444. To Clean Carpets

444.    To Clean Carpets. Carpets may be cleaned as follows: Take them up and shake and beat them, so as to render them perfectly free from dust. Have the floor thoroughly scoured and dry, and nail the carpet firmly down upon it. If still much soiled it may be cleaned in the following manner : Take a pailful of clean cold spring water, and put into it about 3 gills of ox-gall. Take another pail with clean cold water only. Now rub with a soft scrubbing brush some of the ox-gall water on the carpet, which will raise a lather. When a convenient sized portion is done, wash the lather off with a clean linen cloth dipped in the clean water. Let this water be changed frequently. When all the lather has disappeared, rub the part with a clean dry cloth. After all is done, open the window to allow the carpet to dry. A carpet treated in this way will be greatly refreshed in color, particularly the greens. Any particularly dirty spots should be rubbed by nearly pure gall first; and every spot of grease must be removed from the carpet by the following process: Scrape and pound together, in equal proportion, magnesia in the lump and fuller's earth. Having mixed these substances well together, pour on them a sufficient quantity of boiling water to make them into a paste. Lay this paste, as hot as possible, upon the grease spots upon the carpet, and let it dry. Next day, when the composition is quite dry, brush it off, and the grease spot will have disappeared. (See No. 357 (To Remove Oil from Carpets).)

445. To Clean Hearth Rugs and Stair Carpets

445.     To Clean Hearth Rugs and Stair Carpets. Hearth rugs and stair carpets may be treated in the same manner as given in the last receipt, only that these may be spread and washed upon a table.

446. How to Clean Carpets

446.    How to Clean Carpets. Carpets may be washed on tables or on the floor. In either case they must be taken up and well beaten and swept. Grease is taken out by rubbing hard soap on the spot, and scrubbing it out with a brush dipped in clean cold water. Each spot must be rubbed dry with a cloth as it is washed. Dissolve a bar of soap in 2 gallons of water, by cutting it into the water and heating to a boil. Lay the carpet on the floor and tack it down, or have a heavy board, 3 feet wide by 12 feet long, laid on stout stands, or horses, and throw the carpet over that, keeping a clean board or sheet underneath to receive the carpet as it is cleansed. Provide brushes, and a quantity of coarse cotton cloths, flannels, and a large sponge. Take 2 pails filled with blood-warm water, put 2 quarts of the melted soap into one of them to scour the carpet with, and use the other for rinsing. Dip the brush in the soap-suds, and scour a square yard of the carpet at a time, using as little water as possible, not to soak it through. When the soap has done its work, rub it well out of the carpet with a flannel or coarse sponge, sucking up with these all the wet and dirt left by the brush, rinsing the article used in clean water repeatedly. Have ready a pail of clean cold water, with enough sulphuric acid or sharp vinegar in it to taste sour; dip a clean sponge in this, squeeze and rub it well into the spot just cleansed. Afterward wipe dry with coarse cloths, rinsing and hanging them where they will be dry when the next yard is washed. Finish yard after yard in this way, rubbing each clean and dry as you go. Keep a good fire in the room to dry the carpet thoroughly. If scoured on a frame, nail the carpet against the side of a house in the sun to dry. This is a tedious, hut thorough process. Hearth rugs may he cleaned in the same "way, beating and brushing them well, and tacking on a large board before •washing. Scrub one-sixth of it at a time unless you are expeditious, and dry well with an old sheet. The secret of having carpets look well is to wash and rinse them thoroughly, without soaking them through. Ingram, tapestry, Brussels, and Turkish carpets are all cleaned in this way. Good authorities recommend a tea-cupful of ox-gall to a pail of soap-suds, rinsing with clean water. (See No. 444 (To Clean Carpets).)