62 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[February, 
It with a mixture of chopped onions and sage, sea¬ 
soned with pepper and salt. Two good-sized onions, 
a tablespoonful of powdered sage, a teaspoonful of 
salt, and a half teaspoonful of pepper, is about the 
proportion. The openings in the skin should be 
stitched together firmly, so that no grease may 
enter. Allow no water in the pan, and baste often 
with the fat from the pan. When the goose is of 
a fine brown, especially around the wings and legs, 
it having been in the oven over an hour, you may, 
I think, if the goose is young, depend upon its being 
done. The fat should all be poured from the pan, 
keeping back the brown part, which is the gravy. 
Set the pan on top of the tire and add the water in 
which the giblets were cooked, and pepper and salt, 
in sufficient quantity ; boil up and serve in a gravy 
dish. Hot apple sauce and onion sauce should be 
served with goose. The onion sauce is made as 
follows: Boil a dozen onions until tender, chop 
line, make a sauce of milk well thickened with flour, 
and a little butter and salt. When boiling, add the 
chopped onions, and send to the table hot. The 
grease from goose should never be scut to table at 
all. Ducks are excellent roasted and served like 
any goose. If green peas can be had, all the better ; 
“duck and green peas” are familiar to all epicures. 
Brawn, or Head Cheese.— After the pig’s head 
has been cleaned, soak in water. I use warm water, 
for twenty-four hours, changing it occasionally. If 
properly done the rinds will be as white as paper, and 
will look very nice and delicate. All hairs which re¬ 
sist the knife should be singed with burning paper. 
P,ub into the pork a little powdered saltpeter, 
then plenty of salt, and let it stand for two weeks. 
Take from the salt and soak for half a day, boil 
tender, remove all the bones, chop pretty fine, 
place in basins or molds, cover and press. When 
cold it is ready to serve. Some season with pepper, 
some add sage; I make mine without either, and 
eat with mustard and vinegar. The thinner the 
slices can be cut, the nicer they will be to eat. 
Tin-ware to Mend. 
One of the street cries of large cities is that of the 
traveling tinkers, who cry out, “Tin-ware to Mend.” 
From the number of letters asking us to give di¬ 
rections for soldering, one would suppose that a 
share of our readers had an idea of turning tinkers— 
and for that matter, why shouldn’t they ? Tin-ware 
will wear out, and it is very convenient to be 
enough of a tinker to be able to stop a leak upon 
an emergency. The ability to do ordinary solder¬ 
ing is easily acquired by a little practice, though in 
this, as in other mechanical operations, some will 
be more apt than others. Those who are disposed 
to undertake it will learn more from watching a 
good workman for a few minutes than they can 
from any instructions, however minutely written. 
We can only set forth the chief points to be ob¬ 
served. Domestic soldering operations are mainly 
confined to articles of tin-ware, with occasionally 
one of copper. Soldering is a sort of pasting to¬ 
gether of two pieces of metal by the use of another 
metal, called solder, that melts at a comparatively 
low temperature. The solder must readily unite 
with, or adhere to, the metal to be soldered. That 
it may the more readily do this, a flux, usually of 
rosin, is used to protect the surfaces from the ac¬ 
tion of the air, and secure a more perfect union. 
Common tin-ware—and some of it is very common— 
is not made, as is often supposed, of pure tin, but 
of thin plates of iron, the surfaces of which are 
merely coated with tin. This is called tin-plate, 
while vessels made of pure tin, which they very 
rarely are, are called block-tin. The Brittania ware, 
white metal, and pewter, of which teapots, etc., arc 
often made, are alloys of lead, tin, copper, and other 
metals. Ordinary tin-ware is soldered with com¬ 
parative ease; Brittania, pewter, and the like, re¬ 
quire skillful management, as they melt at nearly 
the same temperature as the solder. Copper is 
soldered quite readily by the aid of a zinc solution, 
to be mentioned below. The materials required are 
a soldering iron, solder, rosin, zinc solution, and a 
ecraper. The soldering iron, so-called, is really a 
soldering copper; its shape is shown in the engrav¬ 
ing. It may be purchased ready-made, or it may be 
made by a blacksmith. The copper portion is a 
cylinder with a four-sided point; it is about an inch 
and a half in diameter, and weighs about a pound 
and a quarter. It is fastened to an iron shank, 
which may be screwed in, or attached by rivets, and 
this shank fits into a wooden handle. The pointed 
portion is to be “tinned,” as the workmen say, 
which means that it is to be coated with solder. 
To tin the point, file it smooth, heat the tool hot 
enough to melt solder, then quickly file the sur¬ 
face bright, and rub it on a small lump of solder 
that has been placed on a board for the purpose, 
using rosin, or a few drops of the zinc solution. 
If not successful in coating the end with solder at 
the first attempt, try again. The point being once 
w r ell covered it will keep so unless the tool is heated 
so hot as to bum it off. Solder may be had at the 
hardw r are stores, or tin shops. Get what is called 
SOLDERING IRON. 
fine solder, which is better than that used for 
coarse work. Solder is an alloy of lead and tin. 
Common rosin, coarsely powdered, should be 
kept in a little box. The zinc solution is made 
by putting some muriatic acid, say two ounces, in 
a wide-mouthed bottle, with twice as much water; 
add to this some strips of sheet zinc, and when the 
acid has dissolved all the zinc it will, which will be 
known by the stopping of the effervescence, it is 
ready for use. This is best done in the open air, 
as the gas given off during the operation smells 
unpleasantly. A scraper is made by grinding down 
an old file to a smooth edge. The soldering iron is 
best heated in charcoal, or the coals of a wood fire ; 
if a hard-coal fire is used, more care is required. 
The copper should never get red-hot, as in that 
case the coating of the point will be burned off, 
and it must be re-tinned. Scrape the surface of the 
portion to be soldered, clean and bright, and 
sprinkle on a little rosin. When the iron is at the 
proper heat, wipe its point on a wet cloth and ap¬ 
ply it to the end of a bar of solder ; a small portion 
of the solder will be melted and stick to it like a 
drop. Draw the point of the iron along the place 
where the solder is needed, recollecting that the 
metal to be soldered must be heated by the contact 
before the solder will unite with it and flow. It is 
well to practice first on some bits of tin, as an un¬ 
skilled hand may heat the utensil too much, and 
thus unsolder parts already joined. If any of the 
iron surface of the tin-ware is exposed, a drop or 
two of zinc solution must be applied by means of a 
stick, the surface being previously well scraped. 
Small holes arc most readily stopped by placing a bit 
of solder on them, and then melting this by means 
of the iron, so that it forms an adhering drop. 
---- 
Dissolving—Solution. 
The directions to dissolve this or that, and the 
term solution, are often used not only with indefin¬ 
iteness, but with great inaccuracy. When we are 
told to “ dissolve starch in cold water ” and to 
“ take a solution of lime as thick as cream,” we are 
directed to do that which is impossible. Starch is 
completely insoluble in cold water, and water 
mixed with lime to the thickness of cream is no so¬ 
lution at all. For a substance to be in solution in 
water or other liquid it must be so intimately com¬ 
bined with it that the liquid shall be perfectly 
transparent, and no separation or deposit shall take 
place except with a change of temperature. Starch 
stirred with water will all finally settle when left at 
rest. Lime stirred with water, in sufficient quanti¬ 
ty to make it milky, will nearly all settle, but a 
very little will beheld in solution; all that a pint of 
water can dissolve is about eight grains. When a 
liquid has taken up all of a solid it can dissolve at a 
given temperature it is said to be saturated. AVe 
say at a given temperature, because most soluble 
solids arc dissolved more readily by hot liquids 
than by cold. A notable exception to this is one 
that we often have occasion to dissolve—common 
salt. Boiling water dissolves but a very little moro 
salt than cold water, while in the case of sugar, the 
amount dissolved is enormously increased as the 
water is heated. When a substance is very soluble 
at a high temperature, and less so at a lower one, a 
portion of the substance is deposited as the liquid 
cools. A pint of boiling water will dissolve over-a 
pound of alum, but when the solution cools, more 
than nine-tenths of the alum will appear again in 
the solid form. To make a solution as rapidly as 
possible, the solid should be finely divided or pow¬ 
dered, and the liquid should be stirred until solu¬ 
tion is complete. If we throw a peck of salt into a 
barrel of water and allow it to remain there, the 
lower portion of the water will become saturated 
long before all the salt is dissolved, and the water 
above will contain comparatively little. If, on the 
contrary, the same amount of salt be tied in a cloth 
and hung at the top of a barrel of water, it will dis¬ 
solve rapidly ; as soon as a portion of water is im¬ 
pregnated with salt, it becomes heavier and sinks, 
and a circulation is kept up until the whole is dis¬ 
solved. Here we see the philosophy of the prac¬ 
tice of the good housekeeper, who always keeps 
some undissolved salt upon the top of her meat; 
as long as this remains undissolved, she knows that 
her brine is thoroughly saturated—i. e., it contains 
all the salt that can be usefully put into it. 
-- » - - 
How to Make Good Bread.' 
Prof. Horsford recently gave a public lecture in 
New York upon “ The Philosophy of the Oven,” in 
which the whole history of bread-making was dis¬ 
cussed. AVe extract from the report of the lecture 
the following directions for making bread : “Select 
good, plump, fully ripened, hard-grained wheat. 
Have it freshly-ground and not too finely bolted. 
Prepare the yeast as follows : Boil thoroughly with 
the skins on, in one quart of water, enough pota¬ 
toes to make a quart of mashed potatoes. Peel tho 
boiled potatoes and mash them to fineness; mix 
intimately with them one pint of flour, and stir tlu 
whole to an emulsion with the water in which tho 
potatoes were boiled. Cool the product to about SO* 
(lukewarmness), and add half a pint of the best fresh 
baker’s yeast, and a tablespoonful of brown sugar. 
Set aside the mixture at an even temperature of 
aboutSO", till it works well, or is in active fermenta¬ 
tion. Of this yeast take half a pint to a gallon (7 lb.) 
of flour, mixed with three pints of water, or two of 
water and one of milk, all at the temperature of 
about 80°; add a little salt, knead thoroughly, and 
set aside to rise at the temperature mentioned. 
AVhen it is has risen to nearly the full volume for tho 
dough, divide it into loaves, knead again, set it 
aside at the temperature already named until it at¬ 
tains the full size of tho loaf, and place it in an 
oven heated to not less than 450*. Let the loaves of 
dough be smaller than the tins. Keep them cov¬ 
ered with flat tin plates or stiff paper until the dough 
is fully raised and the heat carried up to, and some¬ 
times maintained throughout the loaf at 212°, to 
convert all the starch to the mucilaginous or emul¬ 
sion form and destroy the ferment. Then remove 
the cover, and permit the browning to take place. 
If the loaves are large, a higher temperature will be 
required. Seven pounds of flour will make eight 
loaves of 1 lb. each when baked, or four of 2^4 lbs. 
each. Such yeast, as is above described, will 
keep a week in winter and from two to four days 
in summer. Brea-d made with it, in faithful 
obedience to these instructions, will bo good. 
S*otatocs should always be kept in the dark. 
Rural housekeepers do not need to be told this, but 
many others who live in towns and cities should 
know that potatoes exposed to the light, for a day 
only, have their flavor injured, and the longer expos¬ 
ed the worse they are. Never use a greenish potato. 
IBrealtiast Indian SVied Calces.—1 
quart of meal, 2 eggs, 1 cup of sour milk, 1 tea¬ 
spoonful of saleratus. Mix them with new milk 
hard enough to make them round with your hand, 
