This section is from the book "Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book", by Marion Harland. Also available from Amazon: Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book.
One method of taking iron mold out of linen is to hold the spots over a pitcher of boiling water and rub them with the juice of sorrel and salt, and then, when the cloth is thoroughly wet, to dip it quickly in lye and wash at once.
Lay the gown on a table, spread out smoothly and cover with powdered fuller's earth shaken through a sieve. Hang, without shaking, in a dark closet for twenty-four hours; then shake and brush in the open air.
Put the plants into a closet from which you have cleared everything else, and set on the floor a pan containing refuse broken tobacco. Light the tobacco, and shut the closet up for five or six hours. Soak the earth in the pots with tobacco tea, made by pouring boiling water upon the tobacco stems and letting it cool. You can brush up the tiny insects by the hundred. To make sure they will not come to life, burn all you sweep up.
Rub into the spot as much thick buttermilk, made into a paste with table salt, as the place will hold. This may tone down the inkiness. Cover the wet paste with paper to exclude light and dust, and leave it alone for six hours. Wash, then, with household ammonia and warm water; rub dry, and make a second application of salt and buttermilk, covering as before.
To remove the smell of paint from a room leave in it over night a pail of water with three or four sliced raw onions in it. Shut the door, and in the morning the paint smell will have gone, the onions and water absorbing it.
Tarnished gold embroidery may be cleansed by dipping a brush in pulverized burnt alum, then brushing the embroidery thoroughly.
To polish patent leather remove every particle of dust, and apply a mixture of one part linseed oil to two parts cream. It should be well mixed and applied with a flannel. Rub the leather well with a soft, dry cloth.
If the linoleum be wiped first with a cloth dipped in warm water, and wrung as dry as possible, then wiped over with skimmed milk once a week, the colors will be lightened, and the varnish, which protects the colors, will be longer preserved. Soften obstinate spots with a little linseed oil. If the whole floor is treated once a month with linseed oil, using as little as possible, and rubbing all superfluous oil off, it will wear longer and the color will be brighter. If the varnish is entirely removed in any part, a mixture of one part lac varnish and three parts oil will restore it.
Cane chair seats that have sagged may be tightened by washing in hot soapsuds and leaving to dry in the open air.
Put them on, and as soon as they are warmed by the natural heat of the foot, rub with the palm of the hand until you are sensible that the moisture of the skin is lubricating the leather. Five minutes spent in this way whenever you wear the shoes will keep them in good order. About once a week put three drops of neat's-foot oil into your hand, hold it until blood-warm, and rub it thoroughly into the leather. Cold weather induces cracking in patent leather. Gentle warmth prevents it.
 
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