Or an old dish pan may be used by perforating the bottom with holes by means of a hammer and round wire nails. Place the draining basket, pan, or box to the left of the dish pan to avoid unnecessary handling. If the handles are front and back, as you face the dish pan you will have fewer pieces of nicked china. If lye is used, and the dishwater is fairly hot and soapy, dishes rinsed with cold water will dry in the rack bright and shiny and not require wiping.
Or, if thoroughly rinsed with hot water, they may be allowed to dry in the same way.
Or, if the table is not wanted for immediate use, lay a large dry cloth over it, put the dishes on this to drain, and throw another cloth over the whole to keep off dust and flies. This is a rough-and-ready method for drying dishes and saving the labor of wiping and putting them away.
Or a drainer may be made of an old dripping pan or roaster by clean ing it thoroughly and covering it in side and out with a coat of enamel paint. Make a hole in one end to allow the water to drain into the sink, and place in it a wire dish strainer.
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 wa ter 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. Rins ing with cold water will assist in keeping the milk dishes sweet and pre vent the milk from souring. After wards 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 cab bage, or anything else having a dis agreeable 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 be coming 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 communi cate 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. Re peat if necessary. Scald with hot wa ter, and rinse with cold.
Sleeve Protectors.—An old pair of stockings may be converted into use ful 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 dish cloth. This is especially useful for cleansing cooking, tin and ironware utensils; also for scouring and scrub bing 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 wash ing 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 eas ily 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 prac tice, the hands may be kept out of the water altogether.
Dishcloths—Care of.—The dishcloth must be kept clean. A greasy dish cloth affords a breeding place for the germs of diphtheria, typhoid, and other filth diseases. Wash in soapsuds and rinse in cold water, or add lemon juice and salt to the water, or a tea spoonful of kerosene.
Dish Towels.— Any of the above fabrics recommended for dishcloths may be used for dish toweling. Large flour sacks are the right size. So are old pillow slips cut in halves, or dish towels may be made from old sheets.
Or cut up old garments of outing flannel, which has great absorbent qualities, to the size of dish towels. Hem, and add tape hangers.
Or make hangers of lamp wicking. Or use blue and white striped tick ing from old pillow cases.
Dish Towels —Care of.— Two or three dish towels should be used at each meal, and these should be washed in soap and water, rinsed and bung to dry, rather than allowed to dry when soiled with more or less greasy dishwater.
Hanging Towels.—Roller towels are perhaps most convenient and satisfac tory for kitchen use, but if these are not used, sew tape hangers at each end of common towels so that they can be turned about when one end is soiled and worn equally at both ends.
Or make hangers of small lamp wicks, one at each end, turning the ends in with the hem. Keep a stock of half a dozen or more dish towels and hanging towels, and mark them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This makes it easy to account for them and to use them in rotation.