Seo. 25.] XXCERPTA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE FOR HOUSEWIVES. 



415 



4G1. Homc-Made Mattresses of Hair and Uool.— Iluir mattresses can al^o bo 



made in every fanner's family of very {.jood quality out of i<i;^'s hair, which 

 should be cleaned in the same way that tine wool is cleaned of all its gummy 

 dirt. Sec 129. "Where sheep are kept, a great deal of good material for 

 mattresses can he saved from ta<;lock.s and clippings of wool, which can l»o 

 cleanseil with but little trouble by placing them some days in a basket in a 

 running stream, or even by soaking in still water. The filth dissolvca with- 

 out injury to the wool. The cardings of horses ami bullocks, if saved and 

 cleansed, will soon accumulate enough for a mattress ; for one of twenty 

 pounds on the top of a husk one will make a lu.xurions bed. There is no 

 secret about making a mattress. Holster the edges npon one of the sides, 

 and lay it flat on the tloor or a broad table, and fill in the material evenly 

 of an equal thickness all over, and then sew on the top and lift the mattress 

 upon two or three narrow strips of boards supported at the ends upon tables, 

 benches, or barrels, so that you can stitch through and through with a li^ng 

 needle which you can buy for such work, using strong, smooth linen twine, 

 with a cloth button under the loop of each stitch. 



Coiton makes a soft, pleasant mattress when new, but it soon mata to- 

 gether, and wc do not esteem it a healthy material for beds or bedding, ex- 

 cept for sheets and light quilts. Leech leaves make a very good mattress, 

 clean, sweet, and wholesome; they arc best when gathered by hand from 

 green trees. Straw, too, is always much better cut in a green state and dried 

 in the sun, and rj-e straw is the best kind. 



The best vegetable material ever used for mattresses, and almost equal to 

 hair, is the long moss which grows upon forest trees, covering them as with 

 a gray beard in several of the " Confederated States." It reipiircs to bo 

 macerated in water until a thin cuticle peels off by washing, or by drying 

 and beating, leaving the black, hairy-looking thrc;ids of the interior, which 

 arc very tough and durable. 



4G5. How to Make Ced romforters.— The best betiding ever used is linen 

 sheets and blankets fur summer, and cotton sheets and blankets for winter. 

 But as all can not have blankets, we will tell them how to make but com- 

 forters. It may be new to some readers that nice, warm bed comforters can 

 be made without the labor of quilting. 



Make two calico spreads, old or new, and tack one in a quilting-frnme, if 

 you have one, and if not, spread it on the iloor and lay on four jiounds of cot- 

 ton batting, and then the other spread, and tack through and through with 

 u darning-neetlle and tie tight over a piece of bright colored cloth, oi yarn, 

 or wool, in squares of a foot, and you will have a neat-looking warm articU 

 of bedding. Two persons can make five of them in a day. 



40C. Iciprovcmeiit in Quiltiu? Frames.— And why not improve quilling- 

 frames? They need it. The old ones are about as awkward contrivances 

 as ever were conceived— always in the way when in usc, with their long 

 arms sticking out all over the rooui long afU-r they had ceased to bo useful. 

 What man ever looked upon these necessary implcmcnU of household ccon- 



