Floors should not be scrubbed too frequently. Once a week is generally sufficient. In damp weather wet floors dry very slowly, and the house remains damp and cold for a considerable time. It is better, in all cases, to defer the scrubbing even for a week than to wet the floors on a damp and rainy day. In cases of illness this is particularly important. It should be a fixed rule that floors, particularly those of sleeping-rooms, are to be scrubbed only 011 dry days.

Bones, old shoes and boots, dirty woolen rags, and pieces of carpet are often allowed to lie about the house. These render the air impure, and consequently unwholesome, are exceedingly apt to become mouldy, harbor vermin, serve as breeding-places for the clothes-moth, and retain tenaciously any infection to which they may have been exposed. Such things should always be got rid of; if not sold at once, they had better be given away, if of any value, or else burnt, rather than be kept to render the air of the house impure.

Wash as often as convenient. Dirty clothes put by for weeks are more difficult to clean the longer they remain dirty; they acquire a permanent bad color, and in damp places are apt to become mildewed and rotten.

Remove all stains as soon as possible; leave nothing long enough to fix itself thoroughly to the cloth; wash out grease, gravy, fruit-stains, etc., before putting anything to one side. Fruit-stains yield readily to bleaching-powder, especially if, after being put on, it is moistened with a drop of some acid, as vinegar or lemon; but neither acids nor bleaching-powder should be used with colored things. Ink-stains should never be put into soapy or soda water or lye, as they directly become iron-molds; but they should be instantly wetted with clean water, and may be at once removed by the application of a little salt of lemon or oxalic acid, which should be washed out immediately.