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The Day's Routine: Milk

Milk Dishes. - Milk pans, pitchers, and tumblers which have contained milk, and dishes in which milk or milk puddings have been cooked, should be first rinsed with cold water. Hot water converts the casein of the milk into a kind of cement or glue which is hard to remove.

Milk Cans. - These should be filled with cold water and allowed to soak.

Put them away from the stove, Rinsing with cold water will assist in keeping the milk dishes sweet and prevent the milk from souring. Afterwards pour out the cold water, wash in hot soapsuds or borax water, rinse, and scald.

To Remove Odors. - Dishes which have been used to cook fish or cabbage, or anything else having a disagreeable odor, may be cleansed by first washing them and then rinsing them with powdered charcoal.

Or set the dish after washing in a warm oven for ten or fifteen minutes.

Or fill the dish with boiling water and drop into it a piece of charcoal.

A lump of charcoal left in a closed bottle or jar will keep it from becoming musty. The water in which cabbage has been cooked should not be poured down the sink, or, if this must be done, the sink should be rinsed with water containing powdered charcoal or a little chloride of lime.

A new wooden vessel, as a pail, a keg, or a churn, will often communicate a woody taste to food, whether solid or liquid. To prevent this, scald the vessel with boiling water and let it stand to soak until cold. Then wash well with a strong lye of wood ashes or caustic potash containing a small quantity of slacked lime. Repeat if necessary. Scald with hot water, and rinse with cold. Sleeve Protectors. -An old pair of stockings may be converted into useful sleeve protectors by cutting off the feet and hemming the cut edge. These may be drawn over the sleeves of a clean gown if necessary when washing dishes. They are also useful in other kinds of housework.

Dishcloths. - Unravel coarse manila rope and use the loose mass as a dishcloth. This is especially useful for cleansing cooking, tin and ironware utensils; also for scouring and scrubbing table shelves, paint, sinks, and other rough surfaces.

Or save cloth flour sacks, sugar, salt, and corn-meal bags, and use them as dishcloths, dusters, etc. They keep white and last longer than ordinary towel stuff. To wash flour sacks, turn them wrong side out and dust the flour from them; afterwards wash in cold water. Hot water will make a paste of the flour.

Or use cheese cloth for both washing and wiping dishes. This is better than crash, especially for drying silver and glassware.

Or use scrim or cotton underwear crocheted about the edge, or folded and hemmed double.

Or make dishcloths of worn dish towels.

Or use the fiber of the so-called dishrag gourd, the seeds of which may be obtained from any seedman.

Or try grass toweling. This is, of course, fibrous material, which is easily rinsed.

Best of all for many purposes is a small dish mop which permits of the use of boiling hot water and strong washing powder. With a little practice, the hands may be kept out of the water altogether.