Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

scrape or grate them in a pan of water, when this is done stir them well, and let them stand a few minutes to settle, pour off the water and the pulp from the top; pour water on the starch that has settled, and stir it up, let it settle again, when it will be nice and white, and may be put on plates to dry in the sun, after which it may be put away in a box or paper bags. It maybe used immediately. Stir it in boiling water as other starch, but boil it much less. It is said that potato starch will injure muslins when left to lay by for some time, it is used in some preparations of confectionary, and answers the same purpose as Poland starch. To make Common Starch. Mix a pint of wheat flour with cold water, till it is the consistence of batter, stir it into a gallon of boiling water, let it boil a few minutes, when strain it and mix in the blue--when it is ready to thin for white clothes. Some put a small piece of tallow in the starch as it boils--it makes it clearer. Washing Calicoes, &c. Calicoes may be kept from fading by washing them in the suds after white clothes, if it requires more soap, stir it in the water, as putting it on the garment will fade it, have the water moderately warm, and put in a handful of salt, when all the dirt is out, rinse them in clean water, starch, and hang them to dry on the wrong side, where they will get the air but not the sun. Alum is good to set colors. If you want to wash a calico dress, which you know will fade, make a corn mush, and as it boils, pour off half, which use as soap in washing the dress, and with the other half, (which should be boiled well,) starch it, and hang it out immediately. In washing bed quilts, to prevent fading, spread them on the clean grass wrong side up, this