This section is from the book "Mrs. Charles H. Gibson's Maryland And Virginia Cook Book", by Charles H. Gibson. Also available from Amazon: Mrs. Charles H. Gibson's Maryland And Virginia Cook Book.
Three gills of salt to four quarts boiling water. Put the dresses in while hot, and leave them till cold. Another way is, to take one teaspoonful of turpentine, and one of hartshorn, put in the quantity of water required to wash a dress.
A brass kettle should always be cleaned with a little salt and vinegar before using it.
One pint lime, one pint salt, and three gallons of water will keep eggs for winter use.
Stair rods can be cleaned by dipping a cloth in coal and rotten-stone, and rubbing them well. Then rub off with another cloth or a piece of paper.
If you wash matting in salt and water it will keep it from turning dark.
One gallon flour paste, not very thick, two pounds Venetian red. Mix this thoroughly, and apply it to the pavement with a whitewash brush.
One pint of linseed oil, one of soft soap, one-half pint of turpentine, one-half pound of beeswax, two ounces of yellow ochre, if you want it light; if dark, the same quantity of brown Spanish. Melt all together, stir well, apply hot with a woolen cloth. Rub hard and quickly immediately with a dry woolen cloth. Very fine.
Three tablespoonsful of honey, two teaspoonsful of bola-menia, one of borax, and half a teaspoon of burnt alum. Put all in an eggshell, and let it get hot. Do not stir it till it begins to rise in the shell, then stir it till it falls.
Place a sufficient quantity of fresh hops to make two poultices in a saucepan, and add enough vinegar and water, in equal parts, to keep it from burning, so that when sufficiently hot for use the hops will only be moist. When ready to be put in the bag sprinkle in a little meal. Have the poultice a little warmer than the body, put it in the flannel bag, and as soon as cool replace it with another. A piece of flannel should be laid over the poultice to prevent the clothes from getting soiled.
Four tablespoonsful sweet oil, one hundred and twenty grains of white wax, one hundred and twenty grains spermaceti, six and a quarter grains camphor. Put all in a cup on the fire until dissolved.
Hartshorn will restore colors taken out by acids. It may be dropped on any garment without injuring it.
Dissolve a small quantity of ammonia in some rain water, and wash the spots with it.
Spots may generally be removed by rubbing them quick and hard with flannel wet with the same thing which made the stain. The very best restorative is pulverized rotten-stone and linseed oil.
Add one ounce quicksilver to the whites of two eggs well beaten, and apply with a feather. If the vermin are in the walls fill up the cracks with verdigris, green paint.
 
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