1865.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
123 
How to Whitewash. 
Procure fresh-burut lime, not that partly .air-slaclc- 
ed. The large lumps are best. The flue portions 
and small lumps will not make a wash that will 
stick well. For this reason, lime that has been 
burned several months is not as good as that just 
from the kiln. Put a pound or two into a vessel, 
and pour on boiling water slowly, until it is all 
slacked, and is about as thick as cream. Thcu add 
cold rain water until it will flow well from the 
brush. Stir often when using it. A few drops 
of blueing added will give it a more lively color. 
One or two table-spoonfuls of cle.an salt, and one- 
fourth pound of clean sugar to a gallon of the wash, 
will make it more adhesive. If the walls have 
been whitewashed, let them bo swept thoroughly, 
and if colored with smoke, wash them clean with 
soap suds. A brush with long, thick hair, will hold 
fluid best, when applying it overhead. If a person 
has the wash of the right consistence, and a good 
brush, he can whitewash a large parlor without al¬ 
lowing a drop to fall. When it appears streaked 
after drying it is too thick, and needs diluting with 
cold water. Apply the wash back and forth 
in one direction, and then go cross-wise, using a 
paint-brush at tlic corners, and a thin piece of 
board to keep the brush from the wood work, or 
the border of the paper. Coloring matter may be 
mingled with the wash, to give it any desired tint. 
To make a light peach-blow color, mingle a small 
quantity of Venetian-red. For a sk3’-blue, add any 
kind of diy, blue paint, stirring it well while 
mixing To make a wash of a light straw'-color, 
mingle a few ounces of yellow ochre, or chrome 
yellow. The coloring matter should be quite tine 
to prevent its settling to the bottom of the vessel. 
How to Paper a Wall. 
Hanging wall-paper is light and easy work, 
which may be done by females, as w'ell as males, 
and as females are usually neater than the other 
sex in performing such manipulations, they should 
have the privilege of doi-ng this work, instead of 
calling men from their urgent business. The 
materials necessary for papering are : a papering- 
board, ten or twelve feet long and about two feet 
wide, planed smooth; a large paste-brush, a pan of 
paste, a pair of long shears, a light, straight-edged 
pole, and a soft brush-broom. Now take a roll of 
paper, and measure around the room, to ascertain 
how many whole strips are required for the walls. 
Cut the desired number of strips of the right 
length, so that the edges will match, and lay them 
all on the board, with the wrong side up. If the 
wall has been whitewashed, sweep it thoroughly, 
and wash it with vinegar and water. If the vinegar 
be strong, mingle three quarts of water with one 
of vinegar. When the wall is dry, sweep it again. 
Previous to putting on the paper, paste the wall. 
Then apply paste to a strip of paper, and turn up 
the lower end about two feet, the pasted sides to¬ 
gether, and hang the strip as quickly as possible. 
As paste expands paper, and renders it tender, it 
must not be put on until the wall is re.ady to receive 
it. When the paper is so teuder that it will hardly 
hold itself together, double the upper end of a 
strip over a smooth stick. Begin in one corner of 
the room, and let the strip hang perpendicularly, 
ind as soon as it is right, stick the top fast to the 
w all. Instead of using a bunch of cloth to rub it 
on with, sweep it on with a soft brush-broom, by 
commencing at the top, and sweep downwards and 
outwards from the middle of the strip. A bunch 
of cloth will sometimes blot the colors, but a soft 
broom will not. Run the back of the shears along 
the upper edge of the base, or mop-board, and pull 
the lower end of the paper away from the wall, and 
cut it off, and afterwards sweep it on. When a 
strip does not hang exactly plumb, take hold of the 
bottom and pull it from the wall, until it hangs 
only by an inch or so at the top. Then adjust it, 
and sweep it on again. When there are uneven 
places in the wall, so that the paper will not adhere 
without a blister, or wrinkle, cut through the long 
way of the blister, and sweep it on again. When 
turning a corner of a room, it will be more conve¬ 
nient to cut a sti ip of paper in two, lengthw.a3’s, so 
that the joint will come exactly in the corner, than 
to attempt to put on a whole strip by bending it in 
the corner. After alt the whole strips have been 
put on, the piecing can be done around the doors 
and windows. New paper can be pasted over the 
old, if that be on firmly. Otherwise, it should be 
pulled otf. Sometimes, by washing old paper with 
soap suds, two or three times, it will peel off with 
little labor. New walls need not be pasted pre¬ 
vious to papering. It is better to apply the paste 
to the paper than to the wall only, as dry paper is 
elastic, and will not adhere until it has become wet. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Cheap Socks.—Use for Old Cloth. 
The time was when the “ rag bag” was an insti¬ 
tution to be found in every family. It was the re¬ 
ceptacle for all odds and ends of calico and other 
cotton fiibrics. According to my best recollection, 
the rag bag was almost always stuffed full, with 
the fragments of its contents protruding through 
the rents and holes, and once a quarter they were 
emptied out, done up in a convenient bundle, and 
sent to the store to be exchanged for goods. But 
now, though it may hang in its accustomed niche, it 
contains little but dust and lint at the bottom, the 
collections of the last quadrennium, with scarcely 
a rag big enough to tie around a sore finger. Not 
so is it, however, with respect to woolen rags. 
These, in the shape of pants, coats, cloaks, and 
“wrap-rascals” gcner.ally, being unsuitable for the 
manufacture of paper, and no one feeling rich 
enough now-a-days to undei’take a rag carpet, have 
increased during the last four years to an alarming 
extent, and lie in heaps in the kitchen chamber, 
threatening to engross the whole space to the ex¬ 
clusion of every thing else. Now to what use can 
these garments be economically applied ? I answer, 
for making men’s socks. Above is a reduced pat¬ 
tern, which the writer prc|'ared for his own use. 
■Jne pattern answers for t>uth feet, 1)3- simpl3' in¬ 
verting it. I take an old pair of pants, rip open 
the two outside seams, spread out the cloth on the 
table, lay on the pattern, and cut out the cloth, 
with or without the lining, according as I want 
warm or cool socks. Next sew the two edges, a, a, 
and a, a, by lapping one edge upon the other, and 
sewing through and through. This makes the least 
objectionable seam. In like manner sew the edge, 
b, to b ; c , c, to s, c ; d, d, to d, d ; c, e, to «, « ; 
g, g, to g, g. The edges /, /, are not sewed, 
but folded, one over the other, and tied with strings. 
I have worn cloth socks, made as above, for several 
weeks. They are rather light for winter use, but 
for spring and fall use I prefer them to the common 
knit socks. If made by a correct pattern, they will 
not wrinkle under the feet, .as other socks do, 
especially if a little too large. It is not claimed 
that they will wear as long as socks which have been 
knit,—though their wear depends a good deal upon 
the quality of the cloth,—yet, as an offset to this, 
the3'are made with the greatest facility. I presume 
that any woman, who is expert with the needjc, can 
cut out .and sew up twenty, and perhaps thirty 
pair in the time it would require to knit one pair. 
Knit socks, in these days when wool is worth a 
dollar a pound, cost money, but socks made of old, 
cast-off garments, which have no exchangeable 
value, of which a whole family supply for a yeai 
can be made in a day, may be considered the cheap 
est article of apparel that can be worn, es pceially 
in hard times. To make a correct pattern for a 
given foot, is rather nice work, yet it need be 
made but once, as it can be preserved. O. b. 
------ 
The Fashions.—Comfort and Health. 
There arc happy people in this world, living in 
the free country, so far from busy cities, up-start 
villages and towns, dull and fashionable in stagna¬ 
tion, who may and do live so independent of the 
changes of the fashions, that, except when they 
make a journey out of their happy world into that 
ruled by “shoddy,” and Paris milliners, they do not 
know or care what the fashion is. The rest of uf 
are compelled to heed the laws of this tyranny, 01 
submit to the worse thraldom of the feeling th.at 
we are dressed noticeably unlike other respectabh 
people. All that we car, do is, to avoid being outri' 
in dress, and clothe 01 rsclves so as not ‘:o attrac\ 
attention in modifying ihe fashions. Wc may over 
sometimes dress in an oid-lashioned way till some 
especially outrageous .style has passed avva3'. Wt 
commend the following sensible view's of a cor 
respondent of the Independent: 
“The dress of woman will never be rid of it# 
present absurdities—its cumbrousuess, its extrava¬ 
gances, its elaborate nothings, its meaningless 
changes, and its still more n.caningiess attachment 
to preposterous styles—uu1;l the objects to be se¬ 
cured in dressing are understood and placed in 
their proper order. These are (after a mere protec¬ 
tion to the body): 1st, health; 2d, comfort; 8d, 
beauty. Of two styles equally healthful, that 
which is the more comfortable is to be preferred; 
of two equally healthful and comfirtablc, the more 
beautiful should have the preference; but we 
should never sacrifice the comfortable to the 
beautiful, nor the healthful to the apparently 
comfertable. For, although an unhealthful dress 
is never really comfortable, yet custom, or whim, 
will often make a person insist that it is so; as to 
those unused to a pure atmosphere, warm, vitiated 
air secerns more agreeable than cool, pure air. 
“These rules are generally inverted in woman’s 
dress, and yet they are in essence the same ns those 
applied in every department of art and manufac¬ 
tures. What w’ould be thought of an architect w’ho 
should sit down to plan a church with but the one 
idea of beauty in his mind ? What kind of a struc¬ 
ture would a bridge be, if the primary regard were 
paid to making it agreeable to the eye, and only a 
secondary or remote attention given to the uses it 
was to subserve? Yetehurches, bridges, furniture, 
machinery arc all made handsome when desired, by 
adapting the ornamentation to the object orna¬ 
mented, and not the object to the- ornaments. 8c 
