10 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
FUMITUKE—PEACHES—WASHING. 
One who subscribes herself “ Not a Young 
Housekeeper,” sends to the Michigan Farmer 
sundry hints, from which we extract the fol¬ 
lowing : 
Care of Furniture. —Though we may not 
all have our houses “handsomely furnished,” 
yet who, with correct notions and truly re¬ 
fined taste, would not prefer a neatly swept 
domestic carpet, with a few articles of plain, 
well-kept, old-fashioned furniture, nicely ar¬ 
ranged, to a more expensively furnished 
room, where the dust is suffered to accumu¬ 
late in the veins of the carved mahogany, or 
fingerprints visible upon the tables, and the 
colors of the carpet dull for want of thorough 
sweeping 1 In these days, w r hen Elizabeth¬ 
an and chay-flower furniture is so much 
sought after, let us, if we do not choose to 
purchase new, take care of our old ; which, 
though not dating quite back to the time of 
our Pilgrim Fathers, has still much of that 
richness of hue only acquired by age ; good 
old things, always look good , and the older 
the better. It is well to clean up every arti¬ 
cle of furniture as often as once a year, be¬ 
sides thoroughly rubbing daily, with a silk 
duster. Take soft water and a cloth and 
wash off a small piece at a time, following 
with a dry cloth immediately; then take a 
little boiled linseed oil, such as is used by 
painters, or sweet oil will do, and with a bit 
of flannel rub well in all over the article, and 
rub dry with an old piece of silk; should 
there be any rough spots, they should be 
rubbed down with a bit of emery or fine 
sand paper before oiling. Should you choose 
still to improve its appearance, you may 
varnish—taking care not to lay it on too 
heavily and to brush with the grain. White 
spots upon tables caused by heat, may be 
removed by adding a little turpentine to the 
oil, and warming the flannel you rub with. 
It is better to wait a few days after oiling 
before varnishing. For a dollar and a half 
you may supply yourself with brush, varnish, 
oil, turpentine and emery-paper enough to 
furbish all the furniture in a house. When 
the varnish becomes too thick, add a little 
turpentine. Clean your brush by washing 
off the varnish in turpentine, and pour it into 
the varnish bottle; with care, a brush will 
last a long time. 
Peaches. —As the season for this delicious 
fruit has now arrived, I would ask those who 
have not before done so, to try other than 
rich sugar sweetmeats. One excellent way 
is to prepare the fruit when ripe as you 
would for preserving. Take to one pint of 
the very best vinegar, two pounds of sugar 
—if you wish to have it very rich to keep a 
year; otherwise a pound and a half of sugar 
—let it dissolve ; boil and skim ; then throw 
in fruit enough to cover the surface; boil 
slowly ; when done skim out and drain ; put 
in more, and so on, till you have what the 
syrup will cover in your jar; as you lay the 
fruit in, scatter to your taste cloves, cinna¬ 
mon and mace, broken in bits rather than 
ground; pour the syrup over boiling hot, 
and you will have a jar of delicious “ spiced 
peaches.” For variety, it is nice to crack 
and blanche a part of the peach nuts and 
boil with the syrup, half a tea-cupful is suf¬ 
ficient for a gallon jar. 
Pickled Peaches. —Take good peaches, 
ripe, but not too mellow, wipe with a coarse 
clo.th, set in each peach three cloves, and 
lay them in your jar. Take of good vinegar 
one gallon, and two pounds of sugar ; boil 
and skim ; then pour over the fruit and set 
it away. In about a week drain off the pickle 
and when boiling pour over again; keep it 
in a cool place, well covered. In this way 
they will generally keep without any trouble; 
but sometimes I have found it necessary to 
attend to them again ; the season may be 
unfavorable, or the vinegar not the best; 
then I drain off the vinegar into a bright 
brass kettle, and scald thoroughly all the 
fruit in the boiling vinegar fifteen or twenty 
minutes, that the stones may be well heated; 
when the fruit is done, let the vinegar be 
boiled down till quite rich, and then poured 
over. 
Washing Preparation. —Of all the prepa¬ 
rations I have used, and they have been nu¬ 
merous, I give the preference to the follow¬ 
ing: Put one pound of saltpetre into a gallon 
of water and keep it in a corked jug; two 
table-spoonsful for a pint of soap, soak, wash 
and boil as usual. This bleaches the clothes 
beautifully without injuring the fabric. It 
is particularly valuable for removing grass 
stains from the knees of the little boys’ pan¬ 
taloons. 
A Cheap Ice-House. —Mr. Marks, in the 
Rural New-Yorker, says that on dry ground, 
where surface water will not stand, make a 
box ten feet square, by setting scantling on 
end, and boarding up the outside. Cover 
the box with a single roof. On the ground 
in the bottom of the box put saw-dust to the 
depth of one foot. On this place some 
boards loosely, and in the center of the box 
build a cube of ice eight feet square, which 
will leave a space of one foot on each side. 
Fill this space and cover the top with saw¬ 
dust. Over the saw-dust on the high side of 
the box leave a board off for ventilation. 
This costs but a trifle, and will hold ice 
enough to fully supply two moderate sized 
families. 
Watermelon Butter. —Split the water¬ 
melons open, with a spoon scrape out the 
pulp into a cullender, and strain the water 
into vessels ; boil it down to syrup; then 
put in apples or peaches, like making apple- 
butter or any kind of preserves. Or, the 
syrup may be boiled without fruit down to 
molasses, which will be found to be as fine 
as the best sugar-house molasses. 
Stacking Cornstalks. —A correspondent 
of the Boston Cultivator has tried various 
methods of curing his cornstalks, but with¬ 
out satisfactury success. Last fall after the 
stalks were sufficiently cured, he carted them 
into the barn, and instead of setting them 
up, as formerly, he packed them dfcwn, and 
on every layer of stalks put a layer of fine 
salt, say a bushel to a tun. The cattle eat 
them up clean, and he is satisfied with the 
result. 
Apple Jelly. —Take apples of the best 
quality and good flavor, (not sweet,) cut them 
in quarters or slices, and stew them till soft; 
then strain out the juice, being very careful 
not to let any of the pulp go through the 
strainer. Boil it to the consistency of mo¬ 
lasses ; then weigh it, and add as many 
pounds of sugar, stirring in constantly until 
the sugar is dissolved. Add one ounce of 
extract of lemon to every twenty pounds of 
jelly, and when cold, set it away in jars. It 
will keep good for years. Those who have 
not made jelly in this way will do well to 
try it. They will find it superior to currant 
jelly.—Michigan Farmer. 
How to Cut a Shirt. —Grandmother says 
there is a rule for everything. I suppose 
there is. I have a rule for cutting a shirt 
by the yard stick for a common-sized man. 
Make the body one yard long ; if the muslin 
is a yard wide, take a quarter of a yard off 
the side ; this will make the gussets, collar, 
wristbands, facings, &c.; cut the lining for 
the back 17 inches deep, collar 16! inches 
long, sleeves 20 inches long; a yard wide 
will just make the two sleeves and wrist¬ 
bands, 8! inches long.—Ohio Farmer. 
Why Butter is Dear.— There is a fine 
pasture all over the country now, and the 
price of butter ought to be down to a shilling 
a pound. Why isn’t it 1 Because the wo¬ 
men and girls don’t know how to make it. 
For twenty years past the girls’ butter¬ 
making education has been sadly neglected. 
They can play the piano, but cannot churn; 
can dance, but can not skim milk ; can talk 
a little French, but don’t know how to work 
out the buttermilk. The women who made 
the butter in Westchester, Duchess and Or¬ 
ange Counties twenty years ago, are passing 
away, and there are none to take their 
places. That’s why butter is high.—Day 
Book. 
Maltese Goats. —A correspondent of the 
Soil of the South, who is now raising a flock 
of Maltese Goats, thinks the subject emi¬ 
nently worthy the attention of stock raisers. 
He milks from 8 to 17 cows ; and his goats, 
he says, average as much milk as his cows. 
The milk is most delicate and delicious. 
These goats are not mischievous, nor do 
they possess that strong musk flavor pecu¬ 
liar to the common goat. Among them is a 
sucking kid, which has never had any young, 
that gives a quart of milk every night. The 
Maltese goat is of large size, has long hair 
and is fully formed. The writer is opinion 
that a cross with the Cashmere goat could 
produce an animal that would combine milk 
and fine wool. 
Grasshopper Traps. —In our rides in the 
grasshopper country, says the California 
Farmer, we saw thousands of the deep holes 
which had been dug in the earth by the In¬ 
dians, to entrap their luxurious (?) food. 
These holes contain about a bushel and a 
half, and we believe we saw holes enough in 
Yuba, Butte and Sutter Counties, to have 
collected 50,000 bushels of grasshoppers ! 
The Indians will grow fat this winter. 
