This section is from the book "Hilda's "Where Is It?" Of Recipes", by Hildagonda J. Duckitt. Also available from Amazon: Hilda's "Where is it?" of Recipes.
If your floors are white, scrub and scour well with strong soda; stain with oak staining or vandyke brown, which can be ground in water and mixed with a little size. Go over the boards twice; let the floor get quite dry, then polish with beeswax and turpentine. Scrape the beeswax and any remains of sperm candles in a round basin. Cover the wax with spirits of turpentine; leave all night. The next day the wax will be dissolved, and the mixture have a creamy appearance. Rub well into the boards with a piece of flannel, and polish by friction. A soft linen cloth gives a better polish than flannel. When done three times, an ordinary deal floor will have a beautiful polished surface;
Shred half a pound of blue mottled soap in a jug; add half a cup of finely powdered whiting, pour in sufficient water to make it the consistency of thick cream. Rub well over the covers, and polish with a clean leather and powdered whiting.
Ingredients:
I pint Linseed Oil. 4 oz. Spirits of Wine. 6 oz. Vinegar.
1 oz. Hartshorn. 2 oz. Gum Arabic. Whites of 2 Eggs.
The two last ingredients to be rubbed together in a mortar, and the whole well mixed.
Ingredients:
3 oz. common Beeswax. I oz. White Wax.
I oz. Curd Soap or Castile Soap, I pint Turpentine.
I pint Boiled Water.
Cut up the wax and soap, dissolve, when cold add turpentine. Shake the mixture frequently. In forty-eight hours it will be ready for use. Very good.
Equal quantities of sweet oil, vinegar, and turpentine, used sparingly on a damp flannel once a week, and rubbed off with a linen duster.
Ingredients:
1 pint Linseed Oil.
1 pint Vinegar.
1 pint Spirits of Wine.
Shake well. Do not spare elbow grease, which is the most important of all.
 
Continue to: