The ordinary way of washing a barrel is with boiling water, and when cool examining it with a light inside. If there be any sour or musty smell, however, lime must be used to remove it. Break the lime into lumps, and put it in the cask dry (it will take from 3 to 4 lbs. for each cask), then pour in as many gallons of boiling water as there are pounds of lime, and bung. Roll the cask about now and then, and after a few hours wash it out, steam it, and let it cool.
BED-BUGS—TO KILL
For bed-bugs nothing is so good as the white of eggs and quicksilver. A thimbleful of quicksilver to the white of each egg; heat until well mixed; apply with a feather.
FEATHER-BEDS—TO CLEANSE WITHOUT EMPTYING
On a hot, clear summer day, lay the bed upon a scaffold; wash it well with soap-suds upon both sides, rubbing it hard with a stiff brush; pour several gallons of hot water upon the bed slowly, and let it drip through. Rinse with clear water; remove it to a dry part of the scaffold to dry; beat, and turn it two or three times during the day. Sun until perfectly dry. The feathers may be emptied in barrels, washed in soap-suds, and rinsed; then spread in an unoccupied room and dried, or put in bags made of thin sleazy cloth, and kept in the sun until dry. The quality of feathers can be much improved by attention of this kind.
CLOTHES—TO BLEACH
Dissolve a handful of refined borax in ten gallons of water; boil the clothes in it. To whiten brown cloth, boil in weak lye, and expose day and night to the sun and night air; keep the clothes well sprinkled.
BOOKS—TO KEEP MICE FROM
Sprinkle a little Cayenne pepper in the cracks at the back of the shelves of the bookcase.
BOARDS—TO SCOUR