According to the experience of many persons, the Kidderminster carpets, and others of like fabric, are as well washed at a fulling-mill as at a dye-house, or by a professed carpet-cleanser. They are washed whole, and if the colors are good, they are returned with a good degree of their original beauty; and I have never known one to be torn or injured in any way. The charge for washing a large carpet, does not exceed a dollar and a quarter, and for medium-sized and small ones, proportionately less. After a carpet has been in hard service, if it is worth being made over, or thoroughly repaired, it is also worth being washed; and a person who has spent two or three days in mending an old, unwashed carpet, will appreciate the assertion.

The directions for removing oil and grease from carpets not having been inserted in the appropriate place, they are given here.

When oil is spilled on a carpet, put on a plenty of white flour, and do it as quickly as possible, in order to prevent it from spreading. If the oil is near a seam, but does not reach it, rip the seam in order to stop it. Put flour on the floor under the oil spot. The next day take up all the flour from the carpet and floor, with a dust-pan and a very stiff clothes broom, and put on fresh flour, and a plenty of it. It will not be necessary to do it a third time. To take out grease spots, rub them with a bit of white flannel, dipped in new spirits of turpentine; and if they again become visible, rub the spots again, on both sides of the carpet, when it is taken up and shaken. If there are oil or grease spots on the floor, they should be covered with thick paper before the carpet is again laid down. Scouring will not entirely remove them.

How To Whiten Or Bleach

The best time in the year is the month of May. The dew at that period has a peculiar efficacy for bleaching. In the country, where clean grass plots are accessible, it is a good way to take all the white clothes of the week's wash, from the first rinsing water, or from the boiling suds, and lay them on the grass. After two or three nights take them up before they are dry in the morning, rinse them well, and put them on the line. Their improved appearance will pay for the trouble. In August, clothes should never be more than one day and night upon the grass, lest they become mildewed. In the winter, they will whiten fast, in sunny weather, upon clean snow; and leaving them on the line in the frost over night, after being washed, makes them white.