The standard book of recipes and housewife's guide, comprising as complete cook book

Another cleaning mixture may be made by grating four potatoes to a pulp and mixing with a quart of water. After stirring, let the pulp settle and pour off the water. This must be applied with a sponge. To Clean Decanters and Water-bottles. When these, from containing hard water for a considerable time, have become coated in the interior with a deposit of carbonate of lime and other impurities, the easiest way is to use about a teaspoonful of hydrochloric acid, rinsing the bottle with it. It will be found that the instant the acid comes in contact with the deposit it removes it, a clear solution of chloride of calcium being formed. The bottle should then be rinsed in plenty of clean water. After a decanter has held port or other wines for a long period, a deposit of coloring matter will cover the interior surface of the glass. This may be easily cleaned off by a little sulphuric acid, in the manner above described. Cleaning Copper Utensils. — These can be given a clean, bright surface by the use of nitric acid. The desired surface is thus obtained quickly and with little trouble. But there is the objection that a considerable quantity of nitrous fumes are given off, and these red vapors are at once extremely disagreeable, and very prejudicial to health. Their production may be prevented by adding a little solution of bichromate of potash to the dilute nitric acid. This is found to answer perfectly, the copper surface being made clean and bright, without disengagement of vapors . To Clean and Brighten Brussels Carpets.— Take a fresh beef-gall, break it into a clean pan ; pour one-half into a very clean bucket, and nearly fill it with lukewarm water ; take a clean, coarse cloth, and, having brushed the carpet well, rub it hard with the cloth thoroughly wet with gallwater ; do a small piece at a time ; have ready a dry coarse cloth, and rub the carpet dry ; so proceed until the whole carpet is cleaned. A few drops of carbonate of ammonia, in a small quantity of warm rain- -77 water, will change, if carefully applied, discolored spots upon carpets, and indeed all spots, whether produced by acids or alkalies. If one has the misfortune to have a carpet injured by whitewash, this will immediately restore it. Another recipe for cleaning carpets is two and one-half bars Ivory soap, one half-pound powdered borax, one-fourth ounce glycerine ; shave soap fine, put in four gallons soft water ; heat till dissolved, then let cool enough to use. Grease on a carpet, if not of long-standing, can be readily disposed of by washing the spot with hot soapsuds and borax — half an ounce of borax to a gallon of water. Use a clean cloth to wash it with, rinse in warm water, and wipe dry. To Clean Paper-Hangings. Take small pieces of stale bread, about two days old, commence at the top of the room , and with the crustwipelightly downward abouthalf a yard at each stroke, till the upper part of the hangings is completely cleaned all around, and so continue until the whole is gone over. This operation, if carefully performed, will frequently make old paper look almost equal to new. Great caution must be used not to rub the paper hard, nor to attempt cleaning it the cross or horizontal way. The dirty part of the bread must each time be cut away, and the piece renewed as often as necessary.