1254 
August 23, 1919 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
Simple Science 
By Dr. F. D. Crane 
Removing Lime from Teakettle 
I low can I take lime out of an alumi¬ 
num teakettle ? mks. r. y. 
Mayville, Mich. 
If it were merely a matter of pure 
lime it would be rather easy, but in fact 
we have'a complex deposit in teakettles 
which is really all the less soluble min¬ 
erals in the water, and there are nearly 
always some magnesia salts. As I could 
find nothing in the books. I turned to my 
domestic teakettle, and found quite a nice 
layer on which to experiment. This was 
attacked and removed by moderately 
strong commercial hydrochloric (muri¬ 
atic) acid, applied a little at a time and 
swabbed around with a bit of rag on a 
stick. (I wired the rag on for conveni¬ 
ence and it lasted quite a while. I The 
aluminum is attacked a little by the acid, 
but the lime layer is softened and re¬ 
moved rather rapidly, and it is advisable 
to use but a little of the acid at a time. 
Rinse it out and use new, since, as the 
acid takes up lime, it loses its strength. 
Of course I cannot say that this treat¬ 
ment will work on all deposits, and will 
leave all teakettles unattacked, since there 
may be pits and thin spots where the acid 
will act rapidly. In fact there are nearly 
always pits and pinholes in teakettle bot¬ 
toms after a few years' wear, since bits 
of metal find their way in. and practically 
any other metal with aluminum will make 
a little electric battery in which the 
aluminum will be the destroyed element. 
So vou run some risk, in cleaning the 
thing up. of uncovering one of these pin¬ 
holes. which is already about through the 
metal. 
Waterproofing Tent with Paraffin 
I have some tents which leak on ac¬ 
count of little black spots caused by 
mildew. Will the paraffin mixture cure 
them? Will it make the tent stiff? Should 
the tent be up or down when it is used? 
Erie, Pa. h. n. f. 
Paraffin dissolved in gasoline or kero¬ 
sene will probably stop these holes. It 
can best be put on a stretched tent, and 
plenty of time allowed for the solvent to 
evaporate, and no smoking or open flames 
allowed for some time. Of course the 
tent will always be more likely to catch 
fire. If there were only a moderate num¬ 
ber of the holes I would sooner melt a 
drop of paraffin on each, with a warm 
iron, say a soldering iron not hot enough 
to scorch and a lump of paraffin pressed 
against the other side of the cloth at each 
point. 
constant danger that there will be some 
sort of accident, with a resulting short 
l'utting a tfhinc on the Windows 
circuit, which would flash into the dust, 
etc., and cause a bad fire. 
Smoothing Blistered Parchment 
In order to straighten a folded parch¬ 
ment paper diploma I ironed it, and now 
it is blistery. What can I do to make it 
smooth agan? It cannot be wetted on 
account of thoVvriting on it. S. J. K. 
Lehighton, Pa. 
Perhaps it can be dampened by taking 
great care and then placed on a sheet of 
glass under pressure to dry. This is a 
case where some reader may know the 
exact cure. 
Pickles in Galvanized Bucket 
We put some chow-chow pickles in a 
galvanized bucket to stand with salt, 
poured off the salt water and boiled with 
vinegar. Do you think they are injured 
for eating? w. B. F. 
Daldock, S. C. 
Of course we cannot tell how much 
zinc you got into the pickles, and zinc 
salts are not particularly poisonous, but 
personally we would not care for them. 
Notes from a Reader 
Tiie R. N.-Y. is surely expanding, or 
we are just finding out how much there is 
in it. When our acquaintance first began 
we always turned to the woman’s page 
with the secret hope (we will confess I of 
finding some crochet patterns there, but 
we went no further. Next, we discovered 
“Hope Farm Notes." and wondered how 
long such interesting letters had been 
written, and we plodding on in ignorance 
of them. They are good as conundrums, 
for they keep one guessing how many 
there can be in that household, and set¬ 
tling in our own mind this or that one iu 
their proper places. Although in differ¬ 
ent parts of the country and under dis¬ 
similar circumstances, still there is some¬ 
thing common to all farms and their fam¬ 
ilies : for instance, those hot days, the 
u’ourth and just preceding it. We cer¬ 
tainly “roasted." “fried” and “stewed” 
also, but it was all in the hayfield and 
barn. The holiday itself was a veritable 
scorcher, but we were certainly more com¬ 
fortable in the hayfield where we got the 
benefit of all the breezes that blew than 
were those who went to the nearby town 
to celebrate in the dust and heat. Not 
patriotic, perhaps, but help is scarce, the 
hay abundant, and the hot sun fast dry¬ 
ing it beyond the palatable stage for the 
cattle next Winter. So everybody works, 
and if it so happens that one's lot is 
among those whose dear one went and 
came not back, work is a blessed panacea. 
In our community it is no disgrace; it 
would be considered more of one to sit on 
the porch when the garden needed weed¬ 
ing. That is considered quite the wo¬ 
man’s job: the males seem to think that 
as the Garden of Eden was closed to them, 
all other gardens may be. 
Ours is only for family supplies, and to 
be neighborly with. The peas were a fail¬ 
ure and if not for the neighborly act my 
emergency shelf would have no canned 
peas. Such a boon to the country house¬ 
keeper is the art of canning, especially so 
in harvest time, and the meat man only 
making one trip a week. She can go to 
the cellar, select a can of beef or veal, and 
her dinner is well started. The potatoes 
also from the cellar are as sound and fit 
as they were last Fall, but we wonder if 
all the housewives remember that one of 
their nightly chores should be to soak the 
next day's supply over night in cold wa¬ 
ter? It’s such an improvement that it's 
time well spent. 
If the Pastoral Parson really wished 
an answer to his question at the close of 
his article on page 1110, we would say 
that there is a good plain rule to go by 
which reads, “Six days shalt thou labor 
and do all thy work, but the seventh is the 
Sabbath * * * iu which thou shalt 
not do any work. A new york reader. 
Rusty Water 
We put salt in a pump which seemed 
to be frozen last Winter, and since Spring 
have been troubled by rusty water. Is 
there anything to be put in the pipe to 
do away with the rust? F. n. P, 
Chatham. N. Y. 
It is not likely the salt had anything 
to do with the present condition, though 
it may have started the action. You 
have a combination of pipe and water 
which do not agree, and your hope is in 
a galvanized pipe, best quality. First, 
be sure the rust is not in the water, iu 
solution, that is. You can test this by 
taking some from the well directly and 
letting it stand in a warm place for a 
few hours in a shallow pan. 
Canned Rhubarb Affecting Containers 
The acid of canned rhubarb eats holes 
in the caps of Mason jars. Would 
aluminum caps be affected by the acid? 
Is the acid as strong in the uncooked 
rhubarb as in the cooked? 
Jamaica, Vt. MRS. J. x. w. 
The aluminum will be less: affected, but 
the safe thing is to use a form of Mason 
caps which allows only glass to come in 
contact with the contents. We can find 
nothing in books as to any decrease in 
the acidity of rhubarb from cooking, and 
it seems unlikely that it should be the 
case. 
Injury to Galvanized Pipes 
Is there any quality in common tar 
which destroys the galvanizing of water 
pipes? We drain from a roof once tarred 
for our laundry and the pipes seem to 
rust out. C. S. 
Areola, N. J. 
It is not probable that the tar has any¬ 
thing to do with it, but as you speak of 
soot on the roof, it is possible that the 
first washings are acid enough to make 
trouble. 
Uncovered Wires in Barn 
Is the danger from dust on the wires 
in a barn enough to justify the cost of 
putting them in metal tubes? 
Marlborough, Mass. w. m. e. w. 
You say nothing as to the voltage you 
will have, and that has a lot to do with 
the answer. There used to be a wood 
conduit which was safe and much cheaper 
than metal, but perhaps your insurance 
regulations do not allow it. We cannot 
approve of open wires in a barn, not on 
account of the danger from dust, which 
is slight, but because of the great and 
..♦.**■** ' 2 
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