i^eufees Sflorol Satinet a*i3 .Pictorial ffiame fiomjimnion. 
59 
COUNTRY HOUSEKEEPING TOPICS. 
As I have received both pleasure and profit from 
reading in your pages the experiences of other house¬ 
keepers, I think it will be only fair for me to show my 
“little rushlight” and see if I can do to others what 
they have done to me. 
I never had any experience in country life until the 
famous 19th of April, 1861. My husband had the fall 
before bought a farm on the river S., and as the ex¬ 
citement iu Baltimore was fearful, we left the city, as 
did thousands of others. Then began my experience 
of country housekeeping. The house was very small 
and the place rough and unimproved, though in the 
midst of the most charming scenery. 
Our arrangements we were obliged to make on the 
principle of those in “ The Deserted Village ” where 
Goldsmith speaks of “ the chest contrived a double 
debt to pay,” etc. There was no stove in the house, 
and only the old-fashioned fireplace to cook by. 
One of our contrivances was to roast a piece of beef 
by tying a strong string to it, and hanging it before 
the fire from the mantel-piece, putting a pan on the 
hearth under it to catch the gravy. It was a great 
amusement to us to twist the string, which would set 
the meat to turning so as to cook it equally on all 
sides. You may be assured that was a prime piece 
of roast beef. 
We were so much pleased with the country, that 
we built a pleasant house and had the grounds laid out 
and terraced down to the river, and have since spent 
our summers here, until within the last two or three 
years we have sold our house in the city and lived 
here altogether. 
I try to learn the lessons both of beauty and econo¬ 
my in housekeeping, the latter not only in money, but 
time also. The most important economy in time 
that I have learned is in preparing the various parts 
of pork at killing time. We always raise and kill, 
on an average, about twenty bogs in the early winter, 
so that we shall have the meat to feed our “ bauds ” 
on during the year. The manure we consider pays 
for the feed in raising them. The hams, lard, sausage 
meat, etc., we put up for ourselves. The people 
around me were in the habit of boiling each kettleful 
of lard a whole day, for fear it would not keep. It 
would take me a week to try out all I put up in that 
way. 
The way I go to work is, to have the “gut fat,” as 
it is called, taken off the day the hogs are killed, and 
put into salt and water over night. The next day is 
a busy time, I assure you. I hire some of the colored 
women on the farm, and with my cook and dairy- 
woman, we go to work. As fast as the men cut up 
the pork, the parts I want are sent down to me, and I 
divide my force, some of us cutting up the lard for 
trying out, some cutting out the pieces for sausage- 
meat, some grinding the same, and between times, 
some of them cutting up the thick fat pieces and pack¬ 
ing them in salt for baked beans. We fill all the pre¬ 
serving bottles we can put on the stove, with the 
pieces cut for lard, adding enough water to prevent it 
from burning. As fast as enough boils to be perfectly 
clean and transparent, we dip it out and strain it in 
jars, putting fresh pieces into the kettle as fast as we 
have some for them. 
By eight o’clock in the evening the dreaded job is 
over, several jars of sausage-meat and about a dozen 
gallons of lard made and half a keg of pork salted 
down. As I fill each jar of lard, I drop a handful of 
salt into it while hot, and the lard is as sweet at the 
end of the year as at the beginning. 
Now for my bams, of which we are all proud, and 
we never buy any that we think equal to them. The 
recipe for the pickle I took from the Germantown 
Telegraph. One gallon of water, one and a half lbs. 
salt, half a pound of sugar, half an ounce saltpetre, 
half an ounce potash. Instead of the potash, I double 
the quantity of saltpetre. Increase in that ratio. 
Sprinkle the hams with a little saltpetre and rub in 
salt and leave for a day or two. Then boil and skim 
the pickle, and when cold pour it over the hams. In 
four or five weeks take them out aud let them drain 
for a day or two. Then take old barrels, without tops 
or bottoms, and make little shallow places in the 
earth to set them in, and in the centre pile corn cobs, 
chips, etc., wet, to make a fire. Put old broomsticks 
across the tops of the barrels and bang your bams on 
them inside the barrels, but not touching each other, 
not more than three to a barrel. Put a thick covering 
over all to retain the smoke. Now light your wet 
chips and cobs, so that you have no blaze, but a thick 
heavy smoke. Watch constantly and keep it up the 
entire day. Keep the fire smothered and do not let 
the hams scorch, or the barrels catch fire. Now bang 
them up and keep them in the usual way, and I think 
that in the course of a few weeks you will acknow¬ 
ledge that you have never eaten finer hams. You 
have saved a great deal of time aud wood in the smok¬ 
ing and your hams are more juicy and of a finer flavor 
than if they had been hanging in the smoke-house 
for several weeks. 
We have been arranging our house for the winter, 
aud think it looks very pretty. We have newly pa¬ 
pered the library, which is our favorite sitting-room. 
The paper is lovely, and just suited to the country. It 
is a light stone color, with sprays of grass of a darker 
shade, and white Marguerites, and little birds, about 
an inch and a half long, gray with light scarlet heads 
and breasts. The grass and Marguerites are scattered 
all over the paper, without any stiffness, hut look 
as though they had been thrown on, and the birds 
are some standing on the sprays of grass and some 
flying. To follow out the effect of just a touch of 
scarlet here and there, I took about five yards of tur¬ 
key red, and with part of it I made a narrow frill on 
some cornices of plain wood. Then I divided the rest 
of the material, and threw half of it over each cornice 
in the middle, pleating it carelessly. That left, it hang¬ 
ing half on one side and half on the other. Then I 
threw the ends the reverse way over the ends of the 
cornice, letting them hang down a foot or so, draw¬ 
ing one edge tighter than the other, to form festoons, 
pinning the' upper or tighter edge to the cornices to 
prevent leaving a space. They made, with very little 
trouble, two pretty, graceful lambrequins. 
Then we have scarlet cord on the pictures, bitter¬ 
sweet berries among the grasses in the vases, and the 
centre-table cover of a corresponding color. We 
happened to have a set of hooks hound in scarlet, 
which we put on a hook-rack independently of the 
hook-case. Now, with our bright wood fire in a good 
sized fireplace, and our greenery, about, which I will 
tell you, and at night a porcelain shade on the lamp 
to soften the light, I think no one can help saying 
that we have a charming room. 
Now about the greenery. I have had, for years, a 
reel that was used to wind the pavement hose on in 
the city. I did not allow it to be destroyed, as I al¬ 
ways thought I could make something pretty out of it, 
and sure enough I have. It is about three feet high, 
aud my son split some small round sticks with the 
bark on, pointed the ends and nailed them around the 
top and bottom, a la florist. I had a large galvanized 
iron pan, with a rim two inches deep, made to set the 
whole thing in, making it broader at the bottom than 
at the top, and set the pan inside the upper pointed 
sticks. Then I filled top and bottom with earth and 
moss, and planted in it Ferns, Tradeseantia, Ivies, 
etc., and put a hanging-basket over it filled with the 
same, and set them in front of my double window, and 
the vines now completely cover the whole and form a 
beautiful pillar of green six or seven feet high. There 
are window shelves on each side holding Callas, Gera¬ 
niums, etc. At the other window we have a rustic 
stand with a box on it filled with Geraniums, Begonias, 
etc., and Tradeseantia festooned around the sides, and 
Madeira vines trained up from it to festoon over the 
pictures. A little distance above we have a window 
shelf with different plants on it, and a beautiful shell 
suspended from the centre of it filled with moss and a 
Begonia, and still higher, a basket each side of the 
window holding baskets hanging from them. 
Mrs. Milton Whiting. 
A Home-Made Washstand and Lounge.— 
A hoard nearly four feet, long, nearly two feet wide for 
the top; two more for ends, thirty-two and a half 
inches long and twenty-two inches wide. Before 
nailing the top on, at one end, a foot from the outer 
end, put in another hoard thirty-two and a half inches 
long hut only twenty-one inches wide, and on the hack 
a hoard to close this part; then fit in a bottom to it 
and put in a shelf a foot or little more from the top ; 
between this part and the other ends, six and a half or 
seven inches from the top, fit a shelf; it will he about 
thirty inches long and twenty-one inches wide, and at 
the hack have it all closed, and a little below the shelf, 
or the whole back may he closed, only that would 
make the article heavier. Now nail on the top. Cover 
with chintz or any material on hand. The covering 
is fastened firmly on the ends, being large enough to 
come round in front where it meets in the centre. 
Fasten a wire at. each side close to the top, which pro¬ 
jects a little, letting the pieces run by each other a lit¬ 
tle in the middle, and run the wire, either through 
rings screwed on the chintz, or through a hem across 
the front. A ruffle can he sewed on oue edge of the 
front, where it meets. The top covering can he of the 
same material, loose, so as to throw hack, or covered 
with the oil-cloth they have to imitate marble. In 
this article there is plenty of room for wash-bowl and 
pitcher, pails, and boxes, and in the wider open part a 
trunk can he kept. It was to get a trunk, which was 
very necessary to have round, out of the way, as well 
as the washstand, that these were combined. Covered 
with a piano or table cover, it resembles a small or¬ 
gan. I think the floor is papered with wall-paper, 
same as the walls, and then varnished, would not 
do for a room used much. I have a cage made for 
stuffed birds, and a design for a mat made of strips 
of cloth, which may be of use to any one else, if so, 
I can send to the Cabinet. 
S. M. Barber. 
Color for Kitchen Floors. —Oak is the best color 
for the kitchen, pantry, and like floors. 
