How To Wash Feathers

Dissolve four ounces of white soap in two quarts of boiling water; put it into a large basin or small pan, and beat to a strong lather with a wire egg-beater or a small bundle of birch twigs; use while warm. Hold the feather by the quill with the left hand, dip it into the soap liquor and squeeze it through the right hand, using a moderate degree of pressure. Continue this operation until the feather is perfectly clean and white, using a second lot of soap liquor if necessary. Rinse in clean hot water to take out the soap, and afterward in cold water in which a small quantity of blue has been dissolved. Shake well, and dry before a moderate fire, shaking it occasionally that it may look full and soft when dried. Before it is quite dry curl each fibre separately with a blunt knife or ivory paper-folder.

How To Wash Carpets

Spread the carpet where you can use a brush, take Irish potatoes and scrape them into a pail or tub of water and let them stand over night, using one peck to clean a large carpet; two pails of water is sufficient to let them stand in, and you can add more when ready to use; add two ounces of beef gall and use with a brush, as to scrub a floor; the particles of potato will help cleanse, and when dry, brush with a broom or stiff brush.

Excellent Family Soap

1 box concentrated lye, 5 lbs. grease, 1 lb. resin, 1 1/2 gals, soft water; make in an iron pot. When the water boils, put in the lye; when this is dissolved, add the grease; stir till all is melted, then add one pound of resin gradually, and boil for an hour and a half; keep stirring with a stick, and add hot water to keep up the original quantity, pour into wet tin pans, and let it sstand for twenty-four hours. Cut into bars, and keep in a dry, warm place for a month.

Washing Fluid

9 table-spoonfuls unslacked lime, 2 lbs. sal-soda, 4 qts. water; let this simmer half an hour, then bottle up. Take a small tea-cupful to a boiler of water.

Another

1 lb. sal-soda, 1 lb. potash, each dissolved in 1 gal. water (separately); mix together and bottle.

Cheap Filter

Take a common flower-pot as large as passible, plug the hole in the bottom with a piece of sponge, then put a layer of powdered charcoal about an inch thick, the same of clean sand, and a layer of small stones and coarse gravel about two inches thick. Set the pot where the water can drop off the sponge, and pour in water gently. In a few minutes the water will find its way through the sand and charcoal and drop into the vessel placed below, clear and free from impurities.