A Holland Recipe.—­To one quart of new milk, fresh from the cow (not strained), add one half pound of ground black mustard seed and six eggs.  Beat the whole well together and pour into a barrel of cider.  It will keep cider sweet for one year or more.

TO BLEACH COTTON CLOTH.

Take one large spoonful of sal soda and one pound of chloride lime for thirty yards; dissolve in clean, soft water; rinse the cloth thoroughly in cold, soft water so that it may not rot.  This amount of cloth may be bleached in fourteen or fifteen minutes.

A POLISH FOR LEATHER.

Put a half-pound of shellac broken up in small pieces into a quart bottle or jug, cover it with alcohol, cork it tight, and put it on the shelf in a warm place; shake it well several times a day, then add a piece of camphor as large as a hen’s egg; shake it well, and in a few hours shake it again and add one ounce of lampblack.  If the alcohol is good, it will all be dissolved in two days; then shake and use.  If the materials were of the proper kind, the polish correctly prepared, it will dry in about five minutes, giving a gloss equal to patent leather.  Using aniline dyes instead of the lampblack, you can have it any desired color, and it can be used on wood or hard paper.

TO SOFTEN WATER.

Add half a pound of the best quick-lime dissolved in water to every hundred gallons.  Smaller proportions may be more conveniently managed, and if allowed to stand a short time the lime will have united with the carbonate of lime, and been deposited at the bottom of the receptacle.  Another way is to put a gallon of lye into a barrelful of water, or two or three shovelfuls of wood-ashes, let stand over night; it will be clear and soft.

WASHING FLUID.

One gallon of water and four pounds of ordinary washing soda, and a quarter of a pound of soda.  Heat the water to boiling hot, put in the soda, boil about five minutes, then pour it over two pounds of unslaked lime, let it bubble and foam until it settles, turn it off and bottle it for use.  This is the article that is used in the Chinese laundries for whitening their linen, and is called “Javelle water;” a tablespoonful put into a suds of three gallons, and a little, say a quarter of a cupful, in the boiler when boiling the clothes, makes them very white and clear.  Must be well rinsed afterwards.  This preparation will remove tea stains and almost all ordinary stains of fruit, grass, etc.  This fluid brightens the colors of colored clothes, does not rot them, but should not be left long in any water; the boiling, sudsing, rinsing and bluing, should be done in quick succession, until the clothes are ready to hang on the line.

HARD SOAP. (Washing.)