cleaned easily and rid of the dirt clinging to them. When they are made ready for washing they must be wrung out well, especially the collars and the whites; then they are washed in hot water to which soap powder and a little borax have been added. Every part of them must be covered with soap and then rubbed well, until the soap penetrates every part of the piece; in this way the dirt dissolves and comes away from it, with rinsing in water from time to time. The washboard is very useful in cases of washing large things such as bed sheets. If the housewife uses a washing machine, she must follow the instructions particular to it — every machine has its own instructions.
After the whites are washed and wrung, they are put into the copper boiling dast, which must be full of hot water kept at the boil, to which a little soap powder or soap shavings and a little borax or ammonia have been added. The boiling dast must not be crammed with clothes, or the water will be unable to penetrate them, and they may perhaps burn by scorching against the bottom of the dast. Each batch of clothes put into it must not stay in it longer than twenty minutes; the housewife will observe that leaving clothes in the boiling dast a long time turns them yellow. Clothes must never be boiled before they are washed. And as the lady puts a portion of the clothes into the dast, she also puts in a quantity of borax and soap. After the boiling they are rinsed well, then blued, and starch is applied to them (if they are to be ironed with it); then they are dried or mangled, then folded up in readiness for ironing.
Woolens
All woolen garments, or those made of flannel, are liable to shrink in the wash, so the lady must take
Vegetables can be put to various uses outside the cooking pot; we mention some of them here:
Garlic: It makes an astonishing sticky substance for mending small ornaments and the like so that the repair cannot be detected. Cut a clean face of a clove of garlic and rub it on the broken edges, then join these edges together and press them firmly until the garlic juice has dried completely.
Spinach: The water in which spinach is cooked makes a good preparation for washing dark-colored woolens.
Dried beans: A quantity of two ratls of dried beans cooked in two cups of water can be mashed and
made into a paste with which articles made of bronze are cleaned. Rub the hot paste over the bronze.
Carrots: Carrot leaves can be used in the same way as tea leaves and the like — for scattering over carpets and the floors of the house before sweeping them.
Onions: A piece of onion cleans glass astonishingly well and removes from it the specks left by flies. The onion likewise serves for cleaning the insides of cooking pots, tables, soiled leather, and shoes; and cotton clothes can be dyed an attractive pale tan by boiling them with onion skins. And if a piece of onion is placed on an inflamed spot of the skin, the inflammation leaves it at once.
great care with them and not wash them in very hot water. It is best for her to use lukewarm water in which soap powder and borax have been dissolved. She must not rub them or wring them, but should leave them to soak up the soapy water, as we have said, for a short while, then soap them again and immerse them in the water, then take them out of it, soap them, and immerse them once more, and so on until they are clean. They must be soaped on all sides, and after they are clean they are rinsed well in slightly hot water until no trace of soap remains in them. The water must be changed often, and they must not be left wet, but dried as quickly as possible.
White woolens must be washed
by themselves and not washed with gray or colored ones. In short, like or similar colors are washed together.
The lady should use good soap, for poor soap contains soda, which is ruinous to fine and delicately woven clothes. And she puts a little bluing into the last water, where the white clothes are rinsed.
Then wash them and dry them with sawdust. And woolens that are washed in the water in which dried beans have been boiled come out of the wash soft and beautiful.