TO REMOVE FRUIT-STAINS
Stained table linen follows the return of the fresh-fruit season as surely “as night follows day.” For removing such stains there is nothing more effective than the sulphur bleach. Lay a spoonful of sulphur on a plate, and sprinkle with a few drops of alcohol. Over this place a tin funnel with the point upward. Touch a lighted match to the alcohol; wet the stained linen, and hold the spot over the opening in the point of the funnel. The sulphur fumes will remove the most obstinate stain, seldom requiring more than one application. Rinse and wash the linen at once, to prevent rotting the material.
“Woman’s Home Companion” for September.
SICKLY PLANTS
Nitrate of soda will rapidly improve the appearance of house plants that have become sickly. A piece about the size of a marble is enough for a plant taking a twelve-inch pot.
TO KILL INSECTS
A good solution to kill all insects is to take two pounds of alum and dissolve it in three or four quarts of boiling water; let it stand on the stove until the alum is all melted, then apply it with a brush while very hot to the wainscoting and floor and wherever the vermin abound.
It is also good to use on pantry shelves and bedsteads, and is a sure cure for the pests of fleas that are apt to swarm a closed house after a damp spell in the summer time.
FINE DARNING
In darning a shirtwaist or other garment where it is important that the place shall not be seen, do the work without putting a piece under the hole and use very fine thread. If the darning is done well, the spot will be as strong as the fabric around it and when it is ironed will be scarcely noticeable. The edges of the material, of course, must be drawn together in their original position. In mending any fabric, the direction of the threads should follow, as much as possible, the lines of the warp and woof. It is advisable sometimes to ravel a thread from the fabric itself and use it in darning. At other times, when silk is to be used, it is well to split silk in order to have a flat thread instead of a round one. It is an old-fashioned idea worth remembering to use a hair in darning fine wool.