Chapter XXXVII Miscellaneous Directions
Every woman should know how to direct in regard to the proper care of domestic animals, as they often suffer from the negligence of domestics.
The following information, in reference to the care of a horse and cow, may be useful. A stable should not be very light nor very dark; its floor should be either plank or soil, as brick or stone pavements injure the feet. It should be well cleaned, every morning. A horse, kept in a stable, should be rubbed and brushed every day. A stable-horse needs as much daily exercise as trotting three miles will give him. Food or drink should never be given, when a horse is very warm with exercise, as it causes disease. A horse should be fed, three times a day. Hay, sheaf-oats, shorts, corn-meal, and bran, are the best food for horses. When a horse is travelling, order six quarts of oats in the morning, four at noon, and six at night, and direct that neither food nor water be given till he is cool.
Keep a horse’s legs free from mud, or disease will often result from the neglect. A horse, much used, should be shod as often as once in two months. Fish-oil and strong perfumes, on the skin, keep flies from annoying a horse. Some horses are made fractious by having the check-rein so tight as to weary the muscles.
A cow should be watered three times a day, and fed with hay, potatoes, carrots, and boiled corn. Turnips and cabbages give a bad taste to the milk. Give a handful of salt to a cow, twice a week, and occasionally give the same quantity to a horse. Let them drink pure water. A well-fed cow gives double the milk that she will if not fed well. A cow should go unmilked, for two months before calving, and her milk should not be used till four days after. The calf must run with the cow for four days, and then be shut from her, except thrice a day, when it should take as much food as it wants, and then the cow should be milked clean.
Hens sit twenty days, and should be well fed and watered, during this time. The first food for chickens should be coarse dry meal. Cold and damp weather is bad for all young fowls, and they should be well protected from it. Pepper-berries are good for fowls which have diseases caused by damp and cold weather.
In Winter, much fuel may be saved, and comfort secured, by stuffing cotton into all cracks about the windows and the surbases of rooms, and by listing the doors. Cover strips of wood with baize, and nail them tight against a door, on the casing.
The following are the causes of smoky chimneys. Short and broad flues, running up straight, as a narrow flue, with a bend in it, draws best. Large openings, at the top, draw the wind down, and should be remedied, by having the summits made tapering. A house higher than a chimney near it, sometimes makes the chimney smoke, and the evil should be remedied, by raising the chimney. Too large a throat to the fireplace, sometimes causes a chimney to smoke, and can be remedied, by a false back, or by lowering the front, with sheet iron. Shallow fireplaces give out more heat, and draw as well, as deep ones.
House-cleaning should be done in dry warm weather. Several friends of the writer maintain, that cleaning paint, and windows, and floors, in hard, cold water, without any soap, using a flannel washcloth, is much better than using warm suds. It is worth trying. In cleaning in the common way, sponges are best for windows, and clean water only should be used. They should be first wiped with linen, and then with old silk. The outside of windows should be washed with a long brush, made for the purpose; and they should be rinsed, by throwing upon them water, containing a little saltpetre.
When inviting company, mention, in the note, the day of the month and week, and the hour for coming. Provide a place for ladies to dress their hair, with a glass, pins, and combs. A pitcher of cold water, and a tumbler, should be added. When the company is small, it is becoming a common method for the table to be set at one end of the room, the lady of the house to pour out tea, and the gentlemen of the party to wait on the ladies and themselves. When tea is sent round, always send a teapot of hot water to weaken it, and a slop-bowl, or else many persons will drink their tea much stronger than they wish.
Let it ever be remembered, that the burning of lights and the breath of guests, are constantly exhausting the air of its healthful principle; therefore avoid crowding many guests into one room. Do not tempt the palate by a great variety of unhealthful dainties. Have a warm room for departing guests, that they may not become chilled before they go out.
A parlor should be furnished with candle and fire screens, for those who have weak eyes; and if, at table, a person sits with the back near the fire, a screen should be hung on the back of the chair, as it is very injurious to the whole system to have the back heated.
Pretty baskets, for flowers or fruits, on centre tables, can be made thus. Knit, with coarse needles, all the various shades of green and brown, into a square piece. Press it with a hot iron, and then ravel it out. Buy a pretty shaped wicker basket, or make one of stiff millinet, or thin pasteboard, cut the worsted into bunches, and sew them on, to resemble moss. Then line the basket, and set a cup or dish of water in it, to hold flowers, or use it for a fruit-basket. Handsome fireboards are made, by nailing black foundation-muslin to a frame the size of the fireplace; and then cutting out flowers, from wall-paper, and pasting them on the muslin, according to the fancy.
India rubber, melted in lamp-oil, and brushed over common shoes, keeps water out, perfectly. Keep small whisk brooms, wherever gentlemen hang their clothes, both up stairs and down, and get them to use them if you can.
Boil new earthen in bran-water, putting the articles in, when cold. Do the same with porcelain kettles. Never leave wooden vessels out of doors, as they fall to pieces. In Winter, lift the handle of a pump, and cover it with blankets, to keep it from freezing.
Broken earthen and china, can often be mended, by tying it up, and boiling it in milk. Diamond cement, when genuine, is very effectual for the same purpose. Old putty can be softened by muriatic acid. Nail slats across nursery windows. Scatter ashes on slippery ice, at the door; or rather, remove it. Clarify impure water with powdered alum, a teaspoonful to a barrel.
Note
A volume, entitled the American Housekeeper’s Receipt Book, prepared by the author of this work, under the supervision of several experienced housekeepers, is designed as a Supplement to this treatise on Domestic Economy. The following Preface and Analysis of the Contents will indicate its design more fully:
Preface (for the American Housekeeper’s Receipt Book.)
The following objects are aimed at in this work:
First, to furnish an original collection of receipts, which shall embrace a great variety of simple and well-cooked dishes, designed for every-day comfort and enjoyment.
Second, to include in the collection only such receipts as have been tested by superior housekeepers, and warranted to be the best. It is not a book made up in any department by copying from other books, but entirely from the experience of the best practical housekeepers.
Third, to express every receipt in language which is short, simple, and perspicuous, and yet to give all directions so minutely as that the book can be kept in the kitchen, and be used by any domestic who can read, as a guide in every one of her employments in the kitchen.
Fourth, to furnish such directions in regard to small dinner-parties and evening company as will enable any young housekeeper to perform her part, on such occasions, with ease, comfort, and success.
Fifth, to present a good supply of the rich and elegant dishes demanded at such entertainments, and yet to set forth so large and tempting a variety of what is safe, healthful, and good, in connexion with such warnings and suggestions as it is hoped may avail to promote a more healthful fashion in regard both to entertainments and to daily table supplies. No book of this kind will sell without an adequate supply of the rich articles which custom requires, and in furnishing them, the writer has aimed to follow the example of Providence, which scatters profusely both good and ill, and combines therewith the caution alike of experience, revelation, and conscience, “choose ye that which is good, that ye and your seed may live.”
Sixth, in the work on Domestic Economy, together with this, to which it is a Supplement, the writer has attempted to secure, in a cheap and popular form, for American housekeepers, a work similar to an English work which she has examined, entitled the Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy, by Thomas Webster and Mrs. Parkes, containing over twelve hundred octavo pages of closely-printed matter, treating on every department of Domestic Economy; a work which will be found much more useful to English women, who have a plenty of money and well-trained servants, than to American housekeepers. It is believed that most in that work which would be of any practical use to American housekeepers, will be found in this work and the Domestic Economy.
Lastly, the writer has aimed to avoid the defects complained of by most housekeepers in regard to works of this description issued in this country, or sent from England, such as that, in some cases, the receipts are so rich as to be both expensive and unhealthful; in others, that they are so vaguely expressed as to be very imperfect guides; in others, that the processes are so elaborate and fussing as to make double the work that is needful; and in others, that the topics are so limited that some departments are entirely omitted, and all are incomplete.
In accomplishing these objects, the writer has received contributions of the pen, and verbal communications from some of the most judicious and practical housekeepers, in almost every section of this country, so that the work is fairly entitled to the name it bears of the American Housekeeper’s Receipt Book.
The following embraces most of the topics contained in this work.
Suggestions to young housekeepers in regard to style, furniture, and domestic arrangements.
Suggestions in regard to different modes to be pursued both with foreign and American domestics.
On providing a proper supply of family stores, on the economical care and use of them, and on the furniture and arrangement of a store-closet.
On providing a proper supply of utensils to be used in cooking, with drawings to illustrate.
On the proper construction of ovens, and directions for heating and managing them.
Directions for securing good yeast and good bread.
Advice in regard to marketing, the purchase of wood, &c.
Receipts for breakfast dishes, biscuits, warm cakes, tea cakes, &c.
Receipts for puddings, cakes, pies, preserves, pickles, sauces, catsups, and also for cooking all the various kinds of meats, soups, and vegetables.
The above receipts are arranged so that the more healthful and simple ones are put in one portion, and the richer ones in another.
Healthful and favourite articles of food for young children.
Receipts for a variety of temperance drinks.
Directions for making tea, coffee, chocolate, and other warm drinks.
Directions for cutting up meats, and for salting down, corning, curing, and smoking.
Directions for making butter and cheese, as furnished by a practical and scientific manufacturer of the same, of Goshen, Conn., that land of rich butter and cheese.
A guide to a selection of a regular course of family dishes, which will embrace a successive variety, and unite convenience with good taste and comfortable living.
Receipts for articles for the sick, and drawings of conveniences for their comfort and relief.
Receipts for articles for evening parties and dinner parties, with drawings to show the proper manner of setting tables, and of supplying and arranging dishes, both on these, and on ordinary occasions.
An outline of arrangements for a family in moderate circumstances, embracing the systematic details of work for each domestic, and the proper mode of doing it, as furnished by an accomplished housekeeper.
Remarks on the different nature of food and drinks, and their relation to the laws of health.
Suggestions to the domestics of a family, designed to promote a proper appreciation of the dignity and importance of their station, and a cheerful and faithful performance of their duties.
Miscellaneous suggestions and receipts.