Preventives of mouldiness.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 163, 31 July 1886, Page 3

Preventives of m ouldiness.

Mottldiness is occasioned by the growth of 'minute vegetation. -Ink, paste, leather, and seeds most frequently suffer by it. A clove "will preserve ink ; any essential oil answers equally aa well. Leather may be kept free from mould by the .same substances. Thus Russian leather, which 13 perfumed with the tar of birch, never become 3 mouldy ; indeed, it prevents it from occmring in other •bodies. A few drops of any essential oil will keep books ■entirely free from it. For harness oil of turpentine 19 recommended. Alum and resin are used to pre&erve book binders' paste, but ineffectually ; oil of turpentine aucceedB better ; but, by small quantities of oil of peppermint, anise, or -cassia, paste has been preserved for years. Dr. MacCulloch recommends the addition to the flour and -water of some brown eugai and a little corrosive sublimate ; the sugai keeping it flexible when dry, and the sublimate preventing it from fermenting and f»Wm being attacked by insects A few drops of any of tho essential oils may be added to tho paste when it is made. It dries when exposed to the air, and may be used merely by wottiug it. Seeds may al«o be preserved by the essential oila ; and this ia of great consequence whuii they ai c bent to a distance. Of course, moisture must be excluded us much as possible, as tho oils or ottob prevent only the bad effects of mould.