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Show USEFUL INFORMATION. • TO GLAZE LINEN - Linen may be glazed by adding a teaspoonful of salt and one of finely scraped castle [?] soap to a pint of starch. • GALLS on the shoulders of draught horses may be cured by dissolving six drachms of iodine in half a pint of alcohol, and applying it twice a day. • If those interested in blacking stoves will try greasing them with fresh grease before blacking, they will find that it prevents them from rotting [?]. Add a pinch of brown sugar to blacking just before applying. This causes it to stick, and it polishes much easier and with half the usual rubbing. • MOTHS IN CARPETS - A good way to kill them is to take a coarse towel, and wring it out in clean water. Spread it out smoothly on the carpet, then iron it dry with a good hot iron, repeating the operation on all suspected places, and those least used. It is not necessary to press hard, heat and steam being the agents, and they do the work effectually on the worms and their eggs. • MOULDINESS is occasioned by the growth of minute vegetation. Ink paste, leather and acids most frequently suffer by it. A clove will preserve ink, any essential oil answers equally well. Leather may be kept free from mold by the same substances. Thus, Russian leather, which is perfumed with the tar of birch, never becomes mouldy. A few drops of any essential oil will keep books entirely free from it. For harness, oil of turpentine is recommended. • M. MICHAEL LOUIS has addressed a not to the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, on the grape blight, in which he gives an account of experiments made by him on the oidium. Considering the powerful antiseptic qualities of charcoal, which he had already used, mixed up with other substances, the idea struck him that it might be applied with advantage alone. He accordingly tried it on several vines, which were in a very bad state, with complete success. Charcoal, blown upon the grape vines once only, was sufficient to make the oidium disappear, and in four or five days afterwards they had resumed their former vigorous appearance. • CEDER [?] REMEDY FOR CATARRH - The new remedy for catarrh consists in crushed cutch berries smoked in a pipe, remitting the smoke through the nose; after a few trials this will be easy to do. If the nose is stopped up so that it is almost impossible to breathe, one pipeful will make the head as clear as a bell. It is the best remedy in the world for offensive breath, and will make the most foul breath pure and sweet. Sufferers from the horrid disease, ulcerated catarrh, will find this remedy unequaled, and a month's use will cure the most obstinate case. Eating the uncrushed berries is also good for sore throat and all bronchial complaints. After smoking, do not expose yourself to cold air for at least fifteen minutes. • LUXURY FOR ANIMALS - The Rev. [Reverend] Sydney Smith invented a luxury for animals, which is worthy of the attention of every breeder and farmer in the country. It is related [?] of him that when on his farm, each cow and calf, and horse and pig, were in turn visited, and fed and patted, and all seemed to welcome him, he cared for their comforts as he cared for the comforts of every living being around him. He was wont to say, "I am for all cheap luxuries, even for animals, now all animals have a passion for scratching their backbones; they break down your gates and polings [?] to effect this. Look! there is my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high and low post, adapted to every height from a horse to a lamb." "You have no idea how popular it is. I have not had a gate broken since I put it up. I have one in all my fields." • CROCHET BORDER FOR A COLLAR - In making a crochet border for a Brussels lace collar, the following plan will be found an easy and successful mode. For the first row put five long stitches into the end of the first row at the neck, make a chain of three, then the single long stitch, again the chain of three, and then five long stitches into the next hole, breaking off the thread at the end of every row, and commencing always at the same end in working the border. In the second row put six long stitches together, commencing them at the centre of the five stitches in the last row, then make a chain of three, put a single long stitch into the first of the next five close long stitches, again a chain of three, and then the six long stitches. For the third row, make seven long stitches close together, putting the first of the seven on the centre of the six in the last row, then the chain of three, and again the single long stitch at the commencement of the next six close stitches in the last row. For the fourth row, make eight long stitches close together, commencing as in the two former rows, at the centre of the close stitches in the last row, then a chain of three, and the single long stitch in the same manner also. For the fifth row, make nine long stitches close together, commencing them as in the former rows, and working the chain and single stitch in the same manner also. |