley, oats, and beans, all in a green ​state; but red clover, either alone, or mixt with rye grass, is the substance most commonly applied.
Soiling is a great saving of land: for one acre of cut clover, is equal to two pastured, even of the same crop, and in the same field.—It is a great saving of food: for when pastured, much of the crop is destroyed in various ways, as by trampling, dunging upon it, &c.—It is likewise safer for stock, for when they are soiled, they are not so liable to the same accidents, as when under the pasturing system—It is also the means of obtaining a greater quantity of rich dung, than can otherwise be obtained, (for the process can thus be carried on in summer as well as winter) and it puts clayland farms, in that respect, more nearly on a footing with those of a turnip soil. Its other advantages are, that the succeeding crop, after cut clover, is uniformly better than when it is pastured—that the fences are not so liable to injury from the stock maintained nor from the carelessness of those who are employed to catch them.
Working horses, or oxen, derive great advantage from soiling. They are saved the trouble of collecting their food, after their work is over;—can fill themselves much sooner, and consequently have more time for rest;—and can take their repose much better, in a stable or shed, with plenty of litter, than in an open field, where there are so many things to annoy them.
The experiments of soiling cattle have likewise been successful. Young steers become more tractable for work; nor is there any risk of cattle being hoven, if their feed is mowed two days in advance, For milch cows, in particular, it is highly expedient to soil them, at least in the middle of the day, that they may not be tormented with flies in the field, nor induced to stand in brooks, or ponds of water, nor in the shade of ​spreading trees or hedges, by which much valuable manure is lost. The stock are thus kept in a healthier state, and the milk is of superiour quality.
Pigs may be soiled on clover, with much advantage, and for that purpose, there ought to be a patch of clover in the garden of every cottager. But green beans are perhaps a still more profitable article, as pigs are peculiarly fond of them. The Windsor sort are preferred, and the beans should be planted at different times, to insure a regular succession. Horses also are fond of green beans, after being a little accustomed to them; and stall fed cattle thrive well on that food.
There is certainly no mode, by which cultivated grasses will pay so well as by soiling. In the neighbourhood of towns, the same land will produce at the rate of from 20 to 25l. per statute acre, cut for soiling, which would be considered high at 9 or 10l. if let in pasture. The expense of carting the cut grass, must, however, be deducted. Sir John Sinclair.
soot.
THAT valuable article Soot, has hitherto been too much neglected; but the time has now come, that its use is in some degree understood. Although for years past it has been used with great success in England, yet its valuable qualities have been but little known to American Agriculturalists. But where experiments have been made in this country, its utility has far exceeded our most sanguine expectations.
By my own experience, as well as by that of others much more skilled than myself in Agriculture, it is found the best mode to preserve the soot perfectly dry in large quantities. When the time of gardening commences, prepare your leach or large vat; then sift ​your soot, and all the coarse pound fine; sift it again, and then fill your leach or vat with soot—after this, pour in as much rain or soft water as it will hold. When your plants first come up is the time that insects commit their depredations—draw off the ley and while the dew is on in the morning, with a water pot gently sprinkle plants from morning to morning till weeding time. When you are sure one half of the strength of the soot is extracted in ley, you may venture to strew the soot lightly over the ground close to the vegetable, it will be the destroyer of the fly bug, slug, wire worm and all kinds of insects that destroy vegetation. But this is not all, it is a most valuable manure, for it will attract the dew, and will, in its rich moisture, adhere to the soot and earth, as it does to gypsum or plaister of Paris when used in the interior of our country—Soak your wheat and corn in this ley twenty four hours before they are planted or sown, and when coming up strew the leached soot gently over the ground, or apply it to the hills of corn, it will answer all the before described purposes, and will completely prevent your wheat from smutting.
It is also a defence from the birds, as the bitterness of the grain is so disgusting to their taste, they are obliged to have recourse to other methods of getting food. Palladium.
sowing.
THE depth at which different seeds should be buried in the soil is various according to the difference of seeds and soils. It has been found by experiment that few seeds will come up at all, when buried deeper than nine inches; that some will rise very well from the depth of six inches, and that other seeds do not rise at all when they are more than two inches under the surface. And in general those seeds, the body ​of which is thrown above the surface in vegetating, should have the less quantity of soil above them that they may not meet with two great resistance in rising; such as kidney beans and many other sorts The same seeds may and ought to be buried deeper in a light and dry than a heavy and moist soil When the ground is rolled after sowing, the seeds will vegetate nearer the surface, and therefore they do not need to be sowed so deep as when the rolling is omitted.
Sowing seeds with the drill has many advantages over the broad cast method. No seed is wasted, they all rise nearly together, each seed has proper room for its growth; no starved heads will appear, and the whole will ripen together. Half a bushel of wheat, or even a less quantity, in this way will seed an acre sufficiently.
spavins in horses.
THERE are three sorts of spavins. First the bone spavin: This is a bony excresence formed in the joint, which impedes the motion of the joint, and is seldom curable. Secondly, the wind spavin; it commonly comes in the horse's ham. Prick the swelling with a phlehm knife, but take especial care not to injure the nervous cords, for this will often bring on the lock jaw. Upon opening the swelling you will often find a gelatinous homour to issue from the opening: apply a turnip poultice for a few days to draw out the humour, then strengthen the part, by bathing it with brandy.
Thirdly, the blood spavin. The coats of the vein being ruptured, the blood extravasates, and forms a protuberance in the vein.
Cure.
TAKE up the vein with a crooked needle and tie it above the swelling; then let blood below it, and apply cow dung fried in goose grease and vinegar by way of poultice.
spitting of blood from the lungs.
A WEAK solution of nitre, or draughts of water soured with lemon juice; or a table spoonful of common salt.
spots of oil, tallow, &c. how removed from Books, &c.
TAKE five or six pieces of lighted charcoal, about the size of a walnut each, wrap them in a piece of very clean white linen, which has been previously dipped in water, and squeezed with the hand, in order to press out the superabundant liquid Lay the stuff that is spotted upon a clean napkin spread over a table; then take the cloth containing the charcoal by the four corners and lay it on the spot ten or twelve times successively, pressing lightly upon it, and the spot will wholly disappear. When the spot is considerable, it sometimes goes through the stuff and the grease is imbibed by the napkin. But this is certain, that no spot of the nature above mentioned has ever resisted this process.
spots, of crease, or paint—How removed from Woolen Cloths, Silks, or Hats.
TO two parts of the purest alcohol, or spirits of wine, add one part of pure unadultered essential oil of lemon, (if good it will readily mix with the alcohol and ​become as limpid as water.) Pour a few drops of the mixture on the spot which you wish to remove, and rub it briskly with a piece of white fine flannel if on woollen, or with silk if upon silk, and it will soon disappear and leave no stain or darkness behind it even on the most delicate colours. As it is not only absolutely necessary that the oil of lemons should be pure and unadulterated, but that the spirits of wine should be of the first quality, its goodness may be easily proved by firing a small quantity in a silver spoon, when, if really good, it will burn quite dry. This latter observation will apply to most of the receipts in which alcohol is employed.
Another.
IN a pint of spring water dissolve an ounce of pure pearlash, adding to the solution a lemon, cut in small slices; this being properly mixed, and kept in a warm state for two days, the whole mass must be strained, and the clear liquid kept in a bottle for use.
spots of ink—To remove from Cotton or Linnen, if recent.
APPLY strong vinegar, lemon juice and salt, by rubbing the spot with part of a lemon, or oxy-muriatic acid, or common muriatic acid, (spirit of Sea Salt) diluted—washing the spot well in cold water after the stain is removed.
To remove Iron moulds.
THE per oxyd of iron is very difficult to remove. The bleachers remove it, by taknig strong muriatic acid, (spirit of salt) and dipping the finger in it, they dab the stain with the acid, letting it rest till the spot is ​removed. This sometimes answers, but if the spot has been frequently washed it will be very hard to move. In this case put on a little of the salt of sorrel and lemon juice. Sometimes one of these methods succeeds and sometimes another.
sprains, cure for.
TAKE a large spoonful of honey, the same quantity of salt, and the white of an egg, beat the whole up together incessantly for two hours, then let it stand an hour and annoint the place sprained with the oil which will be produced from the mixture, keeping the part well rolled with a good bandage. This is said, generally, to have enabled persons with sprained ankles to walk in twenty-four hours, entirely free from pain.
THIS distemper, so fatal to that valuable animal, it is asserted, from the most respectable authority, may be cured by the following simple means: Take of the expressed juice of garlic six spoonsfull, which pour down the horse's throat by means of a horn, or give it him in a drench. If the first dose should not relieve him, or he should appear to be maze headed, repeat it after an intermedium of two or three hours. The juice of the leek or onion given in rather a greater quantity, will produce nearly the same effect As this disorder is an apoplexy of the nervous kind, it is presumed that the pungency of the liquid, by exciting powerfully the nervous system, effects the cure of a disorder hitherto considered as fatal.
stains.
To take Ink Stains out of Mahogany.
PUT a few drops of spirits of sea salt or oil of vitriol in a teaspoonful of water, and touch the stain or spot with a feather; and on the ink's disappearing, rub it over with a rag wetted in cold water, or there will be a white mark not easily effaced.
starch, how made.
TO make starch from wheat the grain is steeped in cold water, till it becomes soft and yields a milky juice on pressure; it is then put into sacks of linen, and pressed in a vat filled with water: as long as any milky juice exudes the pressure is continued; the fluid gradually becomes clear, and a white powder subsides, which is starch.—Davy' Elements of Agricultural Chemistry. [See likewise "potatoe starch."
stifle in a horse.
APPLY Oil of Spike to the part affected.
st. anthony's fire—cure for.
TAKE equal parts of fine spirit or oil of turpentine, and highly rectified spirits of wine, mix them well together, and anoint the face gently with a feather dipped in it immediately after shaking the bottle. Do this often, always first shaking the bottle, and taking care never to approach the eyes, and it will generally effect a cure in a day or two; for though it seems at first to inflame, it actually softens and heals.
Another.
TAKE a sponge and anoint with mutton marrow.
steel, mode of polishing.
AFTER well oiling the rusty parts, let it remain two or three days in this state; then wipe it dry with clean rags and polish it with emery or pumice stone, or hard wood. A little unslacked lime finely powdered, will, however, frequently be sufficient after the oil is cleaned off. Where a very great degree of polish is required, it will be most effectually obtained by using a paste composed of fine levigated blood-stone and spirits of wine. Bright bars are, however, admirably cleaned in a few minutes, by using a small portion of fine corn emery, and finishing with flour of emery or rotten stone.
stone—cure for.
THE expressed juice or a strong decoction of dry horsemint, and of red onions, one gill of each to be taken every morning and every evening till the complaint be removed.
Another cure.
BOIL thirty unroasted coffee berries in a quart of water, till the liquid becomes of a greenish hue; half a pint of which is to be taken every morning and evening, with ten drops of the sweet spirit of nitre. It will be proper, while using this medicine, occasionally to open the bowels by taking a spoonful or two of castor-oil. This simple remedy is said to have been administered with great success in this most painful disease.
Another.
A GOOD handful of the fibres of garden leeks (not the leek part, but the fibres only,) boiled in two quarts of water till it is reduced to one quart; of this take half a pint twice a day, when the stomach is most empty.
Another.
TAKE a large handful of the fibres or roots of the garden leek, put them into two quarts of soft water, cover it close and let it simmer gently over the fire, till it is reduced to one quart. Pour it off clear and drink a pint of it in the course of the day at morning, noon and night. This is the quantity requisite for an adult. In the case communicated this prescription was strictly adhered to for five or six weeks, when the stone was dissolved and gradually discharged, and in about six weeks a perfect cure was effected.
strain.
WHEN an ox is strained by over drawing—Take about half a pint of common soap, stir it together with a quart of milk and pour it down his throat.
straw, mode of whitening.
IN 1806, a new method of whitening straw was discovered in Germany. This consists of steeping it in muriatic acid saturated with potash. The straw thus prepared never turns yellow, is of a shining white and acquires great flexibility.
stubble, burning of.
MR. W. CURTIS, of Lynn, Norfolk, found very beneficial effects from burning the stubble of oats, which was left eighteen inches high for this purpose, on a field broken up from old pasture the same year; he afterwards sowed wheat and oats in succession on the same ground, the stubble of both which was burned in the same manner. The ashes were in every case ploughed in to a small depth, and the verges of the field mowed previous to the burning, to prevent accidents. After the third crop of corn, all of which were abundant and remarkably free from weeds, the field was laid down with clover and grass seeds, and the ensuing crops of both hay and grass proved infinitely finer than those before the ground was broken up.
Another piece of land was cropped for three successive years, in the same manner as the first, to which it was similar in every respect of soil, aspect, and previous management, but in which the stubble was ploughed in, instead of being burned; the produce of each crop on it was much inferiour to that of the first experiment, and the weeds increased so greatly, that on laying it down to grass, they overpowered the grass seeds so much that it was necessary to re-sow it; and ever after, while Mr. Curtis held it, the grass and hay produced were coarse and full of weeds, and consequently inferior both in value and quantity to those of the other field, on which the stubble had been burned.
in burning stubble, the danger which is to be apprehended from the spreading of the flames, may perhaps be obviated by tracing a furrow round the field, and setting fire to the stubble on the inner edge of the furrow.
swine.
IF hogs are scurry, and inclined to manginess, a little oil poured upon their backs will cause it to come off. Some say a small mess of rye now and then as a change of food is good against manginess, and other disorders.
If the issues in their fore legs should chance to get stopped, every attempt to fatten them will be vain. These, therefore should be watched, and if found to be stopped, should be rubbed open with a corn cob. Rubbing and currying their hides very frequently is of advantage to keep up the perspiration. It is grateful to the animals, as well as conducive to their health and growth. A proper scrubbing post in the middle of their pen will not be amiss, and during the whole time of their fatting they should have plenty of litter—They will lie more dry and warm, and it will be more than paid for by increase of good manure.
When hogs are killed a single one should not be left alone in a pen. He will pine after his former companions and will suffer for want of lodging so warm as he has been accustomed to do.
After swine have reached a certain degree of fatness, by feeding them on potatoes, oats, pumpkins, &c. a small quantity of richer food will complete the fattening. The change, however, from meaner to richer keeping should be gradual. It may not be said, that boiled potatoes mixed with meal will be profitable; for the mixture imparts no nutritive qualities to the potatoes. They are of no more use, except in making the change it is preferable to mix them with meal for a season, to prevent the bad effects of too great and sudden an alteration in their diet.
​The following mode of fattening hogs has been recommended. Wash potatoes clean, boil them and mash them fine while hot; mix in at the same time oats and peameal. Put the mixture into a large tub, and let it stand till it sours thoroughly. Keep a quantity of this on hand, always fermenting and give it to your hogs as often as they will eat. It is said that pork may be fattened in this way, and make a saving of at least one third of the feed and time consumed in the usual mode.
tanning leather.
THE leaves of the oak are said to be equal to the bark for tanning leather, provided they are used in the month of September, when they possess the bitter sap which they afterwards lose.
tea, economy in the use of.
SAVE the tea leaves, dry them to a crisp, reduce them to a fine powder in a mortar; a tea spoonful in a rag, put into a tea pot, will be equal in quality and flavour to three tea spoonfuls of the leaves when first used.
tea kettles, to remove lime from.
TAKE one quarter of a pound of Spanish Whiting, put it into a teakettle, when full of water, and boil it for an hour, or until the lime is removed.
teeth.
To cleanse the Teeth and improve the breath.
TO four ounces of fresh prepared lime water add a drachm of Peruvian bark, and wash the teeth with this water in the morning before breakfast, and after supper. It will effectually destroy the tartar, and remove the offensive smell from those which have decayed.
Recipe for sore and ulcerated Gums, and a preservative for the Teeth.
MIX an equal quantity of the tincture of Jesuit's bark, and the tincture of myrrh. To a spoonful of this mixture add from three to five spoonsfull of water, as you wish it to be stronger or weaker, but the stronger you can use it the better. Take a table spoonfull of this diluted mixture into your mouth, keeping it there as long as you can, and washing the gum with it as well as you are able. Repeat this operation as often as convenient, and you will soon perceive the beneficial effects of it. Bo not rinse your mouth after it, but let the flavour remain.
tools, how tempered.
MAKE the tool red hot in the fire, and when red cherry colour, take it off from the fire, rub it with a piece of candle, and steep it immediately in good strong vinegar, in which you have diluted some soot.
Another way to temper Tools, when too brittle.
PLUNGE them in boiling fat for two hours; then take them out. and let them cool gradually.
tooth ache.
Pill for an aching hollow Tooth.
TAKE half a grain each of opium, and yellow subsulphate of quicksilver, formerly called turpith mineral, make them into a pill, and place it in the hollow of the tooth some hours before bed time? with a small piece of wax over the hole.
Another.
CAMPHOR and opium held in the mouth; wet a bit of lint, or cotton with oil of cloves and apply it to the tooth; a blister behind the ear; a pepper corn bruised with hot brandy, and applied with a linen rag; grated ginger and the white of an egg made into a plaster and applied to the cheek. Scarify the gums, if swoln, with a lancet.
Another Remedy.
[From a London Magazine for 1811.]
PREPARE an infusion of the root of the narrow leafed dock, in the following manner: After washing the roots clean, bruise them all, and pour boiling water on them in a basin, until they are covered. Drink of this freshly made a teacupfull for three mornings in succession. Then, every other morning for a week or ten days. After which, omit it for nine days, then begin anew and proceed as before. It will usually be found to succeed after the second course. It is recommended by Mr. Merrick, who declares that he has derived a permanent cure from its use.
top-dressing.
TOP dressings are used with advantage for grain, grass, flax, &c. They should not be too freely given to winter grain in autumn lest they unseasonably produce a luxuriant growth at a time when it exposes the tender, plants to be the more injured by frost. It should be done early in the spring when the land is sufficiently dry to bear the treading of horses, without poaching; and after the manure has been applied it is generally well to harrow and roll it. Soot, ashes and other light manures are thus made use of.
Mr. Deane makes the following remarks on this subject If the application of top dressings to mowing ground were generally practised in this country, and yearly repeated as it ought to be instead of the general, or rather universal neglect of it, it would put a new face upon things. A vast plenty of hay, double crops, two cuttings in a year, and much increase of wealth to farmers in general would soon be the happy consequences.
Sir John Sinclair recommends top-dressing the growing crop, when it is suspected that the land is not rich enough to bring a full crop to perfection, and says "this should be done early in the spring, when the land is sufficiently dry to bear the treading of a horse without poaching; and after the manure has been applied, the land should generally be harrowed or rolled. Soot ashes and other light manures, are thus most advantageously made use of.
trees.
New method of inoculating Trees.
A COMMON method of inoculating is by making a transverse section in the back of the stock and a perpendicular slit below it; the bud is then pushed down to give it the position which it is to have. This meth is not always successful; it is better to reverse it by making the vertical slit above the transverse section, and pushing the bud upwards into its position, a method which rarely fails of success; because as the sap descends by the bark as has been ascertained, and does not ascend, the bud thus placed above the transverse section, receives abundance, but when placed below, the sap cannot reach it.
New-York Evening Post.
turkies, how to raise.
PLUNGE the young chick into a vessel of cold water, the hour, or if that cannot be, the day it is hatched. Force it to swallow one whole pepper corn, then return it to its mother. From that time it will become hardy and not fear the cold. When young turkies begin to droop, examine carefully the feathers on their rumps, and you will find two or three, whose quill part is filled with blood. Upon drawing these the chick recovers, and after requires no more care than is bestowed on any other poultry.
turnips.
SOW strong house or wood ashes over the ground about the time the turnips are springing up. This will cause the young plants to grow sooner out of the ​way of insects, produce a large crop and make the turnips be sweet and palatable.
To preserve Turnips from insects.
1. TO each quart of turnip-seed, add one ounce of brimstone finely powdered, put both into a bottle, large enough to afford room to shake them well together every day, for four or five days, previous to sowing, keeping the bottle well corked.
2. Take such a quantity of elder leaves, as, when bruised, will yield juice sufficient to cover the turnip seed you intend to sow, in which let it soak about twelve hours; the next day mix it with the bruised leaves, and sow all together.
Turnip-seed is generally covered with a brush-harrow; take elder bushes for this purpose; if the berries are on, the effect will be increased. If notwithstanding these precautions the fly should attack the young plant, draw elder bushes gently over them.
Turnips sowed upon ground where a crop of flax has been taken off, are not so likely to be injured by the fly; it is also well to sow turnips while it rains, they do not require to be harrowed in, and grow so rapidly, as soon to get beyond the power of the fly.
vinegar of roses.
THIS fine vinegar is made by putting a quantity of fresh rose leaves loosely into a jar or bottle, pouring upon them the best white wine vinegar so as to fill it to the height first occupied by the leaves, if, for example the jar be thus apparently filled, there will be still room enough for the proper quantity of vinegar; let ​it remain for two or three weeks in the sun of some other warm situation, when it may be strained off, and passed through a cotton or flannel bag. If it is not sufficiently fine, after having been strained, to put up into bottles, it is to be cleared in the usual way, either by means of isinglass or a little alum-water. It is commonly kept in large bottles; which should be well corked and kept in a dry situation. A lump of refined sugar should be put into each bottle. In this way are also to be made vinegar of gilliflowers, elder flowers, &c. &c.
vinegar of orange flowers, elder flowers, musk, roses, &c.
DRY an ounce of either of the above flowers, (except the orange flowers, which must not be at all dried) for two days in the sun; then, putting them into a bottle, pour on them a pint of vinegar, closely stop the bottle, and let them infuse fifteen days in the heat of the sun. Vinegars of other flowers, tarragon, &c. may be made in a similar manner.
warts or corns.
LIGHT a brimstone match, and let a few drops fall on a Wart or Corn, and it will be removed with little pain.
Another Remedy.
TAKE the inner rind of a lemon, steep it for four and twenty hours in distilled vinegar, and apply it to the warts. It must not be left on the part above three hours at a time, and is to be applied afresh every day. Or divide a red onion, and rub the warts well with it, or annoint them with the milky juice of the ​herb mercury several times, and they will gradually waste away.
Another.
THE juice of a green bean, rubbed upon warts it is said will speedily eradicate them.
weeds.
WEEDS are deadly foes to the farmer, but in the compost heap they become friends. They should be carefully eradicated and deposited in the compost heap before their seeds have matured lest they should be propagated by scattering the manure before the seeds have become completely rotten.
wen, Indian method of cure.
FIRST, take a pound of new butter, without salt, lay it in a coal oven; get a bull-frog without hurting it, says the Indian; the frog must be alive; lay the frog with the back down in the butter; bake the frog until it is well done; take it out, pour off the butter in a vessel and annoint the wen as often as you please in the course of a day. This cure has been tried on a wen that had been growing for thirty years, and had become quite painful with an itching. It ceased the first day this was tried, and sunk down very soon. In eight or nine months, the body of the wen was squeezed out without pain. The patient thinks it would have come out much sooner but she neglected it as it did not hurt. The application produced a curious sensation, as it was searching to the roots. Any person thus affected, need not hesitate to try the experiment as it is very simple. Richmond Compiler.
wheat.
WHEAT is liable to a great number of diseases, of which smut has hitherto proved one of the most injurious.
Smut, however, may be prevented by any application, which completely frees the seed of smutty powder (the source of the infection) or that destroys it by acrid, corrosive or poisonous substances.
In steeping or washing seed wheat as a remedy for smut, Sir John Sinclair observes "that as a safeguard it is an excellent practice, when the wheat seed is first put into any liquid, to run it very gently through a riddle, when not only the smut balls, but the imperfect grains, and the seeds of weeds will float and may be skimmed off at pleasure, which is not the case when the seed is put hastily into the water." "Pure cold water and lime," observes the same author, "may be effectual, provided the seed be washed in several waters, repeatedly changed, until it be perfectly clean, and then dried by quick lime, slacked either with sea, or with boiling water." He recommends salt water as being more effectual than even boiling water and lime. The water should be so impregnated with salt that an egg will float in it, or if sea water with such a quantity of salt dissolved in it, as to be equally strong, by which its specific gravity will be so increased that all unsound grains will swim in the pickle. About a bushel of wheat at a time is put into a sufficient quantity of this pickle, in which when stirred all the light or diseased grains will rise to the top, and may be skimmed off. The seed wheat is then separated from the pickle, spread upon the floor, and a sufficient quantity of new slacked lime to dry the whole sifted upon it.
​The following receipt is likewise from the same author. Dissolve three ounces of blue vitriol in three English gallons of water (wine measure) for every three bushels of grain to be prepared. Let the liquid be put into a vessel capable of holding from sixty to eighty gallons, in such a quantity, that when three or four Winchester bushels of wheat shall be poured into the prepared liquor, it will rise five or six inches above the corn. The grain should be frequently stirred, and all that swims on the surface carefully removed. After the wheat has remained half an hour in the preparation it should be taken out of the vessel, and thrown into a basket, which shall allow the water but not the grain to escape. It should then be immediately washed in rain, or pure water, which prevents any risk of its injuring the grain. The seed ought afterwards to be dried, either with or without lime, before it is sown. It is proper to observe that the grain should not be put into the prepared liquor, unless it has been well dressed, and is thoroughly dry. It may be kept without injury.
The following miscellaneous particulars respecting smut, and the means of preventing it merit attention. 1. The same water should never be used but once in washing wheat; even when brine is employed, it is safest to have fresh liquor to each parcel. 2. Lime is not only of service to dry the seed, but by its caustic and antiseptic qualities, it tends to destroy putridity, and animalculæ of every description. 3. If smutty grain is not threshed till the June or July succeeding the year it was reaped, the dust, it is said will become too volatile to attach itself to the grain when threshed, particularly by a mill; nor is old seed wheat so liable to occasion smut, which by age loses the power of reproduction. 4. Notwithstanding the violence of threshing mills they do not bruise the smut balls so much as the flail. 5. Great care must be taken, not to thresh wheat on a floor where smutty wheat has been ​threshed, nor to convey the seed, in a sack in which smutty wheat had been formerly put.
On the subject of steeping it may be proper to add that it would be well to extend that operation to other grains besides wheat. Every sort of seed should be steeped enough to promote a quick vegetation, and to secure a more uniform growth, which would greatly improve both the quantity and quality of the grain; and if the seed of barley and oats, as well as of wheat were clothed with saline and caustic particles, it would either preserve it entirely from the attacks of vermin, or destroy such as may venture to eat of it.
We have been informed that unslacked lime answers an excellent purpose for preparing wheat for seed. A gentleman states that he put about 4 or 5 pounds of quick lime into a sufficient quantity of water to soak a bushel of wheat, then added the wheat, and permitted it to remain about twelve hours. The lime by slacking raised the temperature of the water to about blood heat, and the wheat became soft and parboiled. On sowing it, however, it sprouted much sooner than usual, flourished remarkably, and produced an excellent crop, entirely free from any appearance of smut.
The following has been recommended by a farmer in Vermont.
"My method is this—I take three quarts of slacked lime to each bushel of wheat, put them into a barrel, a layer of lime, alternately. Then pour in water till it is all covered. In this condition let it stand from two to four days, as the case may require; and the morning before sowing the wheat tap the barrel and draw off the liquor.
In preparing wheat for grinding it is often made too dry, especially after it has been washed to free it from ​smut and other impurities. When the wheat is dried too much the outside of the kernel, which should be separated from the flour by the boult, is ground so fine that it passes through the boult, with the flour. An experienced miller advises to moisten wheat which is in this situation by sprinkling it with a little water about 10 or 12 hours before grinding. But if this is neglected a slight sprinkling of the wheat in the hopper during the time of grinding it will be of service; taking care not to wet it too much, and by stirring the grain to distribute the moisture as equally as possible among the whole mass.
wheezing in horses.
TO cure this disorder let the horse have good nourishment, much corn and little hay; and let the water given him every day be impregnated with half an ounce of salt petre, and two drachms of Sal Ammoniac.
whooping-cough.
SEE "cough," page 37.
wind-galls.
ON the first appearance of wind-galls their cure should be attempted by restringents and bandages, for which purposes let the swelling be bathed twice a day with vinegar, or verjuice alone, or let the part be fermented with a decoction of oak bark, pomegranates and alum boiled in verjuice, binding over it with a roller, a woollen cloth, soaked in the same. Some for this purpose use red wine lees, others curriers' shavings ​wetted with the same, bracing the part up with a firm bandage.
If this method, after proper trial, should not be found to succeed, authors have advised that the swelling be pierced with an awl, or opened with a knife; but mild blistering is in general preferred to these methods; the included fluids being thereby drawn off, the impacted air dispersed, and the tumour gradually diminished. A little of the blistering ointment should be laid on every other day for a week, which brings on a plentiful discharge, but generally in a few days is dried up, when the horse may be put to his usual work, and the blistering ointment renewed in that manner once a month or oftener as the horse can be spared from business, till the cure is completed. This is the only method to prevent scars, which firing of course leaves behind and unless skillfully executed, too often likewise a fulness of the joint, with stiffness. The mild blistering ointment, where the sublimate is left out is the properest for this purpose.
Bartlett's Farriery.
wine, white currant.
BOIL in six gallons of water eighteen pounds of either white Havana or loaf sugar, for half an hour, carefully taking off the scum as it rises, and pour it boiling hot over two gallons of fine large white currants, picked from the stalks, but not bruised. On the liquor's becoming near the temperature of new milk, ferment it with some good ale yest; and after suffering it to work for two days, strain it through a flannel bag into a barrel, which it should completely fill with half an ounce of well bruised isinglass. On its ceasing to ferment, immediately bottle it off, and put in each bottle a lump of double refined sugar.
wood, new mode of preserving.
TAKE three parts of air slacked lime, two parts of wood ashes, and one part of fine sand; sift the whole and add as much linseed oil as will be necessary to form a mass which can be laid on with a painter's brush. To make this mixture perfect and more durable, it will be well to grind it on a marble—Two coats of it are all that are necessary; the first should be rather light, but the second must be put on as thick as the brush will permit. This composition thus prepared is impenetrable to water; resists both the influence of the weather and the action of the sun, which hardens and renders it more durable. The government of France has ordered that all gun carriages should be washed with this composition.
worms.
DRESSINGS of sea manure, wetting the ground with sea water, soot, lime and ashes sprinkled on the ground, the refuse brine of salted meat, water in which walnut leaves have been steeped for two or three weeks are all antidotes to the ravages of worms. Water in which fresh cow dung has been steeped it is said is likewise useful for the same purpose. Water impregnated with tar or turpentine sprinkled on plants, would probably preserve them from all sorts of insects, as they are known to have a great aversion to all kinds of terebinthinate substances. Beds in gardens may be scalded with hot water, previous to seeds being sowed, or plants set out in them, which will destroy worms and their nits, and if they are then inclosed with boards, barks or any thing which will prevent the access of worms from other ground the plants will be secure. The ground where cabbage plants or any other plants are set may be previously well dug, ​sifted and examined, the worms destroyed, and the plants defended by slips of birch bark, or little wooden frames, which may be covered over the top with gauze to preserve the plants from flies. It is said that the water in which potatoes have been boiled will destroy worms and other insects.
Indian Corn may be preserved from worms by soaking it from 36 to 48 hours in a solution of salt and water or salt petre.
worms in the human species.
TAKE the spiky tops of wormwood, the flowers of tansy, and the root of wake-robbin, of each one ounce; mix and pulverize. Take the bright scales of iron from a smith's forge, two ounces, and white chrystal glass, one ounce; mix, and make them into a moderately fine powder, but not impalpable. Then mix the whole together accurately for use Dose for an adult from 30 to 40 grains, or about a moderate tea-spoonful in molasses. For children, the dose must be proportioned to their age.
Directions.
TAKE a dose morning and night, on an empty stomach, for three days; and on the fourth, purge off with jalap, or any convenient physic. Repeat the course as the case may require. One and two courses in the common worm cases will suffice. There is rarely ​occasion for more than three, even in the tape worm. In alterative cases, the physic should be omitted.
worms in the head of sheep.
THIS complaint makes its appearance by their lopping their ears, shaking their heads, stupidity and loss of appetite, which at length ends in consumption and death.
Cure.
FORCE vinegar by a squirt gun or syringe through the nostrils into the head of the sheep affected, which will produce convulsions and sneezing of the sheep by which the worms will be discharged.
wounds, a remedy for, and preventative of the Lock Jaw.
TO any wound, either bruise or cut, apply lint wet with spirits of turpentine. If the wound should be painful, make a weak lie, by putting some hot embers into water; soak the part in it ten or fifteen minutes several times in a day; keeping it about blood warm. If this does not remove the pain, put some embers, wet with chamber-lie into a thin bag and place it on the part affected.
yellows.
THIS disease in horses is similar to the Jaundice in men: it arises from obstructions formed in the biliary ducts, which prevents the bile from flowing into the circulation, which gives that yellow appearance in the ​white of the eyes and urine, and a sense of weariness to the limbs in the animal diseased.
Cure.
TAKE aloes, Venetian soap and honey equal quantities, to be made into pills, and let half an ounce be given daily for a week. If this does not effect a cure, steep celandine and saffron in cider to be given one quart a day. It is often necessary in this disease to let blood.
yellow, patent.
PATENT Yellow is composed of Semi vitrified oxyd of lead (litharge) and muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniac) in the proportion of one ounce of the former to one drachm of the latter submitted in the form of a powder to a red heat.
yest, how made with Peas in Persia.
TAKE a small teacup or wine glass full of split or bruised peas, pour on them a pint of boiling water, and set the whole in a vessel all night on the hearth, or in any other warm place; this water will be a good yest, and have a froth on its top the next morning. In this cold climate, especially in a cold season, it should stand longer to ferment; perhaps twenty-four or forty-eight hours, and the quantity of peas should be greater.—The above quantity, says Mr. Eaton, made for me as much bread as a half quartern loaf, the quality of which was very good and light. It may be necessary that in this country in winter it should be put to ferment in a cool oven.
​THE greater part of the following articles having come to hand since the preceding pages were printed, we have thought it best to place them in an
APPENDIX.
apple jelly, for preserving Sweetmeats.
PARE, quarter and core winter pippins, or almost any other kind of apples, and put them into a stew pan, with water barely sufficient to cover them When the fruit is boiled to a pap add a quart of water, boil it half an hour longer, run it hot through a flannel bag, put it up id a jar, and keep it covered for use. A little lemon peel boiled with the apple, and a pound of powdered loaf sugar added to each pint of the pulp, and boiled up, will make a very good apple jelly for the table, or to eat with cream.
apples, an excellent sirup of.
GRIND a quantity of sweet apples, those for example generally known by the different names of sweetings. Express the juice immediately upon their being ground, and strain it as clear as possible, before any fermentation has commenced. Put it into a large boiler and boil it down to a sirup, which in taste will be found to be pleasanter than common West India molasses, and as little subject to ​fermentation. Four gallons of rich sweet apple juice will yield one of sirup; by boiling it longer and reducing the quantity, it may be made of any consistence required.
apoplexy.
A LADY about 40 years of age, who lived at the corner of one of the streets in Paris, was struck early in the month with apoplexy. M. Valette, the physician was called in, and he restored her instantly to life, by bleeding in a jugular vein, and by stimulating the blood to flow abundantly by the application of a common needle to the exterior part of the vein and the adjoining nerves. It is thus shewn that the mechanical stimulant is able to revive nervous sensibility, and by creating a kind of peristaltic motion to deduce from the arteries a great quantity of blood.—There is also another instance of the efficacy of this application in the case of a M. Chatelin, a linen merchant, who had also been restored to existence under similar circumstances. It is trusted that this discovery will be generally beneficial.
ascarides, or pin worms, to remove from Children.
MILK one gill, Camphorated spirits one drachm, mix and use for an injection. Or
A drachm or two of Camphor may be dissolved in half a pint of milk, and used in the same way. Either of these will seldom fail.
asparagus.
TO cultivate Asparagus in the best manner, open a trench, three feet wide and twelve inches deep. If it be close to the south side of a garden wall it will be up the earlier in the spring. Fill the trench half full of good dung; make it level, and sprinkle a little rich ​earth over it, and lay on the roots in their natural posture; eight or nine inches apart. Or, if you cannot get roots, place the seeds at half the distance from each other. Cover them by filling up the trench with the blackest of the earth which was taken out If you plant roots, the shoots may be cut the second year after,; if seeds they will not be fit to cut till the third year. All the shoots, which come up before the middle of June may be cut off without injury to the roots; After which time the late shoots should be left to run up and seed; otherwise the roots will be weakened. The seeds may be well preserved on the branches through the winter, hung up in a dry situation.
"This plant grows well on ground that is shaded. The plants will be large and tender; but they will not be so early. It is not amiss to have one bed in a shady place, to supply the table after the season is over for cutting the first. In autumn, after the tops are become white by the frost, they should be cleared off, and a layer of dung, or rich soil, an inch thick laid over the bed. This should be done yearly, and the bed kept clear of weeds. If the bed should be too high by this management, the surface may be taken off with a spade early in the spring to the depth of two inches, before the young shoots are in the way. But, when this is done, a thin dressing of rotten dung, or compost should be laid on." New-England Farmer.
asthma.
beef, Receipt for Pickling and Curing.
For an hundred pounds of beef take sixteen pounds of Bay or fine Salt, two pounds brown Sugar, four and an half gallons water and six ounces Salt Petre.
The Salt, Sugar, and Water should be put into a brass or copper kettle over a fire. Stir the salt often, and continue stirring it until the salt has all dissolved, and the scum done rising. Take off the scum as it rises. After this add the Salt Petre. Let the pickle stand till it is about cold, or blood warm. Have the beef cut in smallish pieces and packed pretty close, free from any bloody pieces. Add the pickle, and cover it tight from the air. Should there be any appearance of mould on the surface of the pickle, at any time, add a handful or two of fresh salt.
beverage for a weak Constitution.
BOIL as much pearl or Scotch barley, in pure water, as will make about three pints, then straining it off, and having in the mean time dissolved an ounce of gum arabic in a little water, mix them, and just boil the whole up together. The barley water need not be thick, as the gum will give it sufficient consistence. When used, take it milk warm, the good effect will soon appear. It must be substituted as a common beverage in place of beer, ale, &c. at meals.
black ball.
blacking, Shining German.
BREAK a cake of white wax into small pieces and put it into an earthen vessel. Pour over it as much oil of turpentine as will quite cover it, and leave it for twenty-four hours closely covered up, in this time the wax will be dissolved to a paste; which is then to be mixed with as much real ivory black, in fine powder as it is necessary to give the whole of it a very black colour. When it is wanted for use take a little of it out on the point of a knife, and rub it into the leather of the boots or shoes, with a brush which will leave the wax on the surface of the leather quite firm, black and glossy. Should the composition get dry, it may at any time be moistened by stirring in a little fresh oil of turpentine.
breath, shortness of.
MIX three quarters of an ounce of finely powdered Senna, half an ounce of Sulphur, and a quarter of an ounce of pounded Ginger in four ounces of clarified Honey. Take the bigness of a nutmeg every night and morning for five days successively, afterwards once a week for some time, and finally once a fortnght.
bruise.
IT has been affirmed that common salted butter is an excellent application for a bruise.
bull.
A BULL may be first used at fourteen or eighteen months. He then shews most vigour, and more energy may be expected in his produce. At two or three years old, they frequently become ungovernable, and are killed. Sir John Sinclair.
bunns.
ONE pint of Milk, five Eggs, one tea cup of Sugar, four table Spoonfulls of yeast, a piece of butter as big as the bowl of a large Spoon. Thicken with flour to a batter of suitable thickness.
burns and scalds.
ANOINT with Lime Water, or Proof Spirit and Lime Water. Then cover the part with a soft linnen rag, and cotton wool.
burnt tongue, black tongue, or scalded mouth of horses.
WASH and cleanse the mouth with Sweet Oil, and get into the horse as much as he will swallow, not exceeding one pint; then rub the throat with Spirits of Turpentine, Sweet Oil and Camphor, equal quantities, and well mixed.
The gentleman, who has furnished the above has had a number of horses in his stable sick with the above distemper, and after trying the various recipes has found this to be the most efficacious.
Salem Gazette.
cake, sponge
TAKE ten eggs, one pound of Sugar, one half pound of flour, beat the yolks, sugar and flour together.
cancer.
TAKE leaves of Plantain and White Hoarhound, boil it in white wine—add a little salt, wash three or four times a day;
​Take snails, or earthworms. Bake them, and you obtain an ointment. Use it three or four times a day. To ease the pain apply fresh meat.
cancers, a Beer for.
TAKE Sarsaparilla roots, the tops and roots of the Whortle berry bush, and Hop roots, of each one pound; Blood root and Unicorn root, of each three ounces; Barley malt, half a peck. Make of these ingredients seven gallons of beer. Dose, from half a gill to a whole one three times a day.
caterpillars, best mode of destroying.
TAKE a long pole with a sponge at the end of it Dip this sponge in spirits of turpentine, and touch it thus charged to the nest. A small quantity of this pungent substance will diffuse itself over a large nest and destroy a great number of these troublesome and nauseous insects.
cathartic pill, mild.
MANDRAKE root, finely powdered, Extract of Butternut bark of each equal quantities; beat into a mass with a solution of Gum Arabic, and make it into pills of a moderate size; from two to six will operate gently as physic The extract of butternut is prepared by evaporating the water in which the bark has been boiled to a consistence fit for making pills, taking care not to burn it.
change of seeds.
THOSE plants, which are the natural growth of a country are not so liable to grow worse. The best countries and soils to procure seeds from for sowing are those, to which they are natural. Those seeds which ​are so quick in their growth that their plants come to maturity early will answer well, when carried from a southern to a northern climate, such as flax, turnips, &c. But Indian corn, it is said, will not answer, if carried far north or south of its native place. I have known, says Mr. Deane, seed of Indian corn carried as much as two whole degrees south from its native place, which was so much scorched by the greater heat of the sun as to produce little or nothing. And it is a fact well known that the species of maize, called Virginia corn, will not come to maturity in New-England.
An English writer observes that the practice of changing seeds is of little service, and recommends to cultivators, a few days before harvest to walk through their fields and gather the prime samples of every species of seed, and ever afterwards to continue the same practice, by repeating the operation of collecting the most perfect grain from the crops produced by such selected seed. The same observations apply to very variety of cultivated crops.
It may, however, sometimes prove useful to sow early seeds on cold backward lands, and the later sorts on dry and warm soils.
cheese sage, best method of making,
TAKE the tops of young red sage, and having pressed the juice from them by beating in a mortar; do the same with the leaves of spinach, and then mix the two juices together. After putting the rennet to the milk, pour in some of this juice, regulating the quantity by the degree of colour and taste it is intended to give to the cheese. As the curd appears break it gently, and in an equal manner; then emptying it into the cheese vat, let it be a little pressed in order to make it mellow. Having stood for, about seven hours, salt and turn it daily for four or five weeks, when ​it will be fit to eat. The spinach, besides improving the flavour and correcting the bitterness of the sage, will give it a much finer colour than can be obtained from sage alone.
cholera morbus.
TAKE a little fresh lime juice, loaf sugar, and rum or brandy, (the latter is best) Put them into a vessel, pour on them boiling water, and give a spoonful as hot as possible after each turn of puking.
cold water, how to prevent the bad effects of drinking Cold Water, or Cold liquors of any kind in warm weather.
1. Avoid drinking whilst you are warm; or
2. Drink only a small quantity at once, and let it remain only a short time in your mouth before you swallow it; or
3. Wash your hands and face and rinse your mouth with cold water before you drink. If these precautions have been neglected, and the disorder incident to drinking cold water has been produced, the first, and in most instances, the only remedy to be administered is sixty drops of liquid laudanum, in spirit and water, or warm drink of any kind.
When laudanum cannot be obtained, rum and water should be given. Vomits and bleeding should not be used without consulting a physician.
cookies.
BEAT eight ounces of butter, and mix with two well beaten eggs, eight ounces of dried flour, and the same of lump sugar, and a grated rind of lemon peel. ​Add the whole together, and beat half an hour with a silver spoon. Butter small pans and half fill them. Bake 20 minutes in a quick oven.
cosmetic, elegant. From a London Publication,
TAKE a pound of white soft soap and two ounces of Spermaceti pounded, and a quarter of an ounce of pounded camphor, two table spoonfulls of sweet oil, three of the best brandy, and a tea cup full white sand. Dissolve and mix the whole over the fire, and when nearly cold, suit it to your taste with essence of bergamot, lavender or other perfume.
cotton, how dyed with Madder, an practiced in Smyrna. From Mr, Eaton.
BOIL the cotton in common olive oil, or in some other pure vegetable oil, and afterwards in mild alkali, when it is thus cleansed, it will take the madder die, and this is the fine colour which is so much admired in the Smyrna cotton yarn.
cough and protracted cold, when no symptoms of inflammation are present.
BLOOD Root, Extract of Liquorice, Anniseed, of each one ounce; pulverize them, and put them into a quart of water. Simmer to one pint, then strain and add four ounces of honey, and one half pint of old rum. Of this take a table spoonful three or four times a day.
cow.
THE principal distinguishing marks of a good Cow are said to be these: wide horns, a thin head and neck, dew lap large, full breast, broad back, large deep belly; the udder capacious but not too fleshy; the milch ​veins prominent, and the bag tending far behind; teats long and large; buttocks broad and fleshy; tail long pliable and small in proportion to the size of the the carcase, and the joints short. To these outward marks may be added a gentle disposition, a temper free from any vicious tricks, and perfectly manageable on every occasion. On the other hand, a cow with a thick head and short neck, prominent back bone, slender chest, belly tucked up, small udder, or a fleshy bag short teats, and thin buttocks is to be avoided, as totally unfit for the purposes either of the dairy, the suckler or the grazier."
The milch cow is generally in her prime at five years old, and will continue in a good milking state till ten years of age or upwards. Cows should be milked regularly, morning and evening, and always as nearly at the same hours as may be. Some have recommended milking them three times a day, at five, one and eight; and it is said if they are full fed they will give half as much again milk if milked thrice as if only twice a day. Those farmers who would make the most of their cows should provide a bull to run in the herd.
"If the cleaning of a cow, after calving, be delayed, it may be promoted by giving her a pail of warm water, with some ashes in it."
cud lost by an ox or cow, Remedy for.
MIX together an equal quantity of sour leaven and common salt, then add a piece of loam or brick clay, equal in weight to the whole : break and mix all these well together, and then add as much urine as will serve to beat it up into a paste. Make this into two or three balls as big as the creature can swallow, force ​one of these down his throat every three days and it is said it will effect a cure.
custard, cheap and excellent.
BOIL, in a quart of milk, a little lemon peel, a small stick of cinnamon, and a couple of peach leaves; sweeten it with a few lumps of sugar, and rubbing down smoothly two table-spoonfulls of rice flour in a small basin of cold milk, mix it with the beaten yolk of a single egg, then take a basin of boiling milk, and well mixing it with the contents of the other basin, pour the whole into the remainder of the boiling milk, and keep stirring it all one way till it begins to thicken, end is about to boil; it must then instantly be taken off and put into a pan, stirred a little together, and it may be served up either together in a dish, or in custard cups to be eaten hot or cold.
dropsy.
PYROLA Embellata, Winter Green, or Pipsissiwa has been found useful in dropsical cases. A table spoonful of a strong infusion of the herb is to be taken every hour, with a little sirup. In disorders of the kidnies it has been found serviceable. Its efficacy in cancer has by some been questioned.
dysentery.
TAKE a quantity of black elder berries, when perfectly ripe; press the juice; set it over a slow fire; add as much brown sugar as will make it palatable, let it simmer until it becomes a thin sirup. Then add one third the quantity of brandy, and cork it up for use. A wine glass full is the dose for a grown person, and in the same proportion for a child. It may be taken three or four times a day. This medicine has proved efficacious in many cases, when almost every thing else had failed.
eyes inflamed, a Collyrium for.
WHITE Vitriol 12 grains, Sugar of Lead 16 grains, water 8 ounces. Mix, and when the white powder has settled to the bottom, carefully decant so that no particle of the sediment may remain in the collyrium.
fellon, cure for.
TAKE a piece of rock salt about the size of a butternut or English walnut, and wrap it up closely in a green cabbage leaf, but if not to be had, in a piece of brown paper well moistened with water. Lay it on embers, and cover it up so as to roast; when it has been about twenty minutes take it out and powder it as fine as possible. Then take some hard soap and mix the powdered salt with it so as to make a salve. If the soap should contain but little turpentine, which its smell will determine, add some more, but if it smells pretty strongly of it none need be added. Apply the salve to the part affected, and in a short time it will totally destroy it and remove the pain.
flax, how to dress to look like Silk.
TAKE one part lime, and between two and three parts of wood ashes; pour over them a due proportion of water to make a strong lie, after they have stood together all night, which must be poured off when quite clear. Tie handfulls of Flax at both ends to prevent its entangling, but let the middle of each be spread open, and put into a kettle, on the bottom of which has been first placed a little straw with a cloth over it, then put another cloth over the flax, and so continue covering each layer of flax with a layer of cloth till the kettle is nearly full. Pour over the whole the clear lie and after boiling it for some hours, take it out, and throw it in cold water. This boiling &c. may be repeated it requisite. The flax must be each time ​dried, hackled, beaten and rubbed fine; and at last, dressed through a large comb, and through a very fine one. By this process the flax acquires a bright and soft thread. The tow which is off, when papered up and combed like cotton, is not only used for many of the same purposes, but makes lint for veterinary surgeons.
fruit trees, how forced to bear.
WITH a sharp knife cut the bark of the branch, which you mean to force to bear, not far from the place where it is connected with the stem; or if a small branch or shoot, near where it is joined with the larger bough; the cut is to be made round the branch so as to encircle it, and penetrate to the wood. A quarter of an inch from the first cut, make a second cut like the first, so that by both encircling the branch, you have marked a ring upon the branch a quarter of an inch broad between the two cuts—then with a knife separate the bark from the wood, removing even the fine inner bark which lies immediately upon the wood, so that no connexion whatever remains between the two parts of the bark, leaving the wood naked, white and smooth.
This operation must be performed when the buds are strongly swelling, or breaking out into blossoms; the same year a callous is formed on at each edge of the ring, and the bark is again restored without detriment to the tree or the branch operated upon.
This operation seems calculated to force those trees to bear, which put out a proportion of blossoms, -and yet bear no fruit; or if they bear, the fruit often drops from the tree before ripe. The fruit from trees so operated upon will be larger, more fair, and ripe several weeks earlier than the other fruit upon the same tree. It is well known to botanists that the sap ascends ​in the wood, but descends by the bark: and the above operation prevents its return.
ginger bread, Molasses.
TWO pounds of flour, four ounces of Butter, two ounces of Ginger, a tea-cup full of Cream, a tea-spoonful of Pearl ash, and one pint Molasses. Spice to your taste, and knead it till very light.
ginger bread, Sugar.
THREE pounds of Flour, a grated Nutmeg, two ounces of Ginger, one pound sugar, two spoonfuls of pearl ash, dissolved in cream, one pound butter, four eggs. Let it be kneaded stiff.
grape vines.
A POTATOE, placed upon the ends of such vines as have been cut, will effectually check their bleeding,
green-dressing.
BUCK-WHEAT, rye, pease or oats may be sowed in the spring, and in June ploughed in, when they are fullest of sap, and most easily rotted. The ground should be again ploughed in the fall, sowed with winter grain and well harrowed.
Where a green crop is thus ploughed in, it has been recommended to pass a roller over it, which lays it flat in the same direction in which the plough is to pass.
infected air, how purified, and the smell occasioned by a dead rat or other animal removed.
TAKE a small earthen vessel or gallipot, into which put a little saltpetre, more or less according to the size ​of the room; pour upon this a sufficient quantity of the oil of vitriol so as completely to saturate it, and shut the room up closely for an hour, in which time it will be found to be perfectly free from the offensive smell.
ink.
NUTGALLS, in powder 4 ounces, Logwood 2 ounces. These are to be boiled for an hour in six pounds, (three quarts) of water, or until one half is evaporated, It is then percolated through a hair sieve, and to the liquid are added, copperas 2 ounces, gum Arabic half an ounce, Blue Vitriol half an ounce, Sugar Candy half an ounce. It should be sufficiently warmed to dissolve these ingredients. It is then to be well stirred, and suffered to stand 24 hours It is then poured from the sediment, and should be preserved in well stopped glass or stone jars.
It is fit for immediate use. This composition was the formation of Mr. Ribancourt. It is unquestionably the best writing ink in use. Dr. Cox of Philadelphia says he has tried a great variety of recipes for the formation of ink, and has found none equal to this.
itch ointment.
HOGS' fat or fresh butter one pound. Salt, black pepper, ginger, and proof spirit of each one ounce, Let those which require pulverizing be finely powdered. Then mix the ingredients and simmer them over a slow fire one hour. Remove it and let it cool, so that no scent will be produced by the addition of flour of sulphur, of which add one half ounce, and spirits of turpentine about two common table spoonfulls. It should be constantly stirred until it cools. One ounce of this ointment is sufficient to cure a person. On commencing the use of it the clothes should be changed, and a ​little sulphur be taken daily. A little of the ointment should be rubbed on where there are pimples (without any roasting) every night, for about a week, when the itch will be cured. In the preparation of this ointment, if table spoonfulis be used, in lieu of ounces, it will answer every purpose.
This ointment is to be preferred to most others into which sulphur enters, because it produces little or no sulphurous scent, and compared with mercurial ointments of every kind it is equally certain; and, it is free from every danger, which is always great in the use of those ointments.
Another.
TAKE Hog's Lard and Sulphuric Acid, and simmer them together. Also,
Poke root and Hog's Lard.
jaundice, Cathartic sirup for.
White Ash Bark, Black Cherry Tree Bark, Butternut Tree Bark, White Poplar Bark, of each one pound. Let them be finely cut into chips, and put into three gallons of water; boil till one half is evaporated. Strain and simmer till there remains only one quart. Then add of proof Spirits and Molasses of each one half pint. Take from a table spoonful to a glass two or three times a day or sufficient to keep the bowels open.
moths.
TO prevent moths from attacking woolen clothes, or worms from destroying books, place in the drawers or corners of the shelves some of the roots or blade of of the Sweet Flag. A decoction of the same will ​prevent their attacking buffalo skins, by sprinkling it over them. This is not only effectual for the above mentioned purposes, but is a pleasant aromatic.
ointment for ulcers, or old sores.
RESIN and Hogs Fat of each one ounce, Verdigris finely powdered one ounce. Simmer over a slow fire till the resin and the lard be melted. Then add the verdigris, and gently stir till it cools.
This ointment has been found useful in indolent sores of all kinds. When melted a little of it should be poured into the sore, and a salve, made as follows be spread and laid over it.
Hogs Fat, Bees Wax, Resin, Bayberry Wax, of each one pound. Melt them together, and set aside for use. Both the salve, and the ointment ought to be prepared in earthen vessels.
ointment for weak joints.
BOIL together White Oak and Sweet Apple Tree bark till you obtain an extract, and spread a plaster of it, and wear on the part affected.
panada.
BOIL for not more than two minutes some slices or crumbs of bread, with a blade of mace in a quart of water; then taking out the bread; and finely bruising it in a basin, mix as much water as will make it a proper consistence. Put in a bit of fresh butter, grate a little nutmeg, and sweeten it to the palate. If wine be required, though it is much best without, by no means boil it with the water and bread. This is a delicate diet for a weak stomach.
tiles, ointment for,
TAKE Nutgalls finely powdered, and Hog's Lard, and stir them together when the lard is cooling or nearly cold; or
Take the inner bark of the sweet elder, and simmer it with fresh butter. Use it night and morning.
plum-cake.
MIX ten ounces of butter in six pounds of dry flour and ten ounces of Sugar, twelve of Currants, and five of powdered Pimento. Six spoonfulls of yeast to a pint of milk warmed.
poisons. Remedy for.
SPRINKLE flour over the part and cover it with green leaves.
pudding, Boiled Bread.
GRATE with bread, pour boiling milk over it, and cover close. When soaked an hour or two beat it fine and mix it with two or three eggs well beaten. Put it into a basin that will just hold it; tie a floured cloth over it, and put it into boiling water. Serve it up with melted butter poured over it. It may be eaten with salt or sugar.
pudding, Yorkshire.
MIX five spoonsfull of flour with one quart of milk and three eggs, well beaten. Butter the pan and bake it.
pudding, baked apple.
Pare and quarter 4 large apples; boil them tender with the rind of a lemon, in so little water, that when done, none may remain; beat them fine, add the crumbs of a small roll, 4 ounces of butter, melted, the yolks of five, and the whites of three eggs, the juice of one half a lemon, and sugar to your taste. Break all together, and lay it in a dish to turn out.
rattles or croup.
OIL of Olives and Honey, of each half an ounce, Urine one and an half ounce, Vinegar two drachms. Warm so as to melt the honey, and stir it well when given. Dose, a spoonful once in an hour or two.
rheumatism, Chronic.
TAKE Spirits of Turpentine, and Sal Ammoniac, and rub on the pained part, till a burning sensation is produced. Then cover the part with flannels, or some moist leaf as burdock, &c.
ring worms. Cure for.
TAKE white vitriol 10 grains. Put it in an ounce of water, and an ounce of laudanum. Wash the part frequently.
rolls, good and easy method of making.
TAKE a quart of flour, three table spoonfulls of yest, a bit of butter the size of a large walnut, as much warm water as will wet the flour, a little salt, and an egg. Mix the whole up light, make it in rolls, put them in tins, place the tins before the fire for the rolls to raise a little, then put them in the oven, and be careful not to burn them black.
shad, to fry without Butter or Lard.
FIRST warm your pan, then lay in the fish (after wiping it with a cloth) with the skin downward over a moderate fire—it will give out sufficient fat to fry itself. Shad, cooked in this manner, eats much better than in the common way.
sheep, the Foot rot in, Cure for.
PARE the hoofs of the sheep thus affected, letting no hollow remain, which may collect the dirt; if matter is formed be particularly careful to let it out—After which take some stale urine and wash their feet quite clean, and wipe them with a sponge. Put then the sheep into a house or shed, the floor of which has been previously covered about two inches thick with quick lime reduced to a powder by means of a small quantity of water, the newer the lime the better. Let the sheep stand upon it six or seven hours and the cure will be effected.
soap hard.
TO make hard soap Soda should be dissolved and leached through quick lime. Six times as much olive oil or tallow are to be added as the quantity of Soda used. The lie is then to be gently boiled, and the ingredients will unite into a hard white Soap, if the carbonic acid be properly taken from the Soda. If a quantity of rosin be added it will form the common yellow bar Soap. To make the soap marbled, soapmakers add coperas, cinnabar, &c. to it before it is made into cakes.
spectacles.
GREEN glasses have been by occulists, as well as opticians almost invariably recommended to preserve ​the sight in cases of weak eyes. It is indeed universally admitted that a green colour is highly grateful to the eye. There is a very essential difference, however, between looking at, and through green. A greater exertion of the organ of vision is unquestionably required in using green than white glasses, on account of their opacity. By using green Spectacles, especially those of a deep tint, the eye is subject to frequent, and not inconsiderable variations in respect to the degrees of light; and every such sudden and violent change, must of necessity be detrimental to the organ of vision. Green glasses can be considered as serving the purpose of a shade only, which can more conveniently be afforded by other contrivances, calculated to protect the eye from the vivid rays of light. They should, therefore, be reversed for urgent occasions, and only as a relief to the eye, when it feels uneasy, from excessive irritation, and unusual exertion. At other times plain white spectacles should be be preferred.
stock.
THE following general rules with regard to size and management of stock are given by Sir John Sinclair, and are worthy of a general attention.
1. Animals intended for the butcher should be kept in a state of regular improvement. The finer breeds are highly fed from their birth, and are almost always fat. With other breeds, and on pastures of inferiour quality, this is neither necessary nor practicable. But in every case the same principle of improvement should be adhered to, and such animals ought never to be allowed to lose flesh, in the hope of afterwards restoring it by better feeding.
2. The size should never be above that which the pasture can support in a thriving condition. The ​attempt to raise them to an undue size, by crossing, has been already censured. In regard to size, the stock of every kind, and of all the various breeds should be proportioned to the quantity, and the quality of their intended food.
3. The best pasture should be allotted to that portion of the stock, which goes first to market; the next in quality to the breeders; and the coarse pasture, to the inferiour or growing stock.
4. Great care should be taken not to overstock pasture which is attended with great loss to the farmer, and the community. This ought to be particularly avoided in regard to young and growing animals. If they are kept poor during one part of the year they will scarcely thrive during the remainder; and when ill fed will never attain to their proper size and proportion.
Lastly, the food, whatever it may be should not be too suddenly changed. It is seldom profitable, to bring lean animals immediately from coarse to rich pastures; and a change from dry to succulent food, and vice versa, should be gradually effected. A change of pasture however of the same quality, tends to produce greater accumulation of fat.
throat, sore.
LET the throat be steamed with hot water in which hops are infused, and apply the hops after having been scalded for some time externally to the diseased part of the throat.
tincture of peruvian bark.
TAKE of Peruvian bark two ounces, Seville orange peel and cinnamon of each half an ounce. Infuse the whole in a pint and an half of brandy for five or six ​days, in a clear vessel, afterwards strain off the tincture.
tincture of rhubarb.
TAKE half an ounce each of powdered rhubarb myrrh, and hiera picra, with a little cochineal, and put them into a bottle with one quart of the best anise seed water. When it has stood four days it is fit for use, and may be taken, a small wine-glass full at a time for any pains in the stomach or bowels.
varnish for boots and shoes.
ALCOHOL one pint, Gum Shell Lac two ounces, Venice Turpentine two ounces. The shell lac is to be finely powdered and put into a flask or glass bottle, with the other articles, and kept moderately warm a number of days. It should be occasionally shaken. When the shell lac is dissolved, add a table spoonful of lamp black, and it will be fit for use. Before using, the boots should be cleaned with a brush and the varnish is then to be applied with a sponge.
wen.
ANNOINTING the afflicted part with rattlesnake's oil is said to be of great service.
wen in cattle.
RUB the part affected with an Indigo bag, which has been some time in use in a dye-pot.
worms.
SMALL doses of spirits of turpentine are said to be sovereign in curing worms.
* ↑ Blue vitriol, or sulphate of copper.
* ↑ Some writers say that the quantity should be the same as that of the seed.
* ↑ Dragon root, as it is sometimes called.
* ↑ The leaves of wormwood and tansy will answer if need be; and instead of wake-robin, the bark of the root of sassafras.
* ↑ Rees' Cyclopædia.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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