USEFUL AND PRACTICAL HINTS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2186, 20 March 1880, Page 3

USEFUL AND PRACTICAL HINTS.

Two ounces o£ permaganato of potassa thrown into a cistern will render the foulest water sweet and pure. Farmers troubled with rats should read the following —We clean our premises of these detestable vermin by making

whitewash yellow with copperas, and covering the stone-* and rafters in cellars with it. In every crevice in which a rat may tread we put the crystals of the copperas, and scatter the same in the corners of the fiooi-. The result was a perfect stampede of rats and mice. ISiuce that time not a footfall of either rats or mice has beenheard about the house. Every spiring a coat of the yellow wash is giveu the cellar, as a pux-ifiex-, as a rat exterminator, and no typhoid, dysentry or fever attacks the family. Many persons deliberately attract all the rats in the neighborhood by leaving fruits and vegetables uncovered in the cellar, and sometimes even the soap is loft open for their regalement. Cover up everything eatable'in the cellar and and you will soon starve them out. These precautions, joined to the service of a good cat, will prove as good a rat exterminator as the chemist can provide. We never allow rats to be poisoned in our dwellings, they are so liable to die in the walls and produce much annoyance.” A correspondent of the 11 InterOccau,” writing from Battle Creek, Mich., say that he purified his well of water, which was subject to so many worms, bugs, and other insects, as to render it almost unfit for drinking, by placing in the well a couple of goodsized trout. They have kept perfectly healthy, and have eaten up every live thing in the water. In the winter season crumbs of broad or crackers are thrown in. The water is perfectly pure and sweet.

Borax and Nitrate of Potash for Hoarseness. These two salts have been employed with advantage in cases of hoarseness and aphonia occurring sxiddenly from the action of cold. The remedy is recommended to singers and orators whose voices suddenly become lost, hut which, by these means, can be recovered almost instantly. A little piece of borax, the size of a pea, is to he dissolved in the mouth ton minutes before singing or speaking; the remedy provokes an abundant secretion of saliva, which moistens the month and throat. The local action of the borax should be aided by an equal dose of nitrate of potassium, taken in warm solution before going to bed. Gold Fish. needs cleansing,” says Seth _ Green, “ make a net of mosquito netting, and take the fish out of it. There arc many gold fish killed by handling. Keep your aquarium clean, so that the water looks at clear as crystal. Feed them all they will eat, and anything they will eat —worms, meat, fish-wafer or fishspawn. Take great care that you take all fish they do uot cat out of the aquarium ; any decayed meat or vegetable in water lias the same smell to fish that it has to you in air. If your gold fish die, it is attributable, as a rule, to one of the tlxi-cc causes —handling, starvation, or bad water. It is well known that (ho human body contains humours and acids, similar in action to, and having a like tendency towards baser metals, as niti-ic and sulphui’ic acid have, namely, to tarnish and dissolve them, varying in quantity in different persons. Thousands wear continually, without any ill effect, the cheaper class of jewellery with brass ear wires, while others wearing (he same articles for a few days, would be troubled with sore ears, or, in other words the acids contained in the system would so act on the brass as to produce ill results. Instances have occurred in which articles of any grade below 18 carat have been tarnished in a few days, merely from the above-named cause. True, those instances are not the fault- of the goods not wearing well, as it is generally called, but the result of (lie particular constitution by which they arc worn. French and Gorman authorities recommend the use of salt at the rate of 150 pounds per aero for clover and other leguminous plants; for wheat and llax. 250 pounds ; and for barley and potatoes, 300 pounds—to bo sown broadcast in the spring season before the herbage lias attained any considerable growth.