If quilts are folded or rolled tightly after washing, then beaten with a rolling pin or potato masher, it lightens up the cotton and makes them seem soft and new.

Chemists say that it takes more than twice as much sugar to sweeten preserves, sauce, etc., if put in when they begin to cook as it does to sweeten after the fruit is cooked.

Tar may be removed from the hands by rubbing with the outside of fresh, orange or lemon peel and drying immediately.  The volatile oils dissolve the tar so that it can be rubbed off.

Moths or any summer flying insects may be enticed to destruction by a bright tin pan half filled with kerosene set in a dark corner of the room.  Attracted by the bright pan, the moth will meet his death in the kerosene.

It may be worth knowing that water in which three or four onions have been boiled, applied with a gilding brush to the frames of pictures and chimney glasses, will prevent flies from lighting on them and will not injure the frames.

SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING BABIES.

It is believed by many that if a child cries at its birth and lifts up only one hand, it is born to command.  It is thought very unlucky not to weigh the baby before it is dressed.  When first dressed the clothes should not be put on over the head, but drawn on over the feet, for luck.  When first taken from the room in which it was born it must be carried up stairs before going down, so that it will rise in the world.  In any case it must be carried up stairs or up the street, the first time it is taken out.  It is also considered in England and Scotland unlucky to cut the baby’s nails or hair before it is twelve months old.  The saying: 

     Born on Monday, fair in the face;
     Born on Tuesday, full of God’s grace;
     Born on Wednesday, the best to be had;
     Born on Thursday, merry and glad;
     Born on Friday, worthily given;
     Born on Saturday, work hard for a living;
     Born on Sunday, shall never know want,

is known with various changes all over the Christian world; one deviation from the original makes Friday’s child “free in giving.”  Thursday has one very lucky hour just before sunrise.

     The child that is born on the Sabbath day
     Is bonny and good and gay,

While

     He who is born on New Year’s morn
     Will have his own way as sure as you’re born.

And

     He who is born on Easter morn
     Shall never know care, or want, or harm.

SECRET ART OF CATCHING FISH.

Put the oil of rhodium on the bait, when fishing with a hook, and you will always succeed.

TO CATCH FISH.

Take the juice of smallage or lovage, and mix with any kind of bait.  As long as there remain any kind of fish within yards of your hook, you will find yourself busy pulling them out.