308 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
TSIE MTOESm®. 
(For other Household Items , see “Basket ” pages). 
Some Household Conveniences. 
BT L, D. SNOOK, TATES CO., N. T. 
Knife Cleaner. —Housekeepers generally have 
no more facilities for scouring cutlery, than is afford¬ 
ed by a rag and pounded brick or sand-stone. While 
Fig. 1.— KNIFE CLEANER. 
knives and forks can be cleaned in this way, there 
is an easier and cleaner method of doing it. A 
convenient home-made knife cleaner is shown in 
the engraving, fig. 1. B is an inch and a half board, 
10 inches wide, and 18 long, with three inches of 
one end dressed down to half an inch in thickness. 
A is a lever 14 inches long, one inch thick, and four 
wide, with one end hinged to the side of the board, 
as shown in the engraving. I 7 is a prepared 
scouring or Bath brick, such as is sold at the drug 
and grocery stores. To use the cleaner, fold the 
lever over backwards, and scrape about a teaspoon¬ 
ful of the brick upon the lever bed, place one or 
more knife blades on the powdered brick, and with 
the left hand press the lever firmly on them, moving 
the knives back and forth with the right hand. 
Use the polish either wet or dry. A piece of 
spongy leather may be nailed on the top and bot¬ 
tom of the lever, the upper piece to be used for 
polishing, after the knife has been scoured, washed, 
and wiped, and to be wiped lastly, with woolen or 
cotton flannel. 
A Folding Ironing Table. —An ironing table 
Ihould be abundantly long, and for the use of most 
A very cheap and extremely convenient ironing- 
table is shown in fig. 2 ; it is made by securing to 
the wainscoting, or directly to the wall, with 
hinges, the board, B, which is three and one-half 
feet wide, and five or six feet in length. The 
board is here shown folded down, entirely out of 
the way. The manner of folding and securing the 
legs, is seeen in fig. 3. One leg is hinged at each 
outer corner of the board, and when folded, one 
end of the clasp, P, is turned over them, as shown, 
keeping them from sagging, and always in place 
when the board is not in use. The table is easily 
secured to the wall of any room, and could be used 
in a well ventilated shed or summer kitchen in 
summer, and in the regular kitchen in winter. 
Home Topics. 
BT FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Can Washing l»c Made Easy! 
I read of wealthy people in foreign lands who 
think it a sign of poverty to wash oftener than 
twice a year, and then they devote a week or so to 
the job. Only two washings in a year would suit 
us pretty well, if they were only like our usual 
washing days ; but since we can neither be com¬ 
fortable nor healthy without clean clothes and fre¬ 
quent changes, we would not like to wait longer 
than one week for our soiled pieces to accumulate, 
for, even then most of us find the task of washing 
them a hard one. 
“ If you have one of the very best washing ma¬ 
chines”—suggests the masculine sympathizer. 
But I have my doubts—because, you see, none of 
the machines will wash clothes clean without soft 
•water, and plenty of it. 
“ Use boiling-hot suds,” they say, and that we 
cannot do when we use our own hands. But if a 
large washing is to be done with boiling-suds, 
somebody must put a good many pailfuls of water 
Fig. 2.— IRONING TABLE FOLDED. 
persons, six inches higher than the common dining 
or kitchen table. The surface of many tables, 
when used for ironing, is sadly disfigured by the 
hot iron, which blisters and dissolves the varnish. 
Fig. 3.— underside of board. 
over the fire to heat; for washing-machine direc¬ 
tions also bids us be careful not to put too many 
pieces into the machine-tub at one time—not more 
in quantity than two sheets. “A new broom sweeps 
clean,” and the new washing-machine is often 
much praised, while the novelty of it makes the 
men folks take an interest in its use. The thing is 
often cumbersome, and 
when the washing is 
done by one hurried 
woman, she will some¬ 
times bend her back 
over the old-fashion¬ 
ed wash-board sooner 
than get the machine 
out and put it away, 
and do all the lift¬ 
ing of water besides. 
Plenty of soft-water, 
easily conveyed to and 
from our boilers and 
tubs—when everybody 
can have that—I think, 
with our machines, 
and soaps, and wash¬ 
ing fluids, washing will 
not be a very difficult 
or a very disagreeable 
business One of the 
first necessities in 
house-building, it seems to me, is a large cistern 
for rain-water, unless the well-water is soft, or 
a spring supplies all the soft-water that is need¬ 
ed. The cistern-pump should be set high, upon 
a sink or otherwise, so that water could be 
pumped by means of a trough, into tubs setting 
upon a wash-bench. This might save some lifting, 
and if this trough would convey water from the 
pump to the boiler, in place over the fire, so much 
the better. In city houses, and in some country 
houses, the occupants may have the advantage of 
stationary tubs, 'which can be filled and emptied 
without any lifting, by means of water-pipes. If 
1 should ever have to earn my living as a hired 
household servant, I should have the “imper¬ 
tinence” to inquire after the facilities for washing. 
“ Slighting ” the Ironing. 
“I never learned howto slight my work,” said 
my very neat and nice neighbor.—“ More’s the 
pity,” thought 1, as I looked at her pale and sad. 
face. I really think it is hardly more impor¬ 
tant to learn how to do work well than it is to learn 
how and when to slight one’6 work. We don’t ask 
any one to do our washing less carefully. The 
clothes cannot be made too clean—though to be 
sure they might be all worn out by hard and indis¬ 
criminate rubbing on the wash-board. If we could 
have everything as we choose, we might say that our 
clothing cannot be ironed too smooth, any more 
than washed too clean; but clean it must be, for 
health’s sake, whether it is smooth or not. 
“It took me two hours to iron that pair of cassi- 
mere trousers,” said my neighbor. I can see them 
still, though they are hundreds of miles away—that 
pair of gray cassimere trousers hanging freshly- 
ironed upon a chair. It is hardly exaggerating to 
say that they looked “as good as new,” and not at 
all as most washed and ironed woolen trousers 
look. That was work which it paid to do carefully. 
Every seam had been nicely pressed open, then the 
whole had been ironed while it was damp, pressing 
it heavily and carefully on the wrong side, pulling 
it evenly into shape as the ironing went on. The 
woman who ironed those trousers can not bear 
to leave a wrinkle anywhere in anything she irons. 
She could not rest if every brown towel was not 
folded exactly even, and pressed quite smooth in 
every part, and her conscience would have con¬ 
demned her if she had not turned every sheet all 
about, and pressed her hot iron over every inch of 
it. That is labor which does not pay, it seems to 
me. I have not enough of royal blood in me, and 
few of my acquaintances have, I fancy, to feel any 
discomfort from such semi-wrinkles as remain in 
the lower half of a sheet wheD it has been doubled 
and ironed so that only the upper half came in 
contact with the flat-iron. It is the same with my 
under-garments, and I would not thank any one for 
spending their precious time ironing the backs 
of night-dresses, etc. Not that I consider the 
fronts of any more importance than the backs, but 
as the garment is laid out upon the ironing-table, 
the front is naturally uppermost, and when that has 
been ironed, the whole body is smooth enough for 
comfort and for good looks. 
Of this creed I am not in the least ashamed, 
though earlier in life I supposed that 6uch ironing 
was only to be done secretly when in haste, and 
never to be told upon the house-tops. You see, my 
friends, we cannot—we who have souls as well as 
bodies—do all that we want to do each day and 
every day. We have to make constant choice be¬ 
tween things of more or less importance. We want 
to keep our houses well, and we want to take good 
care of our children, and we want—oh! ever so 
many things that we can’t have in these busy 
years, and wc must(fo to bed when bed-time comes, 
for the 6ake of health and good-nature, and no 
votes of ours can put more hours into the day, or 
more days into the week. 
When I give a hired girl instruction about the 
ironing, I tell her to iron very carefully all of the 
outside garments, not because they are better than 
the under-garments, but because wrinkles in these 
offend the eye. It certainly makes life more pleas¬ 
ant to have those clothes that meet the eye look as 
smooth as their texture naturally permits—to have 
them look as good as new. As for the under-gar¬ 
ments, they are so ironed that as they hang upon 
the clothes-frames, or lie folded in the drawer, they 
look clean and smooth, and nobody finds any 
trouble in their use. If the children should say to> 
