388 
RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
It takes? thought to 
Jproduc’e Mutton 
i 
Sheep raisers have their worries. Good 
stock, excellent feed and hard work may 
fail to bring profits through a sudden dis* 
ease. But sheep men who make a study of 
their problems still raise sheep.^The 
proper heating of your home is just as 
difficult a problem. You don't need to raise 
sheep, but you must heat your home— 
even if at a loss.^Just as proper care of 
sheep is profitable even if it costs money, 
so the proper solving of your heating 
problem is worth while. 
N. P Sterling Furnace 
The One Register Furnace 
does cost a few dollars more than 
other furnaces. But it repays the 
investment in longer life, less fuel 
and greater satisfaction. 
A postal will bring you- the Sterling 
Reasons Why. 
SILL STOVE WORKS 
BUY 
PLAYSUITS 
DIRECT FROM 
FACTORY 
For boys «nd girls—Stand- 
all Playsuits cover them all 
over—a rough and ready 
garment for the wear and 
tear of a full day’s play. 
We guarantee every garment 
against ripping and imper¬ 
fections. Save money by 
buying direct from factory. 
We manufacture overalls 
for grown-ups, too. Send 
for samples of material and 
complete catalog with prices 
and measurement blanks 
Standish&Alden, Inc- 
Box 677. Dept. 109 
HAVERHILL. MASS. 
Use Dandelion 
Butter Color Now 
Add a half-teaspoon- 
ftil to each gallon of 
winter cream and out 
of your churn conies 
blitter of golden .Tune 
shade to bring you 
top prices. 
All stores sell 35- 
cent bottles of Dan¬ 
delion Butter Color, 
each sufficient to keep 
that rich “Golden 
vSliade” in your butter 
all the year round. 
Standard Butter Color 
for fifty years. Purely 
vegetable. Meets all 
food laws. State and 
National. Used by all large creameries. 
Will not color the buttermilk. Tasteless. 
Wells & Richardson Co., Burlington, Vt. 
This 
Smile Says 
“I Hear Clearly” 
If you are hard of bearing you have 
embarrassing moments so do your 
friends. Is it not worth while to see if 
all this embarrassment can be avoided. 
400,000 persons are now bearing clear¬ 
ly by aid of the Acoustieon. 
A New York Physician says: “It is 
of great value to me. I should have 
been obliged to give up the practice of 
medicine long ago if i had not obtained 
this best of all devices for the aid of 
hearing.” 
We offer you the 
1921 Acoustieon 
For lO Days’ FREE TRIAL 
No Deposit—No Expense 
Just write, saying “I am hard of hearing 
and will try the Acoustieon." Give ita fair 
trial amid familiar surroundings—thus you 
can best tell what it will do for you. 
Remember, however, that the Acoustieon 
has patented features which cannot he dup¬ 
licated. So no matter what your past exper¬ 
ience lias been send for your free trial today. 
Dictograph Products Corp. 
1850 Cnn<ller IILlir.. York X. Y. 
When you write advertisers mention 
The Rural New-Yorker and you’ll get 
a quick reply and a “square deal.” See 
guarantee editorial page. 
Does Your Plant Droop? 
Have you had ill luck with your plants 
this Winter? Do they look ill and un¬ 
happy, and are you so discouraged that 
you wish you had never planted them? 
Well, the causes of ill health among 
plants are as varied as the causes of ill 
health among people, but one of the great¬ 
est is trying to grow in the same place 
plants that like different climatic condi¬ 
tions. The beautiful Cyclamen must have 
a cool room and little sunshine except on 
short wintry days, while the heliotropes 
demand a warm room and all the sun¬ 
shine available. If you have tried to 
strike a happy medium, the result has 
been disaster for both plants, and so it 
is with many others. 
All house plants are liable to attacks 
by aphids or plant lice. They attack the 
soft, succulent tips of the shoots and the 
young, tender leaves. They may he de¬ 
stroyed by dipping the plant in a tobacco 
tea. Hold the plant by the pot, dip it 
head down into the infusion and hold it 
there for five minutes. If the plants are 
too large to “dip” they may be sprayed 
with the insecticide, care being taken to 
see that every insect is covered with the 
liquid. Eternal vigilance is the price of 
keeping one’s window garden clear of 
them. 
The red spider is the most destructive 
and the most difficult to destroy of all the 
smaller insects. So if the leaves of your 
roses or carnations begin to yellow and 
fall look carefully on the under side of 
them for the tiny red specks and webs of 
this little spider. Then go to work at 
once. Give the plant a quick bath in 
hot water every half hour until it has 
been dipped three or four times. After 
that shower it daily with cold water, es¬ 
pecially on the under side of the leaves, 
for the presence of the red spider is a 
sure sign that your nlants have not had 
water enough on their foliage. Tempera- 
of the hot water should be about 125°. 
The smooth-leafed plants, such as the 
palm, the English ivy and the rubber 
plant, are apt to be visited by the scale. 
You will know it by the little grayish 
white spots which sometimes will have 
covered branches and stems completely, 
causing the plant to have a sickly ap¬ 
pearance and the leaves to yellow and 
drop. As a remedy prepare warm suds 
of white’ laundry soap and water, and 
with a sponge wash off the scale. If the 
palms are badly infested soak them for 
two or three hours in the soap spray and 
then, laid on their sides, spray them with 
a strong stream from a hose. 
Coal gas and illuminating gas are 
deadly enemies to plant life. To remedy 
the effects of either one the only treat¬ 
ment is to put the plant into a room 
where there is no gas and to give it 
plenty of fresh air. 
Plants, yon must remember, breathe 
through their leaves: therefore they need 
lots of water and fresh air. The daily 
shower bath with a small syringe is an 
essential for healthy, insect-free plants, 
excepting Primulas . Begonias and other 
plants with sensitive foliage. A bath 
once a week in soap and water is also 
advisable. Give your plants all the fresh 
i air you can. Give it to them in the warm 
| middle of the day. but never let the cold 
: air blow directly on them. Water the 
plants when they need it—give water un¬ 
til it runs out at the bottom of the pot. 
let the water Stand in the saucer half an 
hour and then pour off what remains. Tf 
the pots are left standing -in the water 
the plant roots are likely to become 
diseased. 
Plants are a great deal like human 
beings; they respond to kind treatment, 
require sunlight and fresh air and abhor 
dust and coal soot. Dove of plants and 
ease in the rare of them depends largely 
on one’s early training. Ability to make 
flowers flourish is an accomplishment 
much envied by those who do not have it. 
MRS. F. WM. STILLMAN. 
Economies in Needlework 
Judging from present conditions a good 
many of us will have to continue making 
over and freshening up our old clothes 
for another season. There are so many 
tricks in this trade that some of our old 
ones may be new to others. 
Just now we are ripping up some old 
white waists, and are making everyday 
corset covers out of the good parts. They 
will wear a -long time, and the waists 
could not be worn and were only taking 
up space. Some of our prettiest corset 
covers have been made out of scraps of 
fine longcloth and crepe de chine by the 
simple expedient of piecing them with cro¬ 
chet insertion ; if one can put three scraps 
together by means of insertion and make 
a back or a front, why not do it? It 
makes a garment out of almost nothing. 
A year or two ago ray sister ripped up 
a very fti 11 poplin skirt and found by 
using cither material for sleeves a house 
dress could be made After hunting 
through scraps she finally took two doth 
flour sacks, washed them and dyed them 
with the poplin, the result being sleeves 
and collar that were hard to tell from 
voile. 
Old dress skirts can often be made over 
into petticoats or aprons, but I lmve not 
worn a gingham apron for a year and a 
half, as I find the rubber ones so much 
more satisfactory for all kitchen work 
and a real economy in expense and laun¬ 
dering. 
A bottle of shoe polish is useful in more 
ways than one. For instance, a black 
straw hat that is dull from dust and wear 
njay be made to look like new by the ap¬ 
plication of the liquid polish: I am get¬ 
March 5, 1921 
ting ever so many more wears out of a 
pair of black kid gloves that had become 
shabby and worn, and a leather purse re¬ 
news its use in the same way. 
We always save our hat trimmings 
from year to year. Delicately tinted flow¬ 
ers are apt to fade in the sun. but just 
touch them up with water colors occa¬ 
sionally and they will be as pretty as 
when pew. 
A friend who is handy with the needle 
is making some pretty little dresses for 
her two-year-old niece. They are of un¬ 
bleached muslin with collars, cuffs and 
pockets of gingham blanket-stitched in 
black. The one trimmed in yellow ging¬ 
ham has the pockets in the shape of little 
chickens; the trimming for the other one 
is green with the pockets shaped like 
flower pots and flowers embroidered on 
the dress. 
A neighbor who prefers union suits to 
separate garments was unable to get them 
in the weight she wanted, so she cut off 
the shirt at the waist line and sewed the 
garments together. The portion that was 
cut off gives plenty of material for patch¬ 
ing. 
When blankets get too thin to use we 
cover them with lawn, silkoline or un¬ 
bleached muslin and have light, warm 
bed covers that are pretty, too. The 
cover is knotted on and can be easily re¬ 
moved. RtTTII \V. GORDON. 
A Well-tried Homemade Yeast 
This recipe, so well known and popular, 
should again reappear. It has been re¬ 
peated hut once since its original appear¬ 
ance in 18S4, which was in the Michigan 
Farmer: 
“Prepare a fermentation as follows: 
Take two cups of flour, one cup of sugar, 
one-half cup salt, and thoroughly mix 
with one quart of lukewarm water, and 
add two yeast cakes previously soaked 
soft. Set this in a warm place. It will 
rise in a few hours. You can tell when it 
is light, for the flour will rise and form a 
sort of scum. Next take two quarts of 
hot mashed potatoes, pour over them three 
quarts of clear cold water, which will 
make them about lukewarm; strain 
through a colander, add the fermentation 
and let rise again. This makes between 
two and three gallons and can be set 
away in the stone jar in which it is made. 
“I usually sift the flour at night and 
set it in a warm cupboard near the stove, 
but never sponge the bread till morning, 
when it is quickly and easily made by* 
stirring into the flour two or three quarts 
of the prepared liquid. Use no other wet¬ 
ting. 
“The sponge will rise in an hour; mix 
into one large loaf and put back to rise, 
then cut into small loaves. Put into the 
pans and let rise again. Have the oven 
moderately hot and hake 45 minutes. The 
bread is white, light, sweet and good 
enough to set before a king.” 
Dear, patient, brave E. S. B.! The 
grass grows green above her last resting 
place, yet she is not forgotten. “Her 
works do follow her.” and many who use 
the recipe whoch for 10 years has been 
known under her initials live to thank 
her for the excellence of their daily bread. 
This is as it read in the Michigan 
Farmer, published a few years after my 
birth. This recipe was always used by 
my mother, and since I have had a family 
I have always used it and it always 
proved unexcelled. MRS. A. s. F. 
Small Economies 
Crumbs of cake or cookies or stale cake 
put through the food chopper may he 
added to molasses cookies when they are 
mixed, with pleasing results. A cupful 
or more of the crumbs may be used with 
each baking. 
Celery leaves dried and stored in a 
fruit can are excellent for flavoring soups. 
Melt stale cheese in the oven and it 
will then keep indefinitely without mold¬ 
ing until needed for use with macaroni. 
Then put it through the food chopper. 
G. A. T. 
Homemade Feather Puffs 
In answer to the request of It. G. D., 
page 100. we have made four different 
patterns of puffs. For a tick we use per- 
caline. very fine and close woven. We 
divide the whole tick, after it. is made, 
into four or eight compartments by spac¬ 
ing rows of stitches either 0 or 18 in. 
apart from one end to within about 10 
in. of the other end, in one pattern. In 
another pattern we make the compart¬ 
ment by placing strips of cheesecloth, 
sewed to the top and bottom, about 2 in. 
wide, so as to have the puff thicker where 
the compartments come together. In an¬ 
other pattern we stitch a piece of cheese¬ 
cloth IS iu. narrower than the tick to the 
upper part of the tick 0 in. from the edge, 
then 18 in. from the edge to the lower 
part of the tick, then 27 in. from the edge 
to the upper part of the tick. 
In filling the tick have the down in a 
hag spread on the table and fill by hand 
through a hole left for that pin-pose in 
the end of tick. This must be done in n 
room where the air is perfectly still, and 
if carefully done not much down will he 
spilled. 
Goose feathers are very nice if yon 
cannot get down, but of course down can 
he had and i* most desirable For some 
reasons we prefer the 18-in. compart¬ 
ment: it eives a chance to keep the down 
shaken up and lively. Twenty-four 
ounces of down will make a very fine 
comfortable. reader. 
