Into the grate put shavings or paper, or the fat pine known as lightwood. If the latter be used, paper is unnecessary. Lay on some small sticks of wood, crossing them so that there may be a draught through them; add then one or two sticks of hard wood, and set the shavings or paper on fire, seeing that every draught is open. As soon as the wood is well on fire, cover with about six inches of coal, the smaller, or nut-coal, being always best for stove use. When the coal is burning brightly, shut up all the dampers save the slide in front of the grate, and you will have a fire which will last, without poking or touching in any way, four hours. Even if a little more heat is needed for ovens, and you open the draughts, this rule still holds good.
Never, for any reason, allow the coal to come above the edge of the fire-box or lining. If you do, ashes and cinders will fall into the oven-flues, and they will soon be choked up, and require cleaning. Another reason also lies in the fact that the stove-covers resting on red-hot coals soon burn out, and must be renewed; whereas, by carefully avoiding such chance, a stove may be used many years without crack or failure of any sort.
If fresh heat is required for baking or any purpose after the first four hours, let the fire burn low, then take off the covers, and with the poker from the bottom rake out all the ashes thoroughly. Then put in two or three sticks of wood, fill as before with fresh coal, and the fire is good for another four hours or more. If only a light fire be required after dinner for getting tea, rake only slightly; then, fill with cinders, and close all the dampers. Half an hour before using the stove, open them, and the fire will rekindle enough for any ordinary purpose. As there is great difference in the "drawing" of chimneys, the exact time required for making a fire can not be given.
In using wood, the same principles apply; but of course the fire must be fed much oftener. Grate-fires, as well as those in the ordinary stove, are to be made in much the same way. In a grate, a blower is fastened on until the coal is burning well; but, if the fire is undisturbed after its renewal, it should burn from six to eight hours without further attention. Then rake out the ashes, add coal, put on the blower a few minutes, and then proceed as before. If an exceedingly slow fire is desired, cover the top with cinders, or with ashes moistened with water. In making a grate or stove fire, keep a coarse cloth to lay before it, that ashes may not spoil the carpet; and wipe about the fire-place with a damp, coarse cloth. In putting on coal in a sick-room, where noise would disturb the patient, it is a good plan to put it in small paper bags or in pieces of newspaper, in which it can be laid on silently. A short table of degrees of heat in various forms of fuel is given below; the degree required for baking, &c, finding place when we come to general operations in cooking.
DEGREES OF HEAT FROM FUEL.
| Willow charcoal | 600°Fah. |
| Ordinary charcoal | 700°Fah. |
| Hard wood | 800° to 900°Fah. |
| Coal | 1000°Fah. |
Lights are next in order. Gas hardly requires mention, as the care of it is limited to seeing that it is not turned too high, the flame in such case not only vitiating the air of the room with double speed, but leaving a film of smoke upon every thing in it. Kerosene is the oil most largely used for lamps; and the light from either a student-lamp, or the lamp to which a "student-burner" has been applied, is the purest and steadiest now in use. A few simple rules for the care of lamps will prevent, not only danger of explosion, but much breakage of chimneys, smoking, &c.
1. Let the wick always touch the bottom of the lamp, and see that the top is trimmed square and even across, with a pair of scissors kept for the purpose.
2. Remember that a lamp, if burned with only a little oil in it, generates a gas which is liable at any moment to explode. Fill lamps to within half an inch of the top. If filled brimming full, the outside of the lamp will be constantly covered with the oil, even when unlighted; while as soon as lighted, heat expanding it, it will run over, and grease every thing near it.
3. In lighting a lamp, turn the wick up gradually, that the chimney may heat slowly: otherwise the glass expands too rapidly, and will crack.