Recycle Beverage Containers into a Super Fruit Fly Trap

Fruit flies are a real nusiance. I came up with a neat idea for a trap that works to get rid of Fruit Flies quickly.

It uses a recycled beverage container and four pebbles or something similar, to lift it a quarter inch or so off of the counter. For bait, a little bit of red wine or cider vinegar works well.

Here is what you need: an empty plastic water bottle, juice or soda container with a bottom that has a raised center.

Drill a small, 1/8” hole in center of this raised bottom. I used a 3/32” drill to start a pilot hole and then widened it to 1/8”.

Use hot glue to add something to the bottom corners to raise the trap a little bit so that the flies will be able to crawl or fly up into the center hole.

Put a small amount of red wine, cider vinegar or similar aromatic liquid in the container so that it is just below the hole in the raised center of the bottom and your trap is set.

To release your captured flies, just step out side and take off the top. They will happily fly away unharmed.  For the more blood thirsty, just do nothing. They will soon land in the liquid and be unable to escape.

Good luck!

Art of Rat Killing without Traps or Poison

Take a common sponge, dried, cut into small pieces

• soak in lard, melted tallow or meat gravy.
• Place these pieces within easy access to the rats.

They will eat greedily and the moisture of the stomach will cause the pieces to swell and kill the rat.

Water may be placed within reach, and will hasten the results by expanding the sponge.

How to Keep Apples Fresh and Sound all Winter

I discovered a very superior way of preserving apples until spring. By it any apple in good condition when packed will be equally good when unpacked, and even those rotten because not in good condition when put away will not injure any others.

• Take fine dry sawdust, preferably that made by a circular saw from well seasoned hard wood, and place a thick layer on the bottom of a barrel.

• Then place a layer of apples, not close together and not close to the staves of the barrel. Put sawdust liberally over and around, and proceed until a bushel and a half (or less) is packed in each barrel.

• They are to be kept in a cool place.

I kept some in an open garret, the thermometer for a week ranged close to zero. No bruised or mellow apples will be preserved but they will not communicate rot to their companions. There is money in this, applied to choice apples.

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Editor's Note: This actually works. When I was a kid, it is how my Father kept carrots from the garden all winter.

Make Tomato Catsup

Boil one bushel of tomatoes till they are soft,

• squeeze them through a fine sieve;
• add one and a half pints of salt,
• two ounces of cayenne pepper,
• and five heads of onions, skinned and separated;
• mix together,
• then boil till reduced one half;
• then bottle.

Unerring Test for Good Flour

Good flour is white with a yellowish or straw colour tint.

• Squeeze some of the flour in your hand; if good it will retain the shape given by the pressure.
• Knead a little between your fingers; if it works soft and sticky, it is poor.
• Throw a little against a dry perpendicular surface; if it falls like powder it is bad.

To Soften the Hands

Before retiring, take a large pair of old gloves and spread mutton tallow inside, also all over the hands. Wear the gloves all night, and wash hands with olive oil and white castile soap the next morning.

To Restore Velvet

Where velvet has been crushed, hold the wrong side over a basin of quite boiling water, and the pile will gradually rise.

Do not lose patience, for it takes a considerable time, but the result is marvellous.

Superior Raisin Wine

• Take thirty pounds of chopped raisins, free from stems and dust
• Put them in a large keg
• Add to them 10 gallons of soft water
• Let them stand 2 weeks unbunged -shaking occasionally (warm place in the winter)
• Strain through a woolen cloth or filter
• Colour with burnt sugar
• Bottle and cork well for use

The more raisins, the better the wine -not exceeding 5 pounds to the gallon.

Trapper's and Angler's Secret for Game and Fish

• A few drops of Oil of Anise or Oil of Rhodium, on any trapper's bait, will entice any wild animal into the snare trap.
• India Cockle, mixed with flour dough and sprinkled on the surface of still water will intoxicate fish, rendering them insensible; when coming up to the surface they can be lifted into a tub of fresh water to revive them , when they may be used without fear.
• Fish may also be caught in large numbers during the winter season by watching them through the ice and striking it with a mallet directly over where they happen to be. The shock stuns them and they will rise belly upwards, toward the surface, when they are easily secured by breaking a hole in the ice.

To Make Nice Crayons for Blackboards

These directions are given by Prof. Turner, of the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, as follows:

• Take 5 pounds of Paris white, 1 pound of Wheat flour, wet with water, and knead it well; make it so stiff that it will not stick to the table, but not so stiff as to crumble and fall to pieces when it is rolled under the hand.
  
• To roll our the crayons to the proper size, two boards are needed, one to roll them on; the other to roll them with. The first should be a smooth pine board three feet long and nine inches wide. The other should also be pine, a foot long and nine inches wide, having nailed on the under side near each edge a slip of wood one-third of an inch thick, in order to raise it so much above the under board as that the crayon, when brought to its proper size, may lie between them without being flattened.
  
• The mass is rolled into a ball, and slices are cut from one side of it about one-third of an inch thick: these slices are again cut into strips about four inches long and one-third of an inch wide, and rolled separately between these boards until smooth and round.
  
• Near at hand should be another board 3 feet long and 4 inches wide, across which each crayon, as it is made, should be laid, so that the ends may project on each side--the crayons should be laid in close contact, and straight. When the board is filled, the ends should all be trimmed off so as to make the crayons as long as the width of the board. It is then laid in the sun, if in hot weather, or if in winter, near a stove or fireplace, where the crayons may dry gradually, which will require twelve hours. When thoroughly dry they are fit for use.

An experienced hand will make 150 in an hour." Young boys can make them and sell to their companions.

Poisons and Antidotes

The following list of antidotes is given as reliable in cases of poisoning, to which all are in danger of being subjected some time, when, perhaps, no medical skill or experienced advice is within reach. It would be well for every family to have something like this, which they can turn to at a moment's warning.

The following are some of the more common poisons and the remedies most likely to be at hand in case of need.

The directions may be old, but in case you happen to get a good, strong dose of poison down, you will not object to a cure on account of age.

• Acids.--These cause great heat and a sensation of burning pain from the mouth down to the stomach. Remedies: magnesia, soda, pearlash, or soap dissolved in water, then use the stomach-pump or an emetic.
  
• Alkalies.--Best remedy is vinegar.
  
• Ammonia.--Remedy: lemon-juice or vinegar.
  
• Alcohol.--First cleanse the stomach by an emetic, then dash cold water on the head, and ammonia (spirits of hartshorn).
  
• Arsenic.--Remedies: in the first place evacuate the stomach, then give the white of eggs, lime-water, or chalk and water, charcoal, and a preparation of iron, particularly hydrate.
  
• Lead, White Lead, and Sugar of Lead.--Remedies: alum, cathartics, such as castor oil and Epsom salts, specially sulphuric acid lemonade.
  
• Charcoal.--In poisons by carbonic gas, remove the patient into the open air, dash cold water on the head and body, and stimulate the nostrils and lungs by hartshorn, at the same time rubbing the chest briskly.
  
• Corrosive Sublimate.--Give the white of eggs, freely mixed with water, or give wheat flour and water, or soap and water, freely.
  
• Creasote.--White of eggs and emetics.
  
• Belladonna (Night Henbane).--Give an emetic, then plenty of vinegar and water, or lemonade.
  
• Mushrooms, when Poisonous.--Give an emetic, plenty of vinegar and water, with doses of ether, if handy.
  
• Nitrate of Silver (Lunar Caustic).--Give a strong solution of common salt, and then emetics.
  
• Opium.--First give a strong emetic of mustard and water, then strong coffee and acid drinks; dash cold water on the head.
  
• Laudanum.--Same as opium.
  
• Nux Vomica.--First give emetics, then brandy.
  
• Oxalic Acid (frequently mistaken for Epsom salts).--Remedies: chalk, magnesia, or soap and water, and other soothing drinks.
  
• Prussic Acid.--When there is time, administer chlorine in the shape of soda and lime; hot brandy and water, hartshorn, and turpentine are also useful.
  
• Snake Bites, etc.--Apply immediately strong hartshorn, and take internally; also give sweet oil and stimulate freely; apply a ligature tight above the part bitten, and then apply a cupping-glass.
  
• Tartar Emetic.--Give large doses of tea made of galls, Peruvian bark, or white oak bark.
  
• Verdigris.--Plenty of white of eggs and water.
  
• White Vitriol.--Give the patient plenty of milk and water.
  
• Melted Lard.--An antidote for strychnine, nux vomica, wild cherry, and nightshade.
  
• Tea of the Sensitive Plant for the bite of a rattle-snake.

To Prepare Shad for Broiling

Scale your shad perfectly, clean it nicely, then split it down the back, and lay it flat on your board or tray; now remove the entrails perfectly, taking care not to break the gall. Wash out all the blood, and lay your shad in clean water till you are ready to place it over the fire.

To Prepare a Shad for Breakfast

First, with a sharp knife, remove all the bones from your shad, sprinkle it with salt and a little Cayenne pepper, after which dredge on a thin coat of flour. Have ready a greased tin sheet (not a pan), lay on it your shad, and put it in your stove or oven; let it brown slowly, and when done slip it carefully off the tin sheet to a hot dish. Butter it well, and serve it immediately.

To Broil a Fresh Shad

Grease your gridiron, put your shad on it, over bright coals for five minutes, just to give it the taste of the fire, then transfer it to a tin sheet, and having dredged on flour, pour on a large spoonful of melted butter, and bake.

Diarrhea

• Cut up a dozen green persimmons with an ounce of red oak bark,
• boil these in a pint of water till reduced one - half,
• add one ounce of gum Arabic and
• half a pound of white sugar.

Boil the mixture with a teacupful of the syrup from black-berry preserves down to a stiff candy.

Sift coarse white sugar on a clean sheet of white paper, and drop the candy on it in the form of lozenges.

Let the patient eat three or four each day.

A Cancer Cure

• Pound up a handful of sorrel leaves,
• Stew them with lard,

Apply the poultice to the cancer, taking care to protect the well flesh by means of a large piece of adhesive plaster with a round hole cut in the center just sufficiently large to expose the cancer.

This poultice should remain twenty-four hours.

Strong potash, applied in the same way, it is said, will destroy a cancer so that it can be pulled out as you would pull up a parsnip from the ground.

Cure for the Bite of a Mad Dog

Elecampane is a plant well known to most persons, and is to be found in many of our gardens. Immediately after being bitten, take

• one and a half ounces of the root of the plant,--the green root is perhaps preferable, but the dried will answer,
• slice or bruise,
• put into a pint of fresh milk,
• boil down to a half pint, strain, and when cold drink, fasting for at least six hours afterward.

The next morning, fasting, repeat the dose, using two ounces of the root. On the third morning take another dose prepared as the last, and this will be sufficient. It is recommended that after each dose nothing be eaten for at least six hours.

Important Medical Discovery

A remarkable medical discovery has recently been made in the treatment of deafness, by Professor Scott, of the New York Medical University, by which the most apparently hopeless cases are radically cured. The method consists in introducing atomized oxide of phenol directly into the cavity of the tympanum. No unpleasant sensations are produced, and a feeling of clearness seems to follow the application. Numerous cases are daily treated successfully at the university.

Make Cucumber Vines Bear Five Crops

When a Cucumber is taken from the vine, let it be cut with a knife leaving about the eight of an inch of the Cucumber on the stem, then slit the stem with a knife from its end to the vine, leaving a small portion of the Cucumber on each division, and on each separate slit there will be a new Cucumber as large as the first.

To Cure Boils

They should be brought to a head by warm poultices of Camomile Flowers, or boiled White Lily Root, or Onion Root by fermentation with hot water, or by stimulating plasters.

When ripe they should be destroyed by a needle or lancet.

But this should not be attempted until they are fully proved.