Twentieth century home cook book

Glycerine Ointment. — A glycerine ointment for chaps and excoriations is made as follows: One-half ounce spermaceti melted together with a drachm of white wax and two fluid ounces of oil of almonds by a moderate heat ; the mixture is poured into a mortar, when a fluid ounce of glycerine is added to it and rubbed till the ingredients are thoroughly mixed and cold. Court Plaster. — Soak isinglass in a little warm water for twenty-four hours ; then evaporate nearly all the water by a gentle heat, dissolve the residue in a little proof spirits of wine, and strain the whole through a piece of open linen. The strained mass should be a stiff jelly when cool. Now, extend a piece of silk on a wooden frame and fix it tight with tacks and thread. Melt the jelly, and apply it to the silk thinly and evenly with a hairbrush. A second coating must be applied when the first has dried. When both are dry, cover the whole surface with two or three coatings of balsam of Peru, applied in the same way. XXIV. Home-Made Wines. Temperance writes from Benton Harbor, Michigan:: "I think you will find these two recipes all right." Unfermented Wine. — Take the pure juice of well-ripened grapes, put in a porcelain kettle with about one pound of best white sugar to each gallon of juice, and let it boil gently, skimming carefully. Let it simmer slowly till it is reduced about one-fifth. Then bottle or can while hot, and you have a rich, refreshing drink. Elderberry Wine. — To every quart of the berries put a quart of water and boil for half an hour. Bruise from the skin and strain, and to every gallon of juice add three pounds of double-refined sugar and one-quarter ounce of cream of tartar, and boil for half an hour. Take a clean cask and put in it one pound of raisins to every three gallons of wine, and a slice of toasted bread covered with good yeast. When the wine has become quite cool, put it into a cask and place in a room of even temperature to ferment. When this has fully ceased, put the bung in tight. No brandy or alcohol should be added. XXV. Home-Made Inks. A GOOD black ink may be made as follows : One gallon of soft water, one-quarter of a pound extract of logwood, twenty grains bichromate potash, fifteen grains prussiate potash. Heat the logwood and water to a boiling point and skim well. Dissolve the potash in one-half a pint of hot water and put all together, stirring well. Boil three minutes; strain and it is fit for use. A few cloves put in each bottle will prevent it from molding. Ink not Injured by Freezing. — Take about one handful of maple bark — the inside bark, the outside bark having been scraped off. Put it in three pints of water and boil until the strength is all out of the bark ; then strain the bark out of the ooze. Put in the ooze half a tablespoonful of copperas, and boil five or ten minutes until the copperas is all dissolved. Keep stirring. This will make near one gill of good ink that will not be injured by freezing. — J. E. L., Cambridge, Ind. Indelible Ink. — Four drachms nitrate of silver, four ounces rainwater, six drops solution of nut-galls, and one-half a drachm gum Arabic. This will make an ink which will not fade, and costs very little. Indelible Inks for Brushes. — For using with a marking-brush, an ink may be made by diluting coal tar with benzine to a proper consistency, or equal parts of vermilion and copperas may be rubbed up with oil varnish. Either of these holds well on linen or cotton fabrics.