If you want your palms to thrive in an ordinary sitting-room, sponge the leaves once a week with lukewarm water, to which a little milk has been added. Then stand the plant for two hours in lukewarm water deep enough to completely cover the pot. This is the proper way to water palms.
One way to remove iron rust
One method of taking iron mold out of linen is to hold the spots over a pitcher of boiling water and rub them with the juice of sorrel and salt, and then, when the cloth is thoroughly wet, to dip it quickly in lye and wash at once.
To clean a light cloth gown
Lay the gown on a table, spread out smoothly and cover with powdered fuller’s earth shaken through a sieve. Hang, without shaking, in a dark closet for twenty-four hours; then shake and brush in the open air.
To get rid of plant-lice
Put the plants into a closet from which you have cleared everything else, and set on the floor a pan containing refuse broken tobacco. Light the tobacco, and shut the closet up for five or six hours. Soak the earth in the pots with tobacco tea, made by pouring boiling water upon the tobacco stems and letting it cool. You can brush up the tiny insects by the hundred. To make sure they will not come to life, burn all you sweep up.
To take dry ink out of a carpet
Rub into the spot as much thick buttermilk, made into a paste with table salt, as the place will hold. This may tone down the inkiness. Cover the wet paste with paper to exclude light and dust, and leave it alone for six hours. Wash, then, with household ammonia and warm water; rub dry, and make a second application of salt and buttermilk, covering as before.