JUNE 22 
440 
gomes tic (groitamjr. 
MUSHROOM CATSUP. 
I) it. KiTcniNEB recommends the follow¬ 
ing mode:—Take care that they are the 
right sort and freshly gathered. Fall grown 
flaps are preferred. Put a layer of these at 
the bottom of a deep earthen pan. and 
sprinkle them with salt; then another layer 
of mushrooms and some more salt on them, 
and so on alternately, salt and mushrooms. 
Let them remain two or three hours, by 
which time the salt will have penetrated 
the mushrooms and rendered them easy to 
break. Then pound them, in a mortar, or 
mash them well with your hands and let 
them remain for a couple of days, no longer, 
stirring them up and mashing them well 
each day. Then pour them into a stone jar 
and to eaoh quart add au ounce and a-half 
of whole black pepper and half au ounce of 
allspice; stop the jar very close and set in 
a stew-pan of boiling water, and keep it 
boiliug fur two hours at least. Take out 
the jar, pour the juice clear from the set¬ 
tlings through a hair sieve, without squeez¬ 
ing the mushrooms, into a cloau stew-pan; 
let It boil very gently for half an hour, 
ThoBo who are for superlative catsup will 
continue the boiling till the mushroom juice 
is roduoed to one-half the quantity. It 
may then be called double catsup. There 
are several advantages attending this con¬ 
centration; it will keep much better, and 
only one half the quantity be required, so 
you can flavor sauce without thinning it; 
neither is this an extravagant way of mak¬ 
ing it, merely the aqueous part is evapora¬ 
ted; skim it well and pour it into a clean, 
dry jar; cover it close and let It stand in a 
cool* place until next day, pour it oft' as 
geutly as possible (so as not to disturb the 
settlings at the bottom of the jar) through 
a tamls or a thick flannel bag, till it 1 h per¬ 
fectly clear; add a tablespoonful of good 
brandy to each pint of catsup and let It 
stand as before; a fresh sediment will be 
deposited, from which the catsup is to be 
quiotly poured off and bott led in pints or 
half pints (which have been washed with 
brandy or spirits). It is best to keep It Ul 
such quantities an are soon used. Taka es¬ 
pecial care that it is close corked and sealed 
or dipped in bottle cement. 
BILL OP FARE. 
Monday’s Tea.—For tea nice raised bis¬ 
cuit and butter, canned peaches; some of 
the oold roast beef left from dinner, sliced, 
and tomato catsup; brown bread, crackers, 
cheese, cookies and delicate cake. 1 picked, 
April IS, for the lirst, a bouquet of spring 
flowers; they have made their appearance 
rather lute; however, they loook just as 
pretty and smell as sweet as they would a 
month ago. Now they are bore, 1 will put 
them in a vase and have them on the table. 
I am very fond of flowers, and always have 
them ou my table iu their season. 
Perhaps some of the readers of the Rubai. 
may think this rather a plain bill of fare. 
Of oourse it is; it is not intended for com¬ 
pany, but for plain people, and plenty good 
enough, if nicely cooked and arranged (as It 
always ought to be) for company if com¬ 
pany happens to drop in unexpectedly. It 
takes no more time, or but little more, to 
have a dean table-cloth and napkins and 
dishes arranged in good order, than to have 
it otherwise. m. n. r. 
Union Springs, X. Y. 
--- 
ODDS AND ENDS. 
Fruit in Tin Cams.—The Poston Jour¬ 
nal of Chemistry says:—“The impression 
prevails among those who use freely fruits 
which are put up in tin cans, that they are 
injured thereby, and this impression is in 
many cases correct. We have long contend¬ 
ed that all preserved fruits and vegetables 
should be stored In glass, and that no metal 
of any klud should be brought iu contact 
with them. All fruits contain more or less 
of vegetable acids, and others that are high¬ 
ly corrosive are often formed by fermenta¬ 
tion, and the metallic vessels are considera¬ 
bly acted upon. Tin cans are held together 
by solder, au alloy into which lead enters 
largely. This metal is easily corroded by 
vegetable acids, and poisonous salts are 
formed. Undoubtedly many persons are 
greatly injured by eating tomatoes, peaches, 
etc., which have been placed in tin cans, 
and we advise all our friends who contem¬ 
plate putting up fruits the present summer 
to use only glass jars for the purpose. 
Monday’s Dinner in that Bill of Fare. 
—My friends and myself have read an 
article in your Issue of June 1 st, written by 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORHER. 
a lady, in which she givoB a “ Bill of Faro ’’ 
for Monday’s dinner. We do not think she 
knows much about economy, for if she did, 
she would never have allowed her cooking 
to accumulate until washing day. She doeB 
not state that she washed, and as for her 
baking as much as she states, we hardly 
credit the statement. She must have had 
two or more ovoiih at her command, or she 
has a shorter method of making cake t han 
we have any knowledge of. If wc are right, 
would be pleased to get, the recipe, as it 
takes us from t hree to five hours to make 
and bake a fruit-cake —as preparing the 
fruit, beating butter to a cream and eggs to 
a froth takes more time tkau she had at her 
disposal; and I think most of your lady 
readers will endorse our sentiments. — A 
Constant Header, Fulton, A T . Y. 
Cement for Broken Chinn.—A writer 
in Harper’s Bazaar recommends the follow¬ 
ing:—” One of the very best methods of 
uniting pieces of broken china is by the use 
of boiling milk. The broken surfaces must 
bo very clean, and brought into the closest 
contact by means of twine, which, after be¬ 
ing loosely tied, should be twisted up so sis 
to create considerable pressure. The article 
to be mended having boon thus prepared, Is 
placed in a pot and covered with milk that 
has been carefully skimmed. The pot is 
placed on the tire, and the milk allowed to 
boil gently for an hour or so. After being 
taken out. and allowed to cool, the pieces 
will be found very firmly united; but it is 
advisable to leave them tied together for at 
least a week or ten days, after which they 
may be freely handled and exposed to 
moderate degrees of heat and moisture.” 
Cooked Cucumbers.—^We find the fol¬ 
lowing in the Rural Southland:—“ It does 
not seem to bo very generally known,” says 
an exchange, “that the cucumber Is one of 
the most useful vegetables we have, and can 
be dressed iu a greater variety of palatable 
ways than any other, except, the tomato. It 
is better than squash and more delicate than 
the eggplant, prepared in the same manner; 
can be stewed, fried or stuffed, and, above 
all, can be parboiled, mashed up in batter 
and fried as fritters, more pleasant and 
easily prepared than any vegetable or fruit. 
When a cucumber just becomes too old to 
be used raw or for pickling, it is then at its 
best for cooking—and may be used for that 
purpose even until the seeds became hard. 
A raw cucumber is, for most persons, an 
indigestible abomination, however much 
tlioy may admire its 11avov and odor.” 
Cooking Potatoes.—Iu the case of a 
kiduey potato, 1 take as thin a slip as pos¬ 
sible off the skin, say about half au inch 
wide, out of the middle of each side and 
round the ends. In a round potato I take 
out a similar slip all around the middle of 
the potato. In either case, when properly 
cooked, the floury matter will just be seen 
peeping out in this unskinned part. The 
rest of the skin will come off as thin as gos¬ 
samer, leaving all the most nourishing part 
of the potato whole and untouched. To my 
mind this plan, simplo though it be, is the 
greatest advance ou thorough economic 
potato-cooking that I am acquainted with, 
Would that you could 6end tbo recipe to 
hundreds of cottages where potatoes are 
sadly spoiled in the cooking.—R. f. 
Domestic Inquiries.— L. asks for a re¬ 
cipe for chocolate custard aud cake; also 
for cocoauut cake and custard—Cheap and 
good. . . “Reader” asks for a recipe for 
making mushroom catsup. . . “Constant 
Reader” asks how to bleach beeswax white. 
... C. W. Wright asks for a recipe for 
making pop corn balls. . . . £ 1 . M. Gray is 
“in a peck of trouble” because of ants in 
every part of her house. Wants to know 
how to get rid of them. LSee page 344 , Ru¬ 
ral, May 25 .] _ 
To Clean White Paint, a correspondent 
recommends using powdered French chalk 
aud hot water, without soap. It adds to 
the whiteness of the paint without injuring 
it. When soap is used, add a little soda, 
wash with a flannel cloth, then rinse, and 
wipe wit h a linen cloth. 
Currant lee Cream. — Put one large 
spoonful and a half of currant, jelly into a 
basin, with half a gill of sirup; squeeze in 
one lemon and a half, add a pint of cream 
and cochineal; then pass it through asieve, 
and finish in the usual way. I like it.— 
Sarah P. C._ 
Bice Pudding .—1 cup rice; 1 of raisins; 
10 of milk; wash your rice and put it in the 
milk cold, with the other ingredients; let 
it bake slowly at first.; stir occasionally and 
iu three hours it will be done. Try it. 
Season with nutmeg.—it. m. g, 
rientific and Useful 
TO MAKE WAX FLOWERS. 
Please say to Mrs. 8. B. Ward, Marion 
Co., Oregon, that she will require the fol¬ 
lowing articles to commence wax work :— 
2 lbs. white wax, % lb. hair wire, 1 bottle 
carmine, 1 ultramarine blue, 1 bottle 
chrome .yellow, 2 bottles chrome green, No. 
1,2 bottles chrome green, No. 2,1 bottle 
rose pink, 1 bottle royal purple, 1 bottle 
scarlet powder, 1 bottle balsam fir, 2 dozen 
sheets white wax. This will do to begin 
with. Now have a clean tin dish and pour 
therein a quart or two of water; then put 
in about 1 lb. of the white wax and let it 
boil; when cool enough, so the bubbles will 
not form on top, it is ready to sheet, which 
is done as follows:—Take half of a window 
pane, 7 xi), and, after having washed it. clean, 
dip into a disb containing weak soap-suds; 
then dip into the wax aud draw out stead¬ 
ily and plunge it into the suds, when the 
sheet, will readily Come off. Lay it on a 
cloth or clean paper to dry. Proceed in 
like manner until you have enough of the 
white; then add enough of the green pow¬ 
der to make a bright color, and heat aud 
stir thoroughly until the color is evenly dis¬ 
tributed; then proceed as for sheeting 
white wax. The other colors are rubbed 
into the loavcfe after they are cut out, rub- 
biug light, or heavy according to shade. 
For patterns you can use any natural leaf, 
forming the creases In wax with t he thumb 
nail or a needle; to put the flowers together 
or the leaves on to the stem, hold in the 
hand until warm enough to stick. If the 
sheeted wax is to housed In Summer, put 
in a little balsam of flr to make it hard. If 
for Winter, none will be required. 
You can make many flowers without a 
teacher; but one to assist, in the commence¬ 
ment, would be a great help; though the 
most, particular thing about it is to get t he 
wax sheeted. The materials I have sug¬ 
gested can bo procured at any drug store, 
aud will cost from £3 to £ 4 . 50 . 
Long Eddy, N. Y. w. A. w, 
- ♦-*-* - 
SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL NOTES. 
Spent Tan, Leather Scraps, Etc.— 
Spent tan and leather scraps are waste pro¬ 
ducts often prepared for manure with indif¬ 
ferent resnlts. Spent tun is simply woody 
liber impregnated with an acid—t he former 
of no more value than sawdust; the latter 
positively injurious to many soils. Tbo 
material therefore can only be used to ad¬ 
vantage on soils deficient in vegetable mat¬ 
ter, in which it may have a beneficial chem¬ 
ical action, or on stiff, heavy eoils where it 
will act mechanically to lighten and loosen 
the textux - e. For either it Rhould be pre¬ 
viously composted with lime to neutralize 
the acid. Leather scraps are valuable be¬ 
cause of the gelatin they contain, but this 
must be liberated from the tannin hefore it 
can produce ammonia by decomposition. 
This may be secured by composting with 
unlcachcd ashes kept moist, the heap being 
covered with a foot of loam or muck to ab¬ 
sorb the gases evolved. 
A Cold Cement for Mending Earthen¬ 
ware, says a recent. English work, reckoned 
a great, secret among workmen, is made by 
grating a pound of old cheese, with a bread 
grater, into a quart of milk, iu which it 
must be left for a period of fourteen hours. 
It should bo stirred quite often. A pound 
of unslakcd lime, finely pulverized in a 
mortar, is then added, and tbo whole is 
thoroughly mixed by beating. This done, 
the. whites of 25 eggs aro incorporated with 
(ho rest, and the whole is ready for use. 
There is another cement for the same pur¬ 
pose which is used hot. It is made of resin, 
beeswax, brick-dust, and chalk boiled to¬ 
gether. The substauces to be cemented 
must be heated, and when the surfaces are 
coated with cemeiit, they must be rubbed 
hard upon each other, as in making a glue 
joint with wood. 
Laying Brick in Chimneys—Here is 
an item of use in building chimneys. Brick 
for walls, etc., should have the dust brushed 
off, and be soaked in lime-water just before 
using. The mortar will uotjjnly cling more 
firmly, but by setting more slowly, will per¬ 
mit the brick to be adjusted or dressed 
without destroying the homogeneous na¬ 
ture of the mortar by the slight movement 
incurred. Speaking of mortar, the best is 
made as follows:—Take any desired quanti¬ 
ty of best lime, slake it wit h about four gal¬ 
lons of water to one cubic foot, or thirty 
pounds of lime. Mix dry with seven times 
the measure of the stone lime and run 
through a sieve having not less than one 
hundred meshes to the inch. The material 
is then put in a heap and wet up in the 
usual manner. 
Moonshine.— In Rural New-Yorker, 
May 4 th, L. W. L. wants to know what ef¬ 
fect changes of the moon have upon animal 
and vegetable life. Investigations of these 
questions, and many others of like mean¬ 
ing, have recently been made by scientific 
men of Germany, France, and England, and 
the general opinions respecting them aro 
found to be entirely without foundation; 
and that the moon, in reality, exercises no 
•perceptible influence over things earthly, 
excepting the giving of light, “production 
of tides, the precession of the equinoxes, 
and the nutation of the earth’s axis.” The 
same will apply to stars and signs; they 
exert no sensible power over human beings* 
etc., only in the imagination of supersti¬ 
tious people, the oldest inhabitants, weath¬ 
er prophets, etc.—w. H. F. 
To Build a Chimney that. Will Not 
Smoke.—The Scientific American gives tlm 
following hints to those who would” build 
a chimney which will not smoke:"—The 
chief point is to make the throat not less 
than four inches broad and twelve long; 
then the chimney should bo abruptly en¬ 
larged to double the size, and so continued 
for one foot or more; then it may ho grad¬ 
ually tapered off as desired. But the insido 
of the chimney, throughout, its whole length 
to the top, should ho plastered very smooth 
with good mortar, which will harden with 
age. The area of » chimney should be at 
least half a square foot, and no flues less 
than sixty squaro inches. The best shapo 
for a chimney is circular, or many-sided, as 
giving less friction, (brick is the best mate¬ 
rial, as It is a non-conductor,) and the higher 
above the roof the better. 
In Laying Water Pipes, says the In¬ 
dustrial Monthly, the mouth, both for in¬ 
gress and egress, should be trumpet-shaped; 
bends should be as far as possible avoided, 
and especially sharp, angular bonds; at 
junctions, the smaller pipe should bo 
brought round Jti a curve to agree in direc¬ 
tion with the main; and, lastly, where a 
pipe rises and falls much, air is apt to col¬ 
lect iu the upper parts of the bends, and 
thus reduce the section at that part, and it 
is therefore advisable to make provision, by 
a cock or otherwise, for draining it off at 
intervals. _ 
Recipe for Red Ink.— Emma P. R., Des 
Moines, Iowa, asks the Rural New-York¬ 
er for a recipe for good red ink. Here aro 
two recipes which have been commended to 
us, but which wo have not tested. 
1 . To twelve grains of carmine add threo 
ounces of aqua ammonia, and heat gently, 
without boiliug, for seven or eight.minutes; 
then add eighteen grains of gum arable, 
stirring constantly. It must bo kept well 
corked. 
2. Add two ounces of powdered Brazil 
wood to a pint, of water, and boil it down 
to one-half tho quantity; then add one-half 
ounce gum arabio, l 'A drams of tincture 
of cochineal, aud VA ounoes of alcohol. 
Acoustic Telegraph.—Professor Wein- 
hold, of Chemnitz, Germany, has invented 
a phonic telegraph, employing neither elec¬ 
tricity, magnetism, light nor heat. Tho 
wire,which must be very carefully insulated, 
is attached at both ends to sounding boxes. 
Words uttered near one sounding box are 
repeated by tbo other very distinctly. This 
telegraph has been found to work well ou 
the short line (2,200 feet long) where the ex¬ 
periment was made. 
To Prevent Tumors’ Wood Splitting. 
—Small pieces of valuable wood, such kinds 
as are used for turning, etc., aro very lia¬ 
ble to split readily—that is, outward from 
tho center. To pi’event this, 6oak the 
pieces, when first cut, in cold water for 24 
hours, then boil in hot water for two or 
three hours, and afterward dry slowly, aud 
under cover. This will be found useful in 
making handsome mantel, toilet, aud other 
articles from sumac, cherry, and other 
woods that never grow very large. 
Dry Paint on Windows.— The most 
economical way to remove dry paint from 
the panes is to make a small swab having a 
bundle some eight inches long, dip it in a 
little diluted oxalic acid, and rub off the 
paint, with a swab. 
Limo for Wall.— N. II. Morton, if we 
were building as you are, we should use 
quick lime for our walls. This is our judg¬ 
ment, though wo do not profess to be wiser 
than a good mason ought to bo. 
