AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
340 
sheet zinc, scraped clean and cut up will do—and 
pouring upon this half a gill or a gill of muriatic 
acid (hydro-chloric acid) with three or four times 
as much water. The cork is left out until effer¬ 
vescence ceases. The fluid will become saturated 
with zinc in an hour or two, and the fluid thus 
obtained may stand loosely corked to keep out 
dust, and is always ready for use. A drop or two 
of this applied with a slick to wet the surface 
where copper or iron is to be soldered, is quite as 
good as sal-ammoniac. In soldering pewter, 
grease is applied to the surface instead of resin. 
Much practice and skill are required to mend 
brittannia or pewter successfully, owing to the fact 
that these articles are so nearly like solder in 
composition, that they melt easily, and are liable 
to be melted down without special care. 
We have given all needful particulars, follow¬ 
ing which, any one will, with a little practice, be 
able to do a great deal of “tinkering,” at no little 
aving of time, expense, and annoyance. 
■ ■ ■ -«tt— < >-<&-■ 
Hints on Cooking, etc. 
liCmon Clieese Cake. 
Contributed to the Agriculturist by Mrs. S. 
Wagstaff, N. T. To 1 lb. of lump sugar, pounded, 
add 6 eggs, leaving out two of the whites, the 
juice of three lemons, the rinds of two grated, 
and £ lb. of butter. Put all the ingredients into a 
pan, and stir them gently over a slow fire until 
the mixture becomes thick, and looks like honey. 
Line the smallest size of patty pans with puff 
paste, put in a teaspoonful of the mixture, and 
bake. The mixture will keep twelve months, in 
a jar covered with paper, and set in a dry place. 
Soda Cake. 
Nice for the tea table ; by the same : Mix 1 lb. 
of flour, 1 lb. Zante currants, £ lb. sugar, £ lb. of 
butter, £ pint of buttermilk,a teaspoonful of carbon¬ 
ate of soda, spice to your taste; bake half an hour. 
[The following five recipes for cakes were con¬ 
tributed by Lucy E. Cady, Columbia Co., N. Y. 
Some of them we have tested and found good.] 
Iiemon Cake. 
To 3 cups of flour add 2 of sugar, £ cup butter, 
1 of sweet milk, 4 eggs, l teaspoonful soda, 2 
cream tartar, 1 extract lemon. 
Belscate Cake. 
2£ cups flour, It of sugar, £' of butter, £ of sour 
milk, the whites of three eggs, £ teaspoonful 
soda, 1 extract lemon. 
Sponge Cake. 
2 cups flour, 1£ white sugar, 1 of sweet milk, 
£ of butter, 3 eggs, I teaspoonful cream tartar, 1 
of soda. 
Caroline Cake. 
2 cups .flour, 2 of sugar, 1 of sweet milk, whites 
of 5 eggs, 3 tablespoonfuls butter, £ teaspoonful 
cream tartar, £ of soda, flavor with lemon. 
CUeap Cake. 
2 cups flour, 1 of sugar, 1 of sweet milk, 5 
tablespoonfuls butter, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoonful cream 
tartar, £ of soda. 
SEng'HisJii Plum Pudding. 
By Mrs. Wagstaff. 1 lb. of sultana raisins, 1 lb. 
dried currants, 1 lb. suet chopped fine, 1 lb. 
flour, 1 lb. bread crumbs, a little pounded spice, 
1 oz. candied lemon peel, orange, and citron, 
1 nutmeg grated, £ lb. sugar. Mix all together, 
rubbing it well with the hand ; than add eight 
eggs well beaten, £ pint new milk, and two wine 
glasses of brandy, stir it up well with a wooden 
spoon, be careful not to make it too wet, put it in 
a mold or cloth, and boil four hours; serve 
with wine sauce. [An English friend at our elbow 
says, it should be boiled six hours, then allowed 
to cool, and afterward, say in a day or two, 
boiled six hours again, using a cloth always, not 
a mold. His mother used to make it so at home, 
and he knows it was good.— Ed ] 
Sweet Potatoes matte o£ Erisli Potatoes. 
Steam them well, and wring them in a towel to 
make them mealy ; mash till there are no lumps 
left, and sweeten with good brown sugar to the 
taste. They are now ready to be baked, fried, or 
made into puddings. At least, so says Oregon 
Farmer. 
IBaked Eg'g' Plawt. 
This vegetable is usually cut in slices, and fried 
in butter or lard. When cooked in this way, it 
absorbs too much fat to be easily digested, and 
can not safely be eaten by those inclined to dys¬ 
pepsia. We have recently heard of the following 
method, by which this difficulty is avoided. Let 
the plants be very nearly ripe ; cut them in 
halves, and remove part of the middle pulp. Pre¬ 
pare dressing as for stuffing a turkey, fill the 
plants ; put the halves together, and bake them. 
This is said to make an excellent dish. 
Eg'g Tea or €o££ee. 
Mrs. C. 0. Brown, Calhoun Co., Mich., directs 
to : Beat the yolk of an egg, with 1 tablespoon¬ 
ful of sugar and put into it a cup of cold tea or 
coffee. Add £ a cup of cold water in Summer, 
or boiling water in Winter. Put in cream to suit 
the taste. Then whip the white of the egg to a 
froth, and stir it in; this is nice for an invalid. 
A First-rate Corn Bread. 
It is hard to conceive, what, as a nation, we 
should do without our great staple Indian Corn, 
of which about a thousand million bushels, or 
more than fifty thousand million pounds ! ! are now 
annually produced in our country. What crop 
would take its place ! As an article of food it is 
both healthful and nutritious, and is hardly ex¬ 
celled even hy wheat. Yet comparatively few 
families make any account of it in the culinary 
department. The hasty-pudding or mush, poorly 
made, and not half boiled, the Johnny Cake (jour¬ 
ney cake 1) made essentially of meal, salt, and 
water, or a little milk, are the chief articles of 
diet prepared from corn, in three families out of 
four. No wonder, children grow up with a dis¬ 
like of it, and in after life feel as an old gentleman 
remarked to us recently: “ I don’t want any ‘ In¬ 
dian ’ in my family, I had enough of it while a 
boy.” But this should not be so ; there is an al¬ 
most infinite variety of wholesome, nourishing, 
healthful preparations to be made of Indian corn, 
which are both pleasant to the taste, and econom¬ 
ical withal. (A pound of meal usually costs less 
than half the price of a pound of flour, while it 
contains about the same amount of nutriment) 
We have given several recipes for the prepara¬ 
tions referred to, some cheap, and some more 
expensive, and we shall give many others. Here 
is one, partly meal and partly flour, which we 
have used for a few months, and which to our 
taste is first-rate : 
To one quart of thick sour milk, or of butter¬ 
milk, add 1£ teacupfuls of molasses ; 3 cups fine 
meal ; 3£ cups of flour ; 1 teaspoonful of salt, 
and 2 teaspoonfuls of soda. (Sweet milk may be 
used as well, by adding only l£ teaspoonfuls of 
soda, and 3 of cream of tartar ) Stir well together; 
put into a basin, and steam three hours, than bake 
one hour. It is moist and delicious, and will keep 
good for several days. The steaming may be 
done in a regular steaming vessel, or in any 
kettle, by simply setting the basin upon a brick 
block, to support it above the boiling water—just 
as bread is steamed. The kettle will need to be 
covered, of course. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
About the Hair. 
Every one knows, of course, that a lady’s good 
appearance depends not a little upon the care be¬ 
stowed upon the hair, and I need not say that ne¬ 
glecting to have the hair neatly brushed and kept 
in proper bounds, indicates want of taste more 
than almost anything else. On the contrary, the 
danger is, that the hair will be injured hy the ex¬ 
cessive or injudicious treatment it receives, with 
the hope of improving its appearance. From ill 
health, arising from the use of tea and coffee, and 
from a thousand other causes, the head is often 
hot and feverish, and the hair becomes harsh and 
dry. It will not then lie smoothly, and resort is 
had to oil or grease in various forms. The sale 
of manufactured “ hair oils ” is enormous, show¬ 
ing their extensive use. These, whatever names 
they may bear, are almost all made from sweet 
oil, or lard, perfumed with various extracts, and 
they yield an immense profit. But their use is in 
most cases positively injurious. When the body 
is in health, nature supplies the scalp with an 
abundance of oil, exactly fitted for the hair, and 
when not in health, no external application of ar¬ 
tificial oil can take the place of the natural. On 
the contrary, these artificial hair oils, in spite of 
the perfumes they contain, become rancid, and do 
more harm than good. They clog up the natural 
oil ducts, the skin becomes still more dry, and 
scales off in the small particles, called “ dandruff.” 
Then resort is had to “ hair washes,” which con¬ 
sist chiefly of alcohol. These dissolve the dan¬ 
druff, and stimulate the scalp, and at first seem 
to be beneficial, but in the end they only aggra¬ 
vate the difficulty. 
There is only one application that is safe and 
beneficial under all circumstances, and this is 
cold water. No soap should ever be used with it, 
as this dissolves off the natural oil, and renders 
the hair dry and stiff. But pure water washes 
out dandruff Without removing the oil, and leaves 
the skin cool and clean, and thus promotes the 
growth and health of the hair. Some persons 
take cold in using cold water, but this may be 
prevented by wiping the hair as dry as possible, 
using two or three towels, and then putting on a 
covering—a warm cap or a handkerchief tied on— 
until the head is nearly dry. Ladies having thick 
hair, complain that it does not dry out. But 
thorough rubbing, with a warm cloth, if need be, 
will generally dry it so that, the heat of the head 
will drive off any remaining moisture. 
Morning is the best time to wash the hair. At 
night, the system is tired and debilitated, and if 
one then lies down with the hair wet, the eva¬ 
poration may produce a cold. The writer speaks 
from experience. When ‘formerly bathing both 
the head and body at night, a cold was the usual 
consequence ; but latterly, a morning bath, taken 
as quickly as possible, followed by a brisk rubbing 
with towels, is indulged one, two, or three times 
a week, with no resulting cold, but greatly to 
the promotion of health. When the hair 
needs anything to -make it lie smooth, whether 
after bathing and drying it, or at other times, 
it is put in place with a brush dampened 
simply with pure water, which is quite a-s effec¬ 
tual as oil, and far neater and more healthful. 
Let any one try cold water on the hair, for six 
months, with the precautions above indicated, and 
they will never return to any other “ hair oils,” 
or “hair washes”—at least so thinks 
Onr who has tkied it. 
--*-o»-- 
How many cold, gloomy homes might be en¬ 
livened by the exercise of those small, sweet 
courtesies of life, so easily given, and so magical 
in their effects. 
