SOAP.

In the city, I believe, it is better to exchange ashes and grease for

soap; but in the country, I am certain, it is good economy to make

one's own soap. If you burn wood, you can make your own lye; but the

ashes of coal is not worth much. Bore small holes in the bottom of a

barrel, place four bricks around, and fill the barrel with ashes. Wet

the ashes well, but not enough to drop; let it soak thus three or four

days; then pour a gallon of water in every hour or two, for a day or

more, and let it drop into a pail or tub beneath. Keep it dripping

till the color of the lye shows the strength is exhausted. If your

lye is not strong enough, you must fill your barrel with fresh ashes,

and let the lye run through it. Some people take a barrel without

any bottom, and lay sticks and straw across to prevent the ashes from

falling through. To make a barrel of soap, it will require about five

or six bushels of ashes, with at least four quarts of unslacked stone

lime; if slacked, doable the quantity.

When you have drawn off a part of the lye, put the lime (whether slack

or not) into two or three pails of boiling water, and add it to the

ashes, and let it drain through.

It is the practice of some people, in making soap, to put the lime

near the bottom of the ashes when they first set it tip; but the lime

becomes like mortar, and the lye does not run through, so as to get

the strength of it, which is very important in making soap, as it

contracts the nitrous salts which collect in ashes, and prevents the

soap from _coming_, (as the saying is.) Old ashes are very apt to be

impregnated with it.

Three pounds of grease should be put into a pailful of lye. The great

difficulty in making soap '_come_' originates in want of judgment

about the strength of the lye. One rule may be safely trusted--If your

lye will bear up an egg, or a potato, so that you can see a piece of

the surface as big as ninepence, it is just strong enough. If it sink

below the top of the lye, it is too weak, and will never make soap;

if it is buoyed up half way, the lye is too strong; and that is just

as bad. A bit of quick-lime, thrown in while the lye and grease are

boiling together, is of service. When the soap becomes thick and ropy,

carry it down cellar in pails and empty it into a barrel.

Cold soap is less trouble, because it does not need to boil; the sun

does the work of fire. The lye must be prepared and tried in the usual

way. The grease must be tried out, and strained from the scraps. Two

pounds of grease (instead of three) must be used to a pailful; unless

the weather is very sultry, the lye should be hot when put to the

grease. It should stand in the sun, and be stirred every day. If it

does not begin to look like soap in the course of five or six days,

add a little hot lye to it; if this does not help it, try whether it

be grease that it wants. Perhaps you will think cold soap wasteful,

because the grease must be strained; but if the scraps are boiled

thoroughly in strong lye, the grease will all float upon the surface,

and nothing be lost.

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