AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
185 
ments the, sugar, curd, and oil or butter, and of 
the proportions of each, will further show the pe¬ 
culiar adaptation of milk as human food. Aside 
from the lime (or phosphate of lime) in the bones, 
the solid parts of the human frame, and of all other 
animals, consist essentially of oils (fat), and mus¬ 
cles (lean flesh) including the tendons. 
The muscles (lean flesh) contain nitrogen, and 
)n their composition, resemble casein or curd ot 
milk, albumen or white of eggs, gluten of grains, 
&c. 
The fats or oils are carbonaceous (coal) com¬ 
pounds, being, in their composition, very like 
milk oil or butter. But sugar, as well as starch, is 
also a carbonaceous compound, and as food, it fur¬ 
nishes the elements for forming fat 01 oil. 1 his 
fat or oil of the body supplies the carbon con¬ 
sumed in breathing, by which operation the car¬ 
bon (ur coal) of the food is consumed, and the 
heat of the animal system kept up. 
Here then we see, that 481 wine quarts (100 lbs) 
of milk furnish 41 lbs. of pure solid casern or 
curd, which goes directly to form the muscles or 
lean flesh that give strength to the body. The 
same milk, 481 quarts, affords 3 lbs. of butter, 
which is almost identical with human fat. The 
same milk furnishes 4! lbs. of sugar, which also 
gives the elements for making fat, and for produc¬ 
ing heat. 
The 12 ounces of mineral matter—that portion 
left as ashes, when 481 quarts of milk are binned 
—consists largely of phosphate of lime, w hich 
constitutes the solid parts of the bones. 
We have, then, in milk the constituents of 
the animal frame, and what is more, they exist 
in good milk in just about the proportion re¬ 
quired to sustain and increase the several parts of 
the system. 
Another important consideration is the fact, 
that in milk the elements are already divided, 
ready to be acted upon by the gastric juice of 
the stomach, which is not the case with most other 
kinds of food. Much of the energy of the sys¬ 
tem is exhausted in digesting unmasticated solid 
food. Small lumps of potato, bits of meat, &c., 
though no larger than a pea, often lie for hours 
before fully dissolving, and produce irritation, 
and frequently induce acidity or sourness—effects 
not produced by pure or water-diluted milk, from 
healthy cows fed upon well-conditioned food, not 
distillery swill slops, and such-like materials. 
-.»-- - -- 
Use of Lime 
This article may be used in several ways, very 
advantageously, just. now. Scatter it around 
your cess-pools and kitchen-drains, and over the 
floor of your cellar, where vegetables have been 
stored. It is a powerful disinfector, to prevent 
unpleasant and unwholesome odors. Use it libe¬ 
rally, also, as a whitewash. Have you old build¬ 
ings not worth a coat of paint, fences, sheds, hen¬ 
houses, and granaries in the same condition 1 
Give them a dressing of whitewash. And don’t 
forget the inside walls of your cellar. Nothing 
will make the air below stairs so sweet and 
healthy as this. 
---- 
Scrap Books. 
F. T. R, of Ottawa Co., Ill., writing to the 
Agriculturist, adds the following note containing 
an oft repeated, but none the less valuable sug¬ 
gestion : “ Persons very often meet with items of 
valuable information in old newspapers that they 
do not keep on file. If all these scraps were cut 
out and laid careful!" 3 way, and when a sufficient 
number were collected (say once a month) were 
neatly pasted into a blank book, alphabetically ar¬ 
ranged, they would, in a short time, form a valu¬ 
able fund of information for future reference. In 
this way, an Agricultural Scrap Booh, or a House¬ 
keeper's Scrap Book might be made that would be 
in constant demand for recipes and other informa¬ 
tion, besides furnishing pleasant occupation for 
leisure hours.” 
A First Bate Whitewash. 
We have tried various preparations for white¬ 
washing ceilings, and the walls of unpapered 
rooms, but have never found anything that was 
entirely satisfactory until the present Spring. We 
have now something that affords a beautiful, clear, 
white color, and which cannot be rubbed off. 
We procured at a paint store, a dollar’s worth 
of first quality “ Paris White ”—33 lbs., at three 
cents per lb.—and for this quantity, one pound of 
white glue, of the best quality, usually called 
Cooper’s glue, because manufactured by Peter 
Cooper of New York. Retail price 50 cents per 
pound. For one day’s work, 1 lb of the glue was 
put in a tin vessel, and covered with cold water 
over night. In the morning this was carefully 
heated until dissolved, when it was added to 16 lbs. 
of the Paris White, previously stirred in a mode¬ 
rate quantity of hot water. Enough water was 
then added to give the whole a proper milky con¬ 
sistency, when it was applied with a brush in the 
the ordinary manner. Our 33 lbs. of Paris White 
and 1 lb. of glue sufficed for two ceilings, and the 
walls and ceilings of seven other smaller rooms. 
A single coat is equal to a double coat of lime- 
wash, while the white is far more lively or bril¬ 
liant than lime. Indeed the color is nearly equal 
to that of “ Zinc White,” which costs at least 
four times as much. We are satisfied, by repeated 
trials, that no whitewash can be made to adhere 
firmly without glue, or some kind of sizing, and this 
will invariably be colored, in time, with the caustic 
lime. The Paris White, on the contrary, is simply 
pure washed chalk, and is entirely inert, producing 
no caustic effect on the sizing. Any of our read¬ 
ers who try this, and are as well pleased with it as 
we are, will consider the information worth many 
times the cost of an entire volume of the Agri¬ 
culturist. Had we known of it when we first 
“ set up housekeeping,” it would have saved us 
much labor, and the annoyance of garments often 
soiled by contact with whitewash—not to men¬ 
tion the saving of candles, secured by having the 
ceiling always white enough to reflect instead of 
absorbing the rays of light. 
To Keep Hams in Summer. 
One good way is to put a layer of coarse salt 
in the bottom of a barrel, then lay in a ham and 
cover it with salt, and then another, and so on till 
the barrel is filled. Of course, this salt should be 
dry, and the barrel should be kept in a dry place. 
Another and better way, is to sew up each ham 
in a coarse cloth bag, then give the whole a coat¬ 
ing of whitewash and hang up the bag in a smoke 
house, or any dark, cool place. 
A sure way of keeping hams fresh, but not a 
neat way, is to bag them as before mentioned, and 
burry the bag in the ash-hole, taking it out as 
wanted. 
We have known them to keep very well by 
simply wrapping in several thicknesses of news¬ 
paper and hanging in an open garret. A corres¬ 
pondent says they also “ keep perfectly, as he 
has proved, by packing in sweet dry hav run 
through a hay cutter. Then wrap them with a 
single thickness of newspaper, and surround each 
ham with a portion of the hay ; tie the whole in 
large cotton bags, and hang in a dry place.” 
How Wax is Bleached or Whitened. 
BY LEMUEL G. OLMSTEAD. 
[The white wax, so much used in many of the 
arts, for candles, especially in Catholic churches, 
and which is preferable for ordinary sewing pur¬ 
poses, is simply yellow beeswax whitened by 
bleaching, by the same influences, air and light, 
which bleach clothing spread upon the snow or 
grass. Any housewife can whiten what wax she 
may need for her own use, or even for sale, by 
simply forming it into very thin strips with a knife 
or pouring it upon the surface of water, and spread¬ 
ing it upon canvas out of doors. There are large 
bleaching establishments at Philadelphia, where 
the process is very similar to that described be¬ 
low, furnished for the Agriculturist, by Mr. Olm- 
stead, who witnessed the operations at the Cera.i- 
uola, (waxworks), in Siena, Italy.— Ed.] 
Twelve hundred pounds of beeswax are melted 
at a time in a large copper kettle, A, which is set 
in brick work. B, is the upper view of a trough 
or vat made also of brick work, 20 feet long, 3 
feet wide, 2 feet in depth, and filled with water. C, 
is a solid cylinder of wood about 15 inches in di¬ 
ameter, partly submerged in the water, and turned 
like a grindstone. D, is the bottom view and E 
the end view of a tin vessel, into which the melt¬ 
ed wax is dipped. The wax falls in fine streams 
through the small holes represented by the dots, 
upon the surface of the revolving wet cylinder, by 
which means very thin ribbons are formed that 
float off upon the surface of the water, the water 
being kept in motion by the turning of the cylin¬ 
der. 
One man dips in the wax ; another turns the 
crank ; a third with a shovel made ofwillow twigs 
dips out the wax ribbons into large trays with 
willow bottoms, and two men carry it out to the 
bleaching yards, where are four tables, placed side 
hy side, each 10 feet wide, 60 long, and 21 high. 
The tops of the tables are made of reeds, over 
which is stretched a coarse canvas, and upon this 
the wax in thin ribbons is spread. In handling 
the wax, spreading it. &c., it breaks up into short 
pieces. Two of these tables hold 1,200 pounds of 
12 ounces to the pound (Troy ?). The wax is 
spread on the canvas about 11 inches thick. As 
it lays up lightly and loosely, the light of the sun 
penetrates to the bottom. 
They melt the wax over and make it into rib¬ 
bons twice, during'the process ofbleaching, which 
occupies thirty days, in which time it becomes 
white as snow. It is exposed to rain, &c. They 
prefer to have rain in that climate, because, when 
the sun is very hot, they are obliged to sprinkle 
water upon the wax to keep it from melting and 
running together. 
Immense quantities of wax candles are burned 
in the churches in Italy, as every Sunday is a feast 
day, as well as almost every week day. There is 
no worship there without the use of wax. Differ 
ent colored wax is provided for different occasions. 
On some days the yellow, unbleached wax is used. 
Sometimes that which is colored. This is a very 
economical arrangement, inasmuch as there is no 
