boiled for an hour, and then strained through a hair sieve.

There are two advantages in making bread with bran water instead of plain water; the one being that there is considerable nourishment in bran, which is thus extracted and added to the bread; the other, that flour imbibes much more of bran water than it does of plain water; so much more, as to give in the bread produced almost a hith in weight more than the quantity of flour made up with plain water would have done. These are important considerations to the poor. Fiftysix pounds of flour, made with plain water, would produce sixty-nine and a half pounds of bread; made with bran water, it will produce eighty-three and a half pounds.

Use of Lime-water in making Bread. It has lately been found that water saturated with lime produces in bread the same whiteness, softness, and capacity of retaining moisture, as results from the use of alum; while the former removes all acidity from the dough, and supplies an ingredient needed in the structure of the bones, but which is deficient in the cerealia. The best proportion to use is, five pounds of water saturated with lime to every nineteen pounds of flour. No change is required in the process of baking. The lime most effectually coagulates the gluten, and the bread weighs well; bakers must therefore approve of its introduction, which is not injurious to the system, like alum, etc. A large quantity of this kind of bread is now made in Munich, and is highly esteemed.

Tea Cakes or Loaves. - Time, half or three-quarters of an hour.

1 egg, 2 ounces of butter, a pound of flour, 2 or 3 knobs of sugar.

Rub the butter into the flour, add the sugar pounded, and mix it with one beaten egg.

It will make two small loaves for tea or breakfast.

Breakfast or Tea Rolls. - Time, fifteen to twenty minutes.

1 pound of flour, a of a pound of

butter, 1 tablespoonful of good yeast, 1 egg, a little warm milk.

Rub the butter into the flour, then add the yeast, breaking in one egg, both yolk and white. Mix it with a little warm milk poured into the middle of the flour; stir all well together, and set it by the fire to rise, then make it into light dough, and again set it by the fire. Make up the rolls, lay them on a tin, and set them in front of the fire for ten minutes before you put them into the oven, brushing them over with egg. This paste may be used for fancy bread,

Breakfast or Tea Cakes Hot. Time, half an hour.

6 handfuls of flour, a pint of milk, a small piece of butter, 2 ounces of German yeast, 1 egg.

Put the flour in a basin, with half a pint of milk, and a small piece of butter; warm the milk — in the winter increase its temperature. Mix two ounces of German yeast in a little cold water; add it to the milk and butter. Make a hole in the flour, and pour the mixed milk and yeast into it, stirring it round until it is a thick batter; add to it one beaten egg; cover it over, and set it before the fire, keeping it warm. When it has risen a little, mix it into a dough, knead it well, put it again before the fire, and, when it has risen a great deal, form your rolls. They will take nearly half an hour to bake, or according to the size you make them. Rub them once while hot with a paste-brush dipped in milk.

Graham, or Dyspepsia Bread.Persons often fail to make this bread good because the so-called Graham, or unbolted flour, is made from inferior wheat. We avoid this by using the best flour, and mixing the bran with it ourselves; that is, we buy our flour and our bran separately, and mix it ourselves. In this way we get our Graham bread good and cheap. Wet up the flour with lukewarm water, salt and yeast in the proportion as for wheat bread. Knead in sufficient flour to make it stiff: add a very little best

molasses. Let it rise, then bake. It will take about two hours.

French Bread and Rolls.-Take a pint and a half of milk; make it quite warm; half a pint of small-beer yeast; add sufficient flour to make it as thick as batter. Put it into a pan, cover it over, and keep it warm. When it has risen as high as it will, add a quarter of a pint of warm water, and half an ounce of salt. Mix them well together, rub into a little flour two ounces of butter; then make your dough, not quite so stiff as for your bread. Let it stand for three-quarters of an hour, and it will be ready to make into rolls, Let them stand till they have risen, and bake them in a quick oven.

etc.

Wholesome Bread. This bread contains no other ingredients than simple wheat meal and water, and is used as a standard article of diet at a number of the leading hygienic institutions in this country, as well as in very many private families.

It is made as follows:-Stir together wheat meal and cold water (nothing else, not even salt) to the consistency of a thick batter. Bake in small circular pans, from three to three and a half inches in diameter (ordinary tin "patty pans" do very well), in a quick, hot oven. It is quite essential that it is baked in this sized cake, as it is upon this that the raising depends. A better pan for the purpose may be had at most any of the house-furnishing stores, being a number of circular iron pans, cast together in one large form. If this is used, it is best to heat it before filling with the batter.

Rye Bread. I quart rye flour, 1 quart flour, 2 teaspoons salt, of a cup molasses, 1 quart milk and water, half and half, 1 yeast cake in a cup of water. Boston Brown Bread.- cup flour, 1 cup Indian meal, 2 cups rye, cup molasses, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon soda; mix soft with cold water or milk; tablespoon of salt.

Put in a deep tin, and bake slowly three or four hours; or, what is better, put it in an earthen pan, and stand in a slow oven all night.

Note.-Cooked in a steamer for three hours, it is a good pudding.

Taking a House. Before taking a house, be careful to calculate that the rent is not too high in proportion to your means; for remember that the rent is a claim that must be paid with but little delay.

HAVING DETERMINED THE AMOUNT OF RENT which you can afford to pay, be careful to select the best house which can be obtained for that sum. And in making that selection, let the following matters be carefully considered:

FIRST CAREFULLY REGARD THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE SITUATION. Avoid the neighborhood of graveyards, and of factories giving forth unhealthy vapors. Avoid low and damp districts, the course of canais, and localities of reservoirs of water, gas-works, etc. Make inquiries as to the drainage of the neighborhood, and inspect the drainage and water sup ply of the premises. A house standing on an incline is likely to be better drained than one standing upon the summit of a hill, or on a level below a hill. Endeavor to obtain a position where the direct sunlight falls upon the house, for this is absolutely essential to health; and give preference to a house the openings of which are sheltered from the north and east winds,

DIS

SECOND · CONSIDER THE TANCE OF THE HOUSE from your place of occupation; and also its rela tion to provision markets, and shops in the neighborhood.

HAVING CONSIDERED THESE MATERIAL AND LEADING FEATURES, examine the house in detail, carefully looking into its state of repair; notice the windows that are broken; whe ther the chimneys smoke; whether they have been recently swept; whether the paper on the walls is damaged, especially in the lower parts, and the corners, by the skirtings; whether the locks, bolts, handles of doors, and window-fastenings are in proper condition; make a list of the fixtures; ascertain whether al

rent and taxes have been paid by the previous tenant, and whether the person from whom you take the house is the original landlord, or his agent or tenant. And do not commit yourself by the signing of any agreement until you are satisfied upon all these points, and see that all has been done which the bwilord had undertaken.

If you are about to Furnish a House, do not spend all your money, be it much or little. Do not let the beauty of this thing, and the cheapness of that, tempt you to buy unnecessary articles. Dr. Franklin's maxim was a wise one-"Nothing is cheap that we do not want." Buy merely enough to get along with at first. It is only by experience that you can tell what will be the wants of your family. If you spend all your money, you will find you have purchased many things you do not want, and have no means left to get many things which you do want. If you have enough, and more than enough, to get everything suitable to your sit uation, do not think you must spend it all, merely because you happen to have it. Begin humbly. As riches increase, it is easy and pleasant to increase in comforts; but it is always painful and inconvenient to decrease. After all, these things are viewed in their proper light by the truly judicious and respectable. Neatness, tastefulness, and good sense may be shown in the management of a small household, and the arrangement of a little furniture, as well as upon a larger scale; and these qualities are always praised, and always treated with respect and attention. The consideration which many purchase by living beyond their income, and, of course, living upon others, is not worth the trouble it costs. The glare there is about this false and wicked parade is deceptive; it does not, in fact, procure a man valuable friends, or extensive influence.

How to Beautify your Rooms.The first condition of success in furnishing either a large or a small room

is that there must be no overcrowding. This is absolute. When outline is lost, beauty, as a matter of fact, is lost also. We must all know many drawing-rooms in which, perhaps, the worth and beauty of each individual thing is indisputable, on entering which the first thing that strikes one is a sense of incongruity. - What might have been an art collection is degraded to the level of an old curiosity shop. Most women are born with a love of beauty. But generally, unless this lore is cultivated and trained, it runs to waste, and fritters itself away upon small things. Women go into a shop and hover a counter for an hour, engrossed in the purchase of fifty minute things, each one of which is pretty enough in itself if taken up in the hand and inspected; but not one of which can be clearly defined at a distance of two yards, and not one of which repays the trouble of the minute inspection. These are packed away in shiny cabinets that are blazing with ormolu scroll-work, on spindle-legged what-nots that seem to be designed for no other earthly purpose than to be knocked down at brief intervals, and on mantlepieces that confuse one's brain during the long periods when the need of being near the fire forces one to face them. It is a better and higher system of economy to buy two or three good bronzes or marbles, on which the eye can always rest with pleasure, than to spend ten times that sum on a heterogeneous mass of the parti-colored rubbish which may accumulate, "In or der," they call it, "to take off the naked look of their room." Better the naked look ten thousand times than the false decorations.

CARPETS.-In buying carpets, as in everything else, those of the best quality are cheapest in the end. As it is extremely desirable that they should look as clean as possible, avoid buying carpet that has any white in it. Even a very small portion of white interspersed through the pattern will in a short time give a dirty appearance

A CARPET IN WHICH ALL THE COLORS ARE LIGHT never has a clean, bright effect, from the want of dark tints to contrast and set off the light

ones.

FOR A SIMILAR REASON, carpets whose colors are all of what artists call middle tint (neither dark nor light), cannot fail to look dull and dingy, even when quite new.

THE CAPRICES OF FASHION at times bring these ill-colored carpets into vogue; but, in apartments where elegance is desirable, they always have a bad effect.

FOR A CARPET TO BE REALLY BEAUTIFUL, and in good taste, there should be, as in a picture, a judicious disposal of light and shadow, with a gradation of very bright and of very dark tints: some almost white, and others almost or quite black.

THE MOST TRULY CHASTE, rich, and elegant carpets are those where the pattern is formed by one color only, but arranged in every variety of shade, For instance, we have seen a Brussels carpet entirely red; the pattern formed by shades or tints varying from the deepest crimson (almost a black), to the palest pink (almost a white). Also one of green only, shaded from the darkest bottle-green, in some parts of the figure, to the lightest pen-green in others. Another, in which there was no color but brown, in all its various gradations, some of the shades being nearly black, others of a light buff All these carpets had much the look of rich cut velvet.

THE CURTAINS, SOFAS, ETC., must be of corresponding colors, that the effect of the whole may be noble and elegant.

CARPETS of many gaudy colors are nuch less in demand than formerly, Two colors only, with the dark and light shades of each, will make a very handsome carpet.

A VERY LIGHT BLUE GROUND, with the figure of shaded crimson or

IF YOU CANNOT OBTAIN A HEARTHRUG that exactly corresponds with the carpet, get one entirely different; for a decided contrast looks better than a bad match.

WE HAVE SEEN VERY HANDSOME HEARTH-RUGs with a rich, black velvet-looking ground, and the figure of shaded blue, or of various tints of yellow and orange.

NO CARPET decidedly light colored throughout looks effective on the floor, or continues long clean.

IN CHOOSING PAPER FOR A ROOM, avoid that which has a variety of colors, or a large showy figure, as no furniture can appear to advantage with such. Large figured papering makes a small room look smaller.

THE BEST COVERING FOR A KITCHEN FLOOR is a thick unfigured oil-cloth, of one color.

Family Tool Chests. Much inconvenience and considerable expense might be saved, if it were the general custom to keep in every house certain tools for the purpose of performing at home what are called small jobs, instead of being always obliged to send for a mechanic and pay him for executing little things that, in most cases, could be sufficiently well done by a man or boy belonging to the family, if the proper instruments were at hand.

THE COST OF THESE ARTICLES is very trifling, and the advantages of having them always in the house are far beyond the expense,

FOR INSTANCE, there should be an axe, a hatchet, a saw (a large wood-saw also, with a buck or stand, if wood is burned), a claw-hammer, a mallet, two gimlets of different sizes, two screwdrivers, a chisel, a small plane, one or two jack-knives, a pair of large scissors or shears, and a carpet-fork or stretcher.

ALSO AN ASSORTMENT OF NAILS of various sizes, from large spikes down to small tacks, not forgetting brass

headed nails, some larger and some smaller.

THE NAILS and screws should be kept in a wooden box, made with divisions to separate the various sorts, for it is very troublesome to have them mixed.

PRINTED PAPERS ARE UNFIT FOR WRAPPING anything, as the printingiuk rubs off on the articles enclosed in them, and also soils the gloves of the person that carries the parcel.

WHEN SHOPPING, if the person at the counter proceeds to wrap up your purchase in a newspaper (a thing rarely attempted in a genteel shop), refuse to take it in such a cover. It is the business of every respectable shopkeeper to provide proper paper for this purpose, and printed paper is not proper.

Beds for the Poor. - Maple or beech-tree leaves are recommended for filling the beds of poor persons. They should be gathered on a dry day in the autumn, and perfectly dried. It is said that they smell grateful, and will not harbor vermin. They are also very springy.

To Preserve Tables. A piece of oil-cloth (about twenty inches long) is a useful appendage to a common sitting-room. Kept in the closet, it can be available at any time to place jars upon, etc., etc., which are likely to soil your table during the process of dispensing their contents: a wing and duster are harmonious accompaniments to the oil-cloth,

Gilt Frames may be protected from flies and dust by oiled tarlatan pinned over them. Tarlatan, already prepared, may be purchased at the upholsterer's. If it cannot be procured, it is easily made by brushing boiled oil over cheap tarlatan. It is an excellent material for keeping dust from books, vases, wool work, and every description of household ornament.

Damp Walls. The following method is recommended to prevent the effect of damp walls on paper in rooms: -Line the damp part of the wall with sheet lead, rolled very thin, and

fastened up with small copper nails. It may be immediately covered with paper. The lead is not to be thicker than that which lines tea-chests.

BEDROOMS should not be scoured in the winter time, as colds and sickness may be produced thereby. Dry scouring, upon the French plan, which consists of scrubbing the floors with dry brushes, may be resorted to, and will be found more effective than can at first be imagined. If a bedroom is wet scoured, a dry day should be chosen the windows should be opened, the linen removed, and a fire should be lit when the operation is finished.

To get Rid of a Bad Smell in a Room newly Painted. Place a vessel full of lighted charcoal in the middle of the room, and throw on it two or three handfuls of juniper berries, shut the windows, the chimney, and the door close; twenty-four hours afterwards, the room may be opened, when it will be found that the sickly, unwholesome smell will be entirely gone. The smoke of the juniper berry possesses this advantage, that should anything be left in the room, such as tapestry, etc., none of it will be spoiled.

PAINT. To get rid of the smell of oil-paint plunge a handful of hay into a pailful of water, and let it stand in the room newly painted.

If a Larder, by its position, will not admit of opposite windows, then a current of air must be admitted by means of a flue from the outside.

For Keeping a Door Open, place a brick, covered neatly with a piece of carpet, against the door.

To Ascertain whether a Bed be Aired. Introduce a glass goblet between the sheets for a minute or two, just when the warming-pan is taken out; if the bed be dry, there will only be a slight cloudy appearance on the glass, but if not, the damp of the bed will assume the more formidable appearance of drops, the warning of danger.

To Prevent the Smoking of a Lamp.-Soak the wick in strong