Bedding should be washed in long days, and in hot weather. Pound blankets in two different tubs or barrels of hot suds, first well mixing the soap and water. Rinse in hot suds; and, after wringing, let two persons shake them thoroughly, and then hang them out. If not dry, at night, fold them, and hang them out the next morning. Bedquilts should be pounded in warm suds; and, after rinsing, be wrung as dry as possible. Bolsters and pillows can be pounded in hot suds, without taking out the feathers, rinsing them in fair water. It is usually best, however, for nice feathers, to take them out, wash them, and dry them on a garret floor. Cotton comforters should have the cases taken off and washed. Wash bedticks, after the feathers are removed, like other things. Empty straw beds once a year.
The following cautions, in regard to calicoes, are useful. Never wash them in very warm water; and change the water, when it appears dingy, or the light parts will look dirty. Never rub on soap; but remove grease with French chalk, starch, magnesia, or Wilmington clay. Make starch for them, with coffee-water, to prevent any whitish appearance. Glue is good for stiffening calicoes. When laid aside, not to be used, all stiffening should be washed out, or they will often be injured. Never let calicoes freeze, in drying. Some persons use bran-water, (four quarts of wheat-bran to two pails of water,) and no soap, for calicoes; washing and rinsing in the bran-water. Potato-water is equally good. Take eight peeled and grated potatoes to one gallon of water.
Soda-Washing.
A very great saving in labor is secured, by soda-washing. There have been mistakes made in receipts, and in modes of doing it, which have caused a prejudice against it; but if the soap be rightly made, and rightly used, it certainly saves one half the labor and time of ordinary washing.
Receipt for Soda-Soap.
Take eight pounds of bar-soap, eight pounds of coarse soda, (the sub-carbonate,) ten gallons of soft water, boiled two hours, stirring it often. This is to be cooled, and set away for use. In washing, take a pound of this soap, to the largest pail of water, and heat till it boils. Having previously soaked the white clothes, in warm, not hot, water, put them in this boiling mixture, and let them boil one hour and no more. Take them out, draining them well, and put them in a tub, half full of soft water. Turn them wrong side out; rub the soiled places, till they look clean; then put them into blue rinsing-water, and wring them out. They are then ready to hang out. Some persons use another rinsing-water. The colored clothes and flannels must not be washed in this way. The fine clothes may be first boiled in this water; it may then be used for coarser clothes; and afterward, the brown towels, and other articles of that nature, may be boiled in the same water. After this, the water which remains, is still useful, for washing floors; and then, the suds is a good manure to put around plants.
It is best to prepare, at once, the whole quantity of water to be used. Take out about one third, and set it by; and every time a fresh supply of clothes is put in, use a portion of this, to supply the waste of a former boiling.
Modes of Washing Various Articles.
Brown Linens, or Muslins, of tea, drab, or olive, colors, look best, washed in hay-water. Put in hay enough, to color the water like new brown linen. Wash them first in lukewarm, fair water, without soap, (removing grease with French chalk,) then wash and rinse them in the hay-water.
Nankeens look best, washed in suds, with a teacup of ley added for each pailful. Iron on the wrong side. Soak new nankeens in ley, for one night, and it sets the color perfectly.