1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
309 
me, (as they never think of doing,) “ mamma, you 
don’t iron our clothes well enough now-a-days,” 
it would not cause me one tithe the pain it gives 
me now to hear them say, “ mamma, you hardly 
ever read us a story now, you are always so busy.” 
[The Dress Reform Corset-Waist and Skirt- 
Supporter. 
This claims to be “ a corset for those who cannot 
wear corsets.” Like the waist of the “Emancipa¬ 
tion Suit,” it supports the bust without the use of 
bones or steels, and its waist form, and skirt attach¬ 
ment, make it a good 6kirt-supporter, relieving the 
hips, and making the shoulders do the burden-bear¬ 
ing. For those who prefer to have the time-hon¬ 
ored chemise, or who have become attached to the 
use of a long-sleeved high-necked shirt, this corset- 
waist commends itself, but no one who has tried 
the emancipation suit, or the chemile, or the chemi- 
lette, or the chemlin, (or any kindred combination- 
garment,) is likely to forsake its simplicity and com¬ 
fort for either low-necked waist or corset. 
Keeping a Cow. 
I may make some note of my dairy affairs, even 
if they are small compared with those of Ogden 
Farm. “Small business,” you may say, when you 
learn that I have only half of the milk from one 
cow. But from that milk I feed my present fami¬ 
ly, (only myself and four children), with all the 
milk and cream and butter and cheese that we want, 
and really I am glad I have not more milk to take 
care of. After buying milk for two years, from 
two to three and a half quarts daily, it seems very 
good to have from seven to eight quarts per day al¬ 
most for nothing. The man who milks the cow, 
while Mr. R. is absent, has half of the milk. I had 
some notions of my own, held rather vaguely until 
last spring, when some anxiety as to the treatment 
of my own cow and calf set me to reading upon 
the subject, and those ideas were confirmed then 
by my reading, and since by my experience. It 
seemed to me that if feeding a cow on corn had the 
effect to lessen the quantity of milk, very coarse 
corn-meal, (too coarse to get one quarter of it 
through a common sieve, but all the feed we had 
for a few weeks), would have the same effect, 
though in less degree. I found that when 1 mixed 
the cow’s mess myself, scalding the meal with boil¬ 
ing water, and leaving it to soak a few hours before 
it was fed, the quantity of milk and cream was in¬ 
creased, and it was better still when the mess was 
half bran and half meal. Another notion which I 
cannot give up is about the time of milking. It 
seems to me that the hours should be regular, di¬ 
viding the twenty-four hours somewhere near even¬ 
ly. If a cow is milked before six in the morning, 
she should not be allowed to go unmilked long af¬ 
ter six at night, and when a cow milked early in 
the morning, goes unmilked until after eight o’clock 
at night, night after night, I believe that she is in¬ 
jured as a milker in a way that she will not recover 
from, at least not until after next calving. Some¬ 
times our former bossy, “Gentle,” roaming in the 
woods and marshes for her food, would fail to 
come home at night, and when she was mi]ked 
sometime next forenoon, the milk was much poor¬ 
er than usual in quality, and the regular quantity 
was always decreased from that time, and again af¬ 
ter each time of lying out all night. So when I 
6ee a cow stand lowing to be milked, and worrying 
to get to her calf, from the time of home-coming 
at about six o’clock, until a very industrious man 
cannot see to work any longer in the long days of 
June, I feel a good deal of pity for both cow and 
calf, and some pity for their owner, as I believe 
that such treatment injures the milk at the time, 
and lessens it for the future. If I am mistaken it 
would be more comfortable to know it. 
At each milking I set away a part of my portion 
of the milk for butter-making, but I make scarcely 
a pound of butter each week. Of course this has 
to be “churned" as often as twice a week, and it 
might seem scarcely worth the trouble. But this 
amount of butter is quite sufficient for the children 
and myself in the summer, and the trouble of mak¬ 
ing it is small. I skim the pans carefully, mixing 
as little milk as possible with the cream, stirring 
each skimming thoroughly with the rest in the jar, 
so that the small mass of cream is always of even 
quality. I keep the cream as cool as I can (during 
warm weather), and when I go to churn it I have 
to spend but a few minutes before the butter comes. 
It is usually ready to work over in less than fifteen 
minutes, sometimes in five minutes. The churning 
is done in a quart bowl, with a tablespoon, and 
though the butter may not be “gilt-edged,” it 
seems to us as good as we are able to buy in this 
vicinity. The buttermilk is carefully divided 
among three children, who like it better than any 
sweetmeats. 
Probably more butter would be called for, if the 
fresh milk was less prized as food, and if bonny- 
clabber and Dutch-cheese had smaller attractions. 
My own supper is sometimes nothing, and some¬ 
times simply a saucer of soft Dutch-cheese, made 
by draiuingthe loppered milk for a few hours with¬ 
out heating or squeezing it, salting it a little, and 
mixing it with sweet cream. It is nutritious and 
palatable, and much more easily digested than 
pressed cheese or Dutch-cheese (or cottage) that is 
hard from having been heated before draining. 
All this is not worth telling to dairymen, but 
there may be other women who might get milk 
and butter and cheese as I do, if they could get 
some one to do the milking “on shares.” 
A Cork Puller. 
In former years we have mentioned the diffi¬ 
culty of putting old hoop-skirts to any useful pur¬ 
pose. Next to these as difficult to dispose of is an 
old umbrella. It seems as if there might be some 
use to which the combination of wires and sticks 
might be put after they had ceased to serve to ward 
off rain and sun, and we shall be glad to hear of 
any useful purposes an old umbrella may be made 
to serve—except that of a support for climbing 
plants, which we figured years ago. A correspon¬ 
dent, whose name we have mislaid, sends us a de¬ 
scription of the manner of making a puller for ex¬ 
tracting a cork from the interior of a bottle, from 
an umbrella wire. In fig. 1 is shown the end of an 
umbrella wire at the left-hand, and the manner in 
which the forked end should be bent is given at 
the right. Fig. 2 gives the whole wire, with the 
upper end bent down to make the thing complete. 
It is bent down as in the left-hand cut, and then 
spread as shown at the right-hand. The two legs 
are pressed together to go into the neck of the bot¬ 
tle, and when within they will spread far enough to 
catch the cork, which, by turning the bottle upside 
down, will be brought between c and d, and by pull¬ 
ing the whole out the two legs will be so compressed 
by the neck of the bottle as to hold the cork firmly 
and thus extract it with great ease. 
-—» —- 
Household Queries. 
Checkers.— “ R. L. B.” To give the “ scientific 
method ” of playing this game, would require an 
illustrated treatise, for which we have not room. 
Paste for Paper Hanging. — “G. H.,” Dunn 
Co., Wis., asks for a recipe for paste that will hold. 
We have never found any trouble with good flour 
paste. The difficulty is probably with the wall, 
but as we are not told what kind of a wall has 
given trouble, it is difficult to advise. Glue size 
will generally remedy the worst cases ; pour cold 
water over half a pound of glue, and let it soak 12 
hours, or until thoroughly softened, then pour on 
enough boiling water to make a gallon. If the 
glue was properly soaked, it will dissolve at once ; 
if any remains, heat until it dissolves. With this 
go over a new wall, or an old white-washed one that 
has been thoroughly swept with a stiff broom, and 
the paper will stick if the paste is good. Some 
use alum in the paste, to make it more adhesive. 
We have never found it necessary. Here is a 
recipe for paste with alum. Four lbs. of sifted flour, 
and two oz. of powdered alum, are to be mixed 
with cold water, to form a stiff batter with no 
lumps. Have ready a kettle of boiling water ; let 
one stir rapidly, while another pours on the boiling 
water gradually. If this is properly done, the 
flour will be thoroughly cooked, and change color. 
This quantity of flour will make a common pail i 
full. If found too thick when cold, thin with cold 
water, stirring thoroughly. Always use cold paste. 
It should be thin enough to work readily with the 
brush. Experience is the only guide. If paste 
has to stand for some time, cover the top with a 
layer of cold water, to prevent a hard skin from 
forming on the surface. If this does not meet the 
case, let us know. 
Autumn Leaves. —“ Mrs. C. D. C.” We will try 
not to forget your request about autumn leaves, but 
it would be rather early to talk about them now, 
even if we had room. We made some experiments 
with them last fall, and think we have hit upon a 
method of treating them, far superior to oiling, 
varnishing, or any other that has been published, 
and we shall be glad to have others know about it. 
There are some questions which come to us that 
may be answered in many ways, and in such cases 
we like to call in the advice of our housekeeping 
friends, who will answer about 
Mince Meat. —Here is a case which will appeal 
to every mother. A little girl who is only 12 years 
old is learning to cook, and she hopes that we will 
publish, “ before Christmas,” (bless her little heart), 
a recipe for a mince that will keep. Her mother’s 
is a very nice mince, but does not keep well. Let 
us help her to one that will. 
Black Dye.— One of our housekeepers wishes 
to know the best black dye, but she does not state 
whether for cotton, woolen, or silk stuffs. 
Oat-Meal. 
Probably the principal reason why oat-meal is so 
little used in this country, is the difficulty of pro. 
curing it outside of cities. There is not enough 
demand to warrant country mills in making it prop¬ 
erly, or for country store keepers to keep it on 
hand. Even in cities it is difficult to always find it 
of the best quality. Indian-meal answers so many 
of the purposes of oat-meal, that our ancestors 
readily adopted it in place of the oat-meal they had 
known at home, and the use of which is mainly 
confined to those Europeans who will not give it 
up, and those Americans who have been advised to 
take it as an article of diet. In cities the best oat¬ 
meal is imported, and the large stores keep both 
Irish and Scotch. Oats do much better, and give 
a larger grain in England, than here, and in 
Scotland and Ireland they are better than in 
England. The imported meal is kiln-dried, and 
will keep a long time without spoiling. The oat, 
like Indian corn, requires long cooking in order to 
break the starch cells, and render it digestible ; for 
this reason it is rarely made into bread and cakes, 
but is almost universally cooked with water, in the 
form called porridge in Scotland, and mush with 
us. To prepare it in the best manner, a “ farina 
kettle,” or an inner kettle set in an outer one con¬ 
taining water, is the most convenient; it can hard¬ 
ly be cooked too long. To those unaccustomed to 
it, the mush has at first a slightly bitter taste, but 
those who persevere soon become very fond of it. 
In the form of mush it may be eaten hot or cold, 
with butter and sugar, milk or cream and sugar, or 
in any of the ways in which other mtisn is eaten. 
It can not be recommended as a cheap substitute 
