where the patient had incautiously swallowed a wasp in a draught of beer, and been stung by it in the windpipe, the alarming symptoms that ensued were almost instantly relieved by swallowing repeated doses of water, saturated with salt. It is also a fact worth knowing, at the season of the year when wasps are troublesome with their stings, that no application will afford such instantaneous relief as a drop of liquor potassæ (potash water); indeed, its effects are so unfailing, that it may be called a specific cure. It operates by neutralizing the injected poison. Families and persons who have the care of children, will do well to have always at hand a small quantity of this solution, which should be kept in a stoppered phial. It is not an expensive application; a quarter of an ounce will be quite sufficient to order at once, and a single drop placed on the wound-which should be first slightly opened-is all that is required. Sweet oil is also often recommended, if applied immediately. The sting, if possible, should be extracted with hair pincers or tweezers. The swellings which arise from nettle-stings, etc., may be immediately removed by gathering a sprig of the nearest aromatic plant at hand, such as thyme, mint, rosemary, or dock, and rubbing the wound with the juice of it.

GERMAN METHOD OF KEEPING CUCUMBers for WINTER USE.-Pare and slice (as for the table), sprinkle well with salt, in which leave the cucumbers twentyfour hours; strain the liquor well off, and pack in jars, a thick layer of cucumber and then salt alternately; tie close, and when wanted for use, take out the quantity required, which rinse in fresh water, and dress as usual with pepper, vinegar, and oil.

TO PREVENT BROTH FROM TURNING SOUR.-Broth may be preserved in a good condition for some days, by taking care when first made to skim it well, and strain it, so as to remove every portion of fat from its surface. The broth, should be kept in an uncovered vessel in a cool place. In summer the broth should be strained daily, and poured into a clean vessel.

TO SOFTEN THE SKIN AND IMPROVE THE COMPLEXION.-Mix a little flowers of sulphur in afternoon milk—about a wineglassful. Let it stand all night, to be used before washing the next morning. The milk only is to be applied to the skin, without disturbing the sulphur. It must not be used when kept longer than the morning.

WHAT TO DO WITH STALE BREAD.-When stale bread has become so hard that it cannot be eaten, it should be grated into coarse powder, and preserved in wide-mouthed bottles or jars. When kept well-covered up, and in a dry place, it will keep good for a considerable time. Bread thus powdered will be found very useful for the preparation of puddings, stuffings, and similar purposes.

HOW TO PRESERVE BUTTER.-Expose the butter to a gentle heat in a metal vessel; when it melts, a quantity of impurities will fall to the bottom of the vessel, and a scum will also rise to the surface, which must be carefully removed. The heat of the fire must now be increased until the butter begins to boil-the scum being continually removed, and the butter stirred to prevent the impuri

ties at the bottom of the vessel from burning. When no more scum rises to the surface of the butter, the boiling must be stopped, some salt added, and the melting butter allowed to become so cold that it no longer burns the finger. Then the clear butter is poured off into jars, the mouths carefully closed, and preserved for use.

APPLE BUTTER.-Fill a preserving pan with peeled, quartered, and cored apples. Add cloves, allspice, and cinnamon, not too strong. Cover with good cider, and boil slowly, mashing with a wooden spoon, until the whole becomes a dark brown jam, with no more juice than suffices to keep it soft and buttery. TO REMOVE STAINS FROM WOOLlen Dresses.-Make a thick rubbing of soap on a damp nail-brush. Spread the stained part on a deal table. Scrub with the brush and a sprinkling of water till quite removed. Take a wet cloth and wipe off the soap.

TO REMOVE INK STAINS.-If spilt on a table-cloth or carpet, take up quickly all you can into a spoon, and throw it in a plate or saucer, or any china article which will wash clean, or even in emergency on stout double brown paper. Take a rag or coarse cloth, dip it in cold water, and squeeze it out. Rub the stain with it, and beyond the stain on all sides, quickly and plentifully, till every mark of the ink has disappeared. If very promptly done, no trace will remain. A second wet cloth may be used to finish with. Cloth table-covers are generally recovered this way. Almost any stain falling on a table-cloth, carpet, or hearth-rug can thus be removed by prompt measures.

INK ON LINEN, CALICO, OR WHITE MUSLIN.-Immediately lay the damaged part of the article in plenty of milk. Immerse it well. Let it lie. Then rub it well. Let it lie, and rub it alternately all day. Only very hard rubbing wili get it out, but every vestige may be removed.

TO IMPROVE SANDY SOILS.-Mix well together ten loads of stable manure, five loads of clay, twenty bushels of ashes, and an equal amount of lime. Ler these remain in a heap for several months, when the compost will be ready to

use

By this means poor sandy soils may be brought to a state of permanent fertility.

A FRENCH METHOD OF PRESERVING EGGS.-Paint over the surface of the eggs with a thick mucilage of gum arabic in water. This may be easily prepared by putting some crushed gum arabic into a teacup, pouring boiling water over it, and allowing it to remain by the fire until dissolved. The commonest kind of gum arabic may be employed for this purpose. When the eggs thus coated are dry, they should be kept in a box surrounded by very dry powdered charcoal. When required for use, the gum may be removed by placing the egg in tepid water. Eggs intended to be thus preserved should be very fresh, kept at a regular and moderate temperature, and preserved from the contact of air and moisture.

TO MAKE BLACKBERRY WINE.-Press out the juice from fully-ripe blackberries 2nd let it ferment, being lightly covered over for a couple of days, when it requires to be skimmed, and a half quantity of water, together with two or three

pounds of raw sugar, added to each gallon of juice; after which it should remain for about a day and a night in an open vessel, be skimmed and strained, poured into a clean cask, and bunged up. A bottle of brandy added in the cask improves the wine. It should remain at least six months in cask, and then be bottled.

HOW TO PRESERVE MILK.-Pour the milk into a bottle, and place the vessel up to its neck in a saucepanful of water, which is then to be put on the fire, and allowed to boil for a quarter of an hour. The bottle is now to be removed from the water, and carefully closed with a good and tight-fitting cork, so as to render it as air-tight as possible. Milk which has been preserved by this process has been kept for more than a year without turning sour. Milk may also be preserved by putting a tablespoonful of horse-radish, scraped in shreds, into a panful of milk. When milk thus treated is kept in a cool place, it will be found to keep good for several days, even in hot weather.

TO DESTROY CRICKETS OR BEETLES.-Put some strong snuff in the cracks and holes from whence they come. The parings of cucumbers will, if strewn about near their holes, drive them away.

TO DESTROY FLIES.-Strong green tea, sweetened well, and set in saucers about the places where they are most numerous, will attract and destroy them. This plan is much to be preferred to the use of those horrible fly-papers, which catch the poor insects alive, cruelly torturing them whilst starving them to death.

WHEN TO BUY CANDLES.-Always purchase those made in winter, as they are the best; and buy a good stock of them at once, as they improve when kept for some time in a cool place.

DISCOLORED WAX CANDLES.-If wax candles discolor by keeping, rub them over with a piece of flannel dipped in spirits of wine.

LIGHTING CANDLES.-When candles are difficult to light, if the wicks are dipped in spirits of wine they will ignite readily.

A SCRATCHED Or Defaced TablE.—If a table is defaced or scratched, it may be sent to a cabinet-maker's, and planed and repolished, which will make it look like a new one.

CLEANING BOTTLES.-The fur from the inside of bottles can be removed by putting in small pieces of brown paper in cold water and shaking well about. CLEANING KNIVES.-Vinegar and fruit stains upon knives can be taken off by rubbing the blades with raw potato, and then polishing on the knife-board in the usual manner.

A CHEAP SUBSTITUTE FOR SOAP.-The leaves and flowers of the plant called soap-wort are sometimes boiled in water, and the liquid used instead of soap to wash clothes with. It acts through containing a large quantity of alkali.

POMADE.-Two ounces of lard, two ounces of olive oil, half an ounce of rose vil, and scent to fancy.

A HINT ON BAKING.-A basin of water put into the oven with cakes or pastry will keep them from burning.

PRESERVATION OF EGGS.-No item of food is perhaps more invaluable in Momestic economy than the egg. There are several methods of preserving eggs -some for longer times and some for shorter. When it is required to preserve them only for shorter times-say several months-it is inexpedient, as well as undesirable, to adopt those processes calculated to preserve them for longer times-say a year or more. It must be borne in mind, that in all processes of preserving eggs, it is essential that the eggs should be new-laid when submitted. to the process.

MODES OF PRESERVATION FOR LONGER TIMES.-1. Take a box, barrel, or pan, and cover the bottom with a layer of pounded salt, about half an inch deep; lay upon it a layer of eggs as close together as possible without touching each other; throw in pounded salt so as to fill up all the interstices between the eggs, and just to cover them; lay in a second layer of eggs as before, and repeat the process until the box is full. Let the layer of eggs at the top of the box be covered an inch deep in salt, and let the salt be pressed down as firmly as consistent with not breaking the eggs. Cover the box tightly with a close lid or double sacking, and keep it in a dry, cool place. Eggs are sometimes placed in a net, a sieve, or a cullender, and immersed for an instant in a cauldron of boiling water immediately before packing them away. 2. Take a bushel of quicklime, three pounds of salt, and half a pound of cream of tartar; place them in a barrel or pan, and mix them, with water, to the consistence of thick cream, just thin enough for the eggs to float in. Place as many eggs as can be contained in this liquid, and cover over with a sack or old blanket. In this way eggs may be kept for a year or two. 3. Place eggs in a tub or barrel, and fill in the tub with a thick batter of lime, made by mixing quicklime with water. Let all the eggs be fully covered, and the vessel full to the top. Cover over with a blanket or sack, and keep in a cool place. The eggs may, at pleasure, be immersed for an instant in boiling water, as in the former processes.

MODES OF PRESERVATION FOR SHORTER TIMES.-1. Place the eggs in a strong string or worsted net, and suspend the net from the ceiling; constantly-say daily-hang up the net of eggs by a different mesh, in order that all the eggs may be turned and exposed on all sides to the action of the air. By this process, eggs may be preserved for a limited period, and the yolks prevented from sticking to the shells. The period they will keep under this process may be increased by their being preliminarily immersed in boiling water for a period from the space of an instant to two minutes. 2. Rub the eggs, while new-laid, with fresh butter, lard, or gum-water, any of which serve as a preservative, by ineans of excluding the air from the pores of the shell; place the eggs in a net cr basket, and keep turned twice a week. Eggs should always be kept in a dry place, but cool, as in the damp they generally become musty. 3. Parboil the eggs-that is, plunge them in boiling water for a minute, or at most two, and store them by in a net or basket, being careful to keep them turned as in th former processes. After being parboiled, they may be rubbed over, while hot

with lard or fresh butter, which will greatly extend the period for which they will keep.

We would especially call the attention of all mothers of families and careful housewives to these simple and easy methods of preserving eggs, by which from fifty to one hundred per cent. may be saved by a little forethought and prudence. Eggs for the Christmas custards and puddings cannot be bought cheaper than twenty-five cents a dozen, whereas in May good fresh eggs may be bought at the markets at the rate of ten to fifteen cents a dozen, and be preserved for the winter, equal to those to be then purchased at twenty-five cents a dozen.

GOOSEBERRY CHAMPAGNE.-Provide forty pounds of full-grown but unripe gooseberries, of the Green Bath or any other kind, with a little flavor; rub off the blossoms and stocks, pick out unsound or bruised berries, and separate the smali ones by means of a sieve. Put the fruit into a fifteen or twenty-gallon tub and bruise it in small portions, so as to burst the berries without bruising the seeds. Pour upon them four gallons of water, carefully stir and squeeze them with the hands, until the juice and pulp are separated from the seeds and skins; in twelve or twenty-four hours strain the whole through a canvas bag, and pass through the fruit one gallon of fresh water. Next dissolve in the juice thirty pounds of loaf-sugar, and add water, if requisite, to make up the whole liquor to eleven. gallons. Let it remain in the tub; cover it with a blanket, over which place a board, and let the temperature of the place wherein the tub is set be from 50° to 60° of the thermometer. In a day or two, according to the symptoms of fermentation, draw off the liquor into a ten-gallon cask to ferment, keeping it filled up near the bung-hole. When the fermentation becomes somewhat languid. drive in the bung, and bore a hole by its side, into which fit a wooden peg. In a few days loosen the peg, so that any air may escape; and when there appears no longer any, drive in the peg, or spile, tightly. The wine being thus made, it should be set in a cool cellar, and remain there until the end of December, when, to insure its fineness, it should be racked into a fresh cask, to clear from its first lees; or, should it then prove too sweet, instead of racking it the fermentation should be renewed, by stirring up the lees, or by rolling the cask. Sometimes, if the wine be examined on a clear cold day in March, it will be found fine enough to bottle, without further trouble. If it be racked, it should be fined with isinglass.

RAISIN WINE.-The following receipt is an improved method of making raisin wine, and is from the experience of Mr. Arthur Aikin, Secretary to the Society of Arts. It is worth the space it occupies, from the well-known accuracy of the writer. Mr. Aikin had been for some years in the habit of making, for use in his own family, a light, dry raisin wine; and the following is the result of a series of his very careful experiments. He found that, with black currants and other of our native fruits, none of them are so well adapted to make light, dry wines as the better kind of raisins; a further advantage of employing this fruit being that the wine may be made at the season when the