Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

Ley and Soda Preparation for Washing Clothes

To sixteen gallons of water, put one gallon of lime water; twelve ounces of soft soap, or if hard soap it must be first melted, and four ounces of soda, put them together in your wash kettle, and when nearly boiling, put in the clothes, being careful to have them as much of a kind as possible, they should be wet first with common water, boil one hour, then wash, scald and blue as usual. The limestone should remain in the water at least four days before it is used, and be about of the strength of lime-water for drinking, and the same stone will do for several times if good. The ley will do for boiling a second set of clothes by adding a little more, and afterwards for towels and coarse things. Prints and flannels must not be boiled.