Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

On a Larger Scale

Prepare a tight barrel by charring it on the inside, (by having some hickory or oak shavings burnt in it,) then put in half a peck of quick lime, and fill it with water. After the lime water has stood in the barrel for two weeks, it will be ready for use.

This preparation of the barrel is necessary to remove the acid from the wood, which would communicate an unpleasant taste to the water.

Fit a partition in the barrel, (perforated with many holes,) about three inches from the bottom of the barrel, and having put in a tube, to go down from the top through the partition nearly to the bottom, put on the perforated partition some broken charcoal, then finer charcoal a foot thick, then about a foot of clean washed sand.

To use this filter pour the water through the tube, (which should be open at the top like a funnel;) the water runs to the bottom, and filters upward, leaving all the impurities at the bottom.

The pure water is drawn off from the top of the barrel by means of a spile or faucet.