1869.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
23 
TOE IHOTSIEIML1ID. 
(J^~ For other Household Items, see "Basket " pages.) 
A Rustic Flower Stand. 
Ladies, with the assistance of some of the male 
members of the family in the rough portions of the 
work, can make "rustic work " equal to that sold 
in cities at high prices. A good stock of crooked 
RUSTIC FLOWER STAND. 
limbs, large and small, is required. Cedar, Locust, 
Wild Grape and others, come in play. Much skill 
can be displayed in taking advantage of natural 
distortions, an instance of which we give in il- 
lustration of a stand for flowers. This is not a 
fancy sketch, but was drawn from one constructed 
by a regular maker of such work, and is one of the 
most beautiful we have seen. It will be noticed 
that instead of the shallow bowl usually furnished 
for the reception of the plants it has a small tub 
of sufficient depth. A powder keg or other small 
keg, sawed in two, serves excellently for such pur- 
poses. Nail ail tho staves securely to the hoops. 
« ■ ■»» — ■ » 
Household Talks. 
B? AUNT HATTIE. 
Economy in Soap. — Soap lasts much longer 
when cut into squares and dried, than when left in 
the bars and cut up as wanted. Leaving economy 
out of consideration, how much more convenient 
it is to have the soap in proper shape for using, 
than to be obliged to get a knife or find a string 
every time a fresh piece is needed ! I have often 
seen washerwomen and careless girls break a bar of 
soap in two with their hands, thus leaviug long 
ends to each half. Of course where this is done, 
there must necessarily be a good deal of waste. I 
find that by buying a box at a time, I can get it a 
few cents cheaper in the pound, and I store it 
away and deal it eut as it is required. I kuow that 
many providers consider that where stores are 
bought by the wholesale, much is wasted and some- 
times a good deal is stolen. Of course this will 
probably be the case where the housekeeper neg- 
lects the obvious duties of keeping articles under 
lock and key, and dealing them out as required. 
After cutting into proper shape, the rough edges 
most be trimmed, and the pieces or scrapings may 
he melted and made into a ball or square. By fol- 
lowing this method all waste soap is avoided. 
Christmas or Plum Pudding.— This pudding, 
which I make for Christmas, is equally good on 
any other occasion. I usually make it many weeks 
before the time at which it will be eaten, but you 
know that these rich compounds improve very 
much by keeping. I have known them kept a year 
with manifest improvement. I think my receipt a 
good one ; it is as follows : Reduce to crumbs a 
pound of bread, freed from crust, add to it one 
pound of brown sugar, chop, and add three-quarters 
of a pound of beef suet, and a pound each of dried, 
well-washed, foreign currants aud raisins. Add 
half a pound of citron or candied orange peel, 
chopped fine, and grate a nutmeg over it. The 
juice of a lemon will be an improvement. Mix 
well together with six or eight eggs, well beaten. 
Pack firmly in bowls. Let them be heaped full 
and the pudding made smooth and round. Then 
a white cloth should be tied down with a string, 
and the whole boiled for four hours. When it 
is made some months before using, it should oc- 
casionally be put into a kettle of boiling water and 
boiled for an hour. 
Bread Making. — My bread, or rather dough, was 
sour this morning, and I found it necessary to work 
in a teaspoonful of soda before baking it. The 
soda was first dissolved in a little water. This 
misfortune of having sour dough to deal with is one 
which seldom occurs with me. It was at this time 
owing to an experimeut. A neighbor of mine rec- 
ommended me to try her way, which was to set the 
sponge in the afternoon, to work it over with the 
flour before going to bed, and bake the first thing 
before breakfast in the morning. I know many per- 
sons follow this plan, but I think iuexpericuced 
housekeepers, and especially late risers, should 
adopt my method. It is this: Sot the eponge just 
before going to bed, then in the morning, the first 
thing, work in the flour; when well risen, mould 
into loaves, set to rise for half an hour, and bake. 
About Tea. — For some time past we have had 
miserable tea, or rather an apology for tea. Mary 
had become so careless in the making of it that it 
was really undriukable. Sometimes it would be 
almost as black as ink, and at others of a decided 
pink shade after the cream was added, and occa- 
sionally as weak as water. I considered the case 
desperate enough to make a decided stand in favor 
of good tea ; so not long ago, 
just about tea time, I went in- 
to the kitchen and said : 
" Mary, I want you to put 
away the tea steeper, as I do 
not wish it used any more, 
and you will make the tea 
after a different plan." "Well! 
and indeed, mam !" " Never 
mind, Mary," I said, " I know 
that you desire to please me 
in everything, and it is my 
wish to have the tea made in 
another way. Take the teapot 
and rinse it out with a little 
hot water." Mary did so. 
" Now put in three teaspoon- 
fulsofteaand fill the teapot 
with boiling water." It was 
done without any more demur. 
" Now, Mary, put it on the 
top of the water boiler; never put it on the stove, 
as I do not wish it boiled. Always make it in this 
way, and only just before tea is ready to be served." 
Mary has followed these directions ever since, and 
the result has invariably been tea of delightful flavor. 
The fact is, the Chinese never stew their tea, and 
the French never boil their coffee, and we can 
learn something of these nations as to the best 
method of preparing their great national beverages. 
request for directions for coloring cotton, espe- 
cially carpet warp, of a tan color. Several recipes 
use hemlock bark or its extract. The fullest of 
these was given in the November " Basket." Mrs. 
N. J. Fairn, Jefferson Co., Tenn., says: " Boil the 
outside hull of the black walnut until a strong liq- 
uor is obtained, remove the hulls, and put in 
either cotton or woolen yarn; boil ten minutes; 
take out and dip in a pail of strong lime-water. 
Continue the process until the color suits. A de- 
coction of chestnut or walnut bark will answer in- 
stead of the above, using lime-water after boiling 
the yarn." Mrs. S. J. P. scuds a recipe, but as 
we do not quite understand it, we do not give it. 
Cochineal and its Uses. 
The question " What is Cochineal?" at one time 
was the subject of much discussion, 6ome holding 
that it was a seed, and others that it was an insect. 
To such an extent was this controversy carried, that 
early in the last century a Spaniard lost his whole 
fortune upon a wager that it was of vegetable 
origin. It is an insect, a species of Coccus, ot which 
we have some troublesome relations in the form of 
the scale insect which attacks our fruit trees, and 
the Mealy hug, sometimes so troublesome in plant 
houses. The Cochineal insect is found upon the 
Nopal, a species of Opuntiu or Prickly-Pear. The 
Nopals are cultivated for the purpose of raising the 
insect, and have the general appearance of the 
Prickly-Pears figured on page 22, except that they 
have a more upright habit, aud grow from ten to 
twenty feet high. The Cochineal insects are in 
mauy respects like our plant lice ; the females are 
wingless, and after they have once fixed themselves 
by their proboscis to the plant from which they 
draw their sustenance, they never move. The males, 
being winged, present an altogether different ap- 
pearance. Fig. 1 shows a number of females feed- 
ing upon a portion of Nopal. At figure 2, an en- 
larged female is given, aud at figure 3, a male, also 
enlarged. The female lays "several thousand eggs" 
which, as in our scale insect, are concealed under 
the dead body of the mother until they are hatched, 
when the young insects fix themselves to the 
plant, to complete their growth. The insects are 
brushed from the plant and killed, either by plung- 
ing in boiling water or by a dry heat, and when 
thoroughly dried are thrown into commerce. Coch- 
ineal, as it is found in the shops, consists of numer- 
ous grains about the size of a kernel of barley, aud ■ 
in appearance so unlike an insect that it is not 
Dyeing Tan Color.— Onr housekeeping 
friends have sent numerous responses to our 
COCHINEAL INSECTS — MALE AND FEMALE. 
strange that its nature was so long in doubt. The 
best has a purplish-gray color, the blackish varie- 
ties being less valuable. It takes about 70,000 of 
the dried insects to make a pound. When broken 
open, the grains present a dull purplish color, and 
this is imparted to water in which cochineal is 
soaked. By the use of mordants, cochineal yields 
some of the most brilliant colors. The fine scarlets 
are produced by cochineal, with the tin mordant 
(chloride ormuriate of tin). Theuseofalum gives 
a crimson. The brilliant and costly paint carmine 
is obtained by adding alum to an infusion of cochi- 
