USEFUL ITEMS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 27

USEFUL ITEMS

Hub the copper kettle with salt and vinegar to make it look new. If you heat.your knife you can cut hc-t cake or bread as smoothly as cold. To- clean a kettle.—Fill it with potato parings, and then boil fast till clean. Warm linseed oil applied briskly with a soft- cloth makes a nice soft polish on woodwork. To prevent lain glasses from cracking, by sudden expansion of heat, run the point of a- diamond along the base of the tube. Glazed flower pots keep . the earth moist longer than any other kind, and are. therefore'-, the best- to tide fo ill ants on window ledges. A little machine oil applied occasionally to the castors cf furnitiire will keep them in good condition. Be careful not to put too much, or it will mark the carpet. To preserve white lace keep it in a, box, "and before putting it- away sprinkle it thoroughly with magnesia. . When the lace is needed again this can easily be shaken out. Whiten yellow linen by boiling for half an hour in one pint .of soft -soap melted in one gallon of milk. Next wash in suds, and then in two cold waters containing a little blue. To prevent a- ket< ie becoming crusted inside, keep an oyster shell in it. All the- chalk t-hac is in the water will attach itself to the -shell, which then can be.removed and anew one substituted fer it. Lace can be easily washed if put to Boak in a basin of warm water in which soap powder has- been worked into- a lather. Two of these waters in twentyfour hours will cleanse very dirty laco without rubbing. If a teaspoonful of kerosene be put into four quarts of tepid water, and this used nx washing windows and mirrors instead cf cold water cinfw fw fw rers instead of pure: water,, -tfxere will remain upon the clean surface a polish no amount c-f friction can give. Fruit- stains on table linen may be removed by kerosene. As soon as possible after the stain is made, wash it with kerosene, just as one would with water, afterwards washing it with soap and water in the. ordinary way. To mount photographs boil some starch and allow it to get cold before being used. Damp the photographs before applying the starch, paste two or three in the book, and put it under a heavy weight. It- is a mistake to paste in a great many before applying the weight, for they often cockle and spoil the pages of the album.