For a single dress, pare four or five good-sized potatoes, slice them thin and lay them in a quart of cold water for a few hours; then, if the silk is much soiled, sponge both sides freely, rubbing the soiled places with most care. Sponge one piece at a time, and iron it dry upon the side that is to be the inside, moving the iron up and down, or straight across - never diagonally. Have the irons quite hot, yet not so as to scorch, or change the color. If they are too cool, they will draw up or crimp the silk in very minute gathers, and it will be nearly impossible to make such places smooth again. The effect of the starch from the potatoes is to cleanse the silk, and also give it a little stiffness, and even plaid silks of the most delicate colors are made to look new in this way. If a silk is not much soiled, sponge it only on what is to be the outside, and iron it on the other. A good black silk may be made to look "amaist as weel's the new," again and again by this process, and those who have never tried it, would be surprised at the renovating effect.

Good ribbons, black, white, or colored, are made fresh and handsome in precisely the same way. To iron them, set the iron across one end, on the wrong side, and while you press it hard, draw the whole length of the ribbon under it with the other hand.

Raw silks should be washed in potato water, as directed for calicoes that are liable to fade; and after being rinsed once, and hung without wringing upon the line, long enough for the water to drip off, they should be rolled for fifteen minutes in a sheet, and then ironed dry, on the wrong side.