WHAT TO DO

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17605, 9 January 1929, Page 5

WHAT TO DO

Salt and vinegar will remove stains from teacups. « Lemon and salt will clean ivory handles or ornaments. Cold tea added to the water in which cut flowers are placed keeps them fresh much longer. Bicarbonate of soda gives instant relief to a burn or scald. It may be applied either wet or dry. Scorch stains on linen can generally be removed by rubbing them with a little pow'dcred borax. A new clothes-line should be boiled before being used. This prevents it from stretching, and makes it last much longer.

A raw egg is a valuable household remedy. The pain of a bruise may be speedily eased by covering the affected part with a rag steeped in raw egg. After a knife has been used for cutting onions, wipe it with a damp cloth, rub it briskly with coarse salt, and the objectionable smell will disappear. If preserving home-grown fruit, gather it on a dry day; if buying the fruit, do not buy it just after a very wet day; and make the jam in fine weather.

Sour cream or thick milk makes a good cream for cleaning patent or glace leather shoes. It should be well rubbed in. and the shoe polished with a velvet pad. When the glass stopper of a decanter has become fixed, it can be loosened by pouring a few drops of oil or glycerine round the neck and holding it near the fire. To keep food hot for late-comers, cover it closely with a plate and place if over a saucepan of hot water. The food will thus be kept hot without becoming dry.

To detect the presence of foreign matter in flour, squeeze a handful tightly. If it clings together it is quite pure, but if it crumbles away it is adulterated with chalk or whiting. A good polish may be put on dull or damp boots and shoes in a few seconds by adding a 'drop of paraffin to the blacking or brown polish. It also prevents the leather from cracking. Onion juice and vinegar are excellent for cleaning steel. Take three parts of vinepry to one of onion juice, mix thoroughly, and smear all over the steel. Leave for a while to dry, then polish. A quick way of removing fat from soup or stock is to pour it through a cloth soaked in cold water. The fat stays in the cloth and the soup is as clear as though the fat had been removed when cold.

When washing underclothes and handkerchiefs, put a small lump of orris root into the rinsing water, and it will give them a delightful perfume of violets. This is much more lasting than if a sachet is placed among clothes.

Do not add water to your fruit when making jam or jelly. Ptrt the fruit into the pan before the sugar, and, by slow heat, the juice will cook out and prevent the sugar burning, which often happens when sugar and fruit are put in together. Half a lemon squeezed in with most fruit improves the -flavour. ✓