The right way in drying herbs for your kitchen and possible medicinal use is to gather them as soon as they begin to open their flowers, and to lay them on some netting in a dry shed or room where the air will get at them on all sides. Be sure they are dry and not moist when you cut or pick them, and free them from dirt and decayed leaves. After they are entirely dried out, put them in paper bags upon which you have written the name of the herb and the date of tying it up. Hang them where the air is dry and there is no chance of their moulding.
SAVORY HERBS—TO POWDER
Strip the leaves from the stalks, pound, sift out the coarse pieces, put the powder in bottles, and cork tight. Label with exactness every bottle. If, for the convenience of instant use in gravies, soups, etc., you wish different herbs mixed, pound the leaves together when you make them into powders. Celery seed, dried lemon-peel, and other spicy things can thus be combined and ready for the moment's call.
ICE VAULT—TO MAKE
Dig a pit eight or ten feet square, and as deep in the cellar. Lay a double wall with brick; fill between with pulverized charcoal; cover the bottom also double with the same or tan-bark. If the pit is filled with ice, or nearly so, cover six inches with tan-bark; but if only a small quantity is in it, wrap well in a blanket, and over the opening in the pit lay a double bag of charcoal.
INK—TO REMOVE FROM LINEN
Scald in hot tallow. Let it cool; then wash in warm suds. Sometimes these stains can be removed by wetting the place in very sour buttermilk or lemon juice; rub salt over, and bleach in the sun.
INSECTS—TO KEEP AWAY
The common elder is a great safeguard against the devastations of insects. Scatter it around cucumber and squash-vines. Place it on the branches of plum and other fruit-trees subject to the ravages of insects.
IRONS—TO REMOVE RUST FROM