Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes

How to silver a mirror, brew ginger beer, kill moths, make fireworks, tan a hide, bronze iron, cure a ham and clean a straw hat: William B. Dick's numbered encyclopedia answered the questions a nineteenth-century household actually had.

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To Keep Cucumbers Fresh

When the cucumbers are at their best they

1879. Composition for Healing should be cut, and laid in a box made just to Wounds in Trees. Take 3 parts pounded fit them, and then bury the box in some dry chalk and 1 part common vegetable tar; mix sand, covering it over to the depth of a foot. thoroughly, and boil them with a low heat There should not be any hay or moss put with till the composition becomes of the consistency them in the box, as it will cause them to turn of bees' wax; it may be preserved for use in yellow. If laid in the box without hay or this state for any length of time. If chalk inoss, their color and bloom may be preserved cannot conveniently be got, dry brick-dust for two weeks to look as fresh as the day they may be substituted. After the broken or were cat. Melons may also be kept in the decayed limb has been sawed off, the whole same way. of the saw-cut must be very carefully pared

1873. To Cure Gumming in Fruit away, and the rough edges of the bark, in Trees. The place where the gum accumu- particular, must be made quite smooth; the lates should be well washed and cleaned, and doing of this properly is of great consequence; then stopped well up with a paste made of then lay on the above composition hot, about horse-dung, clay and tar. This will prevent the thickness of half a dollar, over the woundthe accumulation of the gum, and will assist ed place, and over the edges of the surroundthe wound in healing over. ing bark; it should be spread with a hot 1874. Το Prevent the Bottoms of trowel.

Plant Sticks Rotting. Dip the bottoms of 1880. New Grafting Wax. Melt 1 the plant sticks (as far as they are inserted pound resin over a slow fire, add 1 ounce beef into the ground) into hot asphalt three or tallow, and stir with a perfectly dry stick or four times, until the asphalt is the of an piece of wire. When somewhat cooled, add 1 inch thickness on them; this will preserve table-spoonful spirits of turpentine, and lastly them a long time. Those that have not the 5 ounces of 95 per cent. alcohol in small quanconvenience of dipping them in asphalt, may tities, stirring the mass constantly. Should substitute tar, and they will endure nearly as the alcohol cause it to lump, warm again long as those that have been asphalted. until it melts. Keep in a bottle. Lay it on

1875. To Destroy Weeds and Worms in a very thin coat with a brush. In a room in Gravel Walks. Lay a coat of salt all of moderate temperature, the wax should be over the walk, and then water it, using a rose of the consistence of molasses. Should it water-pot; but this should not be done where prove thicker, thin it down with alcohol. It there is a box edging, or it will kill that like- is always ready for use, is never affected by wise. Where the edging is turf, slate, or tiles, heat or cold, and heals up wounds hermetithere is nothing to fear. cally.

1876. To Destroy Worms in Lawns, 1881. Grafting Wax. Take 4 ounces pitch, 4 ounces resin, 2 ounces hogs' lard, and 2 ounces bees' wax; put them all together into a pipkin, and dissolve them over a slow fire, Grass Plots, etc. Mix at the rate of 10 pounds slacked lime to 30 gallons water; stir it up well together, and then let it stand for 2 or 3 days, in which time pour it off the sedi- and it will form an excellent grafting wax. ment, and water the lawn with it by means By spreading some of this mixture on paper of a rose water-pot; this will fetch the worms it makes the grafting paper.. The French out on the top of the ground, and they will make very good grafting wax by mixing torequire to be swept up with a broom and car-gether equal quantities of bees' wax and resin, ried away. The best time to do this is in damp and adding as much tallow as will cause it to weather, as the worms are then nearer the dissolve at a low temperature. For an application where limbs have been removed in pruning, nothing is better than coal tar.

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