374 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



fates' $e|mtirai 



OKIGINAL DOMESTIC RECEIPTS. 



Contributed to the Genesee Farmer. 



to take the smell off. Any silk or satin dress can be 

 cleaned whole by this method, but it is safer to take the 

 skirt off the body, which most cleaners do that intend 

 not to be beat. 



Waffles. -To one quart of milk add four eggs, flour 

 enough to make a soft batter, a small piece of butter, and 

 a little salt. A plainer kind, and, if well made, much 

 better, has some cream with the milk and only two eggs; 

 but in this case you must add a little soda. 



Fruit CAKE.-One pound of butter, one pound of sugar 

 one pound of flour, three pounds of rasins, three pounds 

 of currants, ten eggs, one pound of citron, and spice to 

 your taste. Too many clones give the cake a bitter taste 

 Other spices should be added freely. This receipt has 

 been often tried, and it is excellent-much better than 

 When more fruit is used. For a wedding cake, twenty- 

 nve pounds will make a large loaf. 



Flannel CAKE S .-Take a quart of sour milk and add 

 soda enough to make it foam; then add flour until you 

 have a thin batter. Bake them on a griddle, one at a 

 time, each as large as an ordinary dinner-plate. Put 

 butter and sugar on them as soon as they are cooked • 

 pile one upon the other and serve them hot. They are very 

 nice for dessert, and are often given to invalids, as they 

 are very light and easily digested. 



To Clean Whole Silk or Satin Dressbs.-6W«/, 

 Lady , Booh says the safest way to drv-clean a silk or 

 satin dress of any color is to take the body off the skirt 

 and clean each part separately. If the dress is a valua- 

 ble one, take off the sleeves also. When they are cleaned 

 remake them ; all the French workmen do it. Have two 

 clean earthen vessels that will hold two gallons each, and 

 put half a gallon of camphine in each; have a smooth 

 board, six feet long and three feet wide, suitable brushes 

 and four or five clean sheets. Be very particular about 

 the sheets being dry and clean. Your sheeting board is 

 not to be encumbered with all your sheets on it; have 

 only one on it. Begin by cleaning the body first. Put 

 the body in the first liquor of camphine, then lift it on 

 to the board, brush the inside well, and then the outside 

 When this has been done, put it back in the first liquor 

 of camphine, then in the second, and let it drain over the 

 second a minute; spread a sheet on the board, lav the 

 dress on it, and directly begin and rub it dry with the clean 

 Indian cotton cloths. While rubbing it, keep it smooth 

 and shape it, so as that, when dry and cleaned, it will look 

 as if it had not been wetted. Take the sleeves next. 

 Clean them in the same manner as the body. The skirt 

 comes next, one after another, and it is to be cleaned ex- 

 actly in the same manner as the body and the sleeves, by 

 passrnfe ■« through the two camphine liquors, brushing 

 and slating i, ,„> dry before leaving it. Dispatch is the 

 life and soul of this work, as the camphine is of such a 

 drying nature that it requires great expedition in the 

 cleaning. When the dress is done, it mustte hung up 

 lor some hours in an airy room. The smell of the cam- 

 phine w.ll come off in a few hours in a very hot stove- 

 room. The best method is to clean the cataphine work 

 in the afternoon and hang it in the stove-room all night 



Directions FO r Knitting an Afghan or Carriage 

 Blanket. -These highly-ornamental blankets are now so 

 much used that in the cities they are looked upon as 

 almost a necessity, as they combine beauty with useful- 

 ness. For the carriage the usual style is four wide stripes 

 of gay colors-such as blue, orange, purple and crim- 

 son separated by narrow ones of black, embroidered 

 either with palm leaves, a vine, or with dogs' and 

 horses' heads, and finished at the ends with a 

 fringe tied in and knotted to form a heading, or by nar 

 rowing each colored stripe to a point and putting a tassel 

 on the points. At present, the Princess Crochet Stitch 

 (worked with a long needle,) is much used. It is better 

 o use a coarse needle, as with a fine one the Afghan will 

 be too heavy to be convenient. Four ounces of the hi^h 

 colors will make one stripe about a quarter of a yard 

 wide and sufficiently long if finished without points; 

 with them another half ounce will be required There 

 will be seven stripes in all, as the colors come on the out- 

 side. In crocheting the stripes together, it- is rather or- 

 namental to work them on the right side with black, and 

 form in this way a cord between each stripe. If the 

 Afghan is designed for the house, white stripes should be 

 substituted for black. Fringe or tassels properly made 

 require a good deal of worsted-at least eight or ten 

 ounces. Double-zypher, which is the wool that should be 

 used, costs now three dollars and a half a pound 

 Afghans are made for children of blue or pink and white 

 alternate stripes, the white being embroidered with rose- 

 buds, and are of course much smaller. The patterns 

 .used for embroidering Afghans require so few stitches 

 that an ordinary worsted pattern can not be very well 

 used, although sometimes they can be found sufficiently 

 small to be suitable. 



An English writer, in some remarks on "A Lady's 

 Dress," gives the following excellent hints on the effect 

 of color : 



"We dearly love and duly appreciate color; we have 

 hailed with delight the resumption of the scarlet cloak 

 this winter by our fair countrywomen, especially at a time 

 of public mourning, when our streets have worn so 

 monotonous and sombre an aspect. The eve has been 

 gladdened and refreshed by the warm, bright red, set off 

 by the black dress beneath; and the welcome effect it 

 produced proved to our minds how much pleasure we 

 insensibly derive from the presence of color. We are 

 hardly aware of it until we lose it. The aspect of our 

 crowded thoroughfares lately enables us to form some 

 ilea ot what we should feel if, by some freak of fashion 

 the fan- sex were to adopt a costume as unvaried and 

 hideous as the present masculine attire, and if our shops, 

 that now display all that is lovely in color ami exquisite 

 in design had nothing more attractive to offer than 

 broadcloth or black stuff. We should feel depress^ 

 The eve needs the stimulant of color and variety to keen 

 it from fatigue; and beneath our gray and colorless sky 



we want more c r, not less. Some thirteen or fourteen 



years ago color was certainly at a discount in dress as 

 "ell as m architecture and decoration. That there has 

 been a revival in its favor no one will deny." 



Coffee.— A friend informs us that parched sweet corn 

 is excellent to mix with Java coffee— half and half. ' 



