Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/280

 and dried, tack them up in an air tight room—or in doing one skin a packing case will do—place a pan of powdered sulphur under and light it, letting the fumes have free access to the wool. If there are not too many skins to do, the box or case is the most convenient, doing one skin at a time. If in a room, it must be made air tight, or the fumes will escape. Straw hats can be done in the same way.

Mix with 1 gallon of boiling water 2 ozs. of carbolic acid, 1 lb. of salt, 2 ozs. of arsenic, and apply with a brush. Any chemist will prepare it for you if you cannot yourself.

Those farmers and selectors who keep but a small flock of sheep are often in a difficulty as to how to cleanse their wool so as to keep it till they have sufficient to make a bale, worth sending away. The following process was told to me by one who used it regularly :—

First save all the urine from the house for a fortnight or so, putting it each day into a cask or wooden tub; an old harness cask is a good receptacle. Put 1 bucketful of the stale urine to 3 buckets of water, plunge the wool into this and work it about with a stick for ten minutes, then lift it out on to a sieve or perforated board to drain. When well drained, throw it into a tub with a perforated false bottom, which can be raised at will. Here the wool should be well washed and worked about in cold water, the strainer being raised as it is done, and the dirty water run off. It takes a great quantity of water for this method. For very long wools, soft soap and hot water is used, and sometimes soda ash is mixed with the stale urine. A "dolly" used with the washing machine to wash clothes is a very good thing to beat the wool.

THIS is a favourite amusement of many ladies in the bush, some even having their own guns and special shot for for shooting the specimens they wish to secure. A beginner will do well to experiment first on something big—say, a common fowl—so as to learn to skin first,and having gained a little knowledge, she can try her hand on a small bird. Before