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.