Elbow grease, mild soap and warm water are all that is necessary. Avoid as the plague: lye, soda, potash and all cleaning inventions which may harbor lyes! Polishing makes the flooring last longer, of course. Colors will be reborn each time and the floor withstand wear better. Use a good floor wax. A home-made kind, if you can’t buy any of the finest kinds on the market, can be made of beeswax and turpentine in equal parts. Use all the polishes sparingly and not more than once a month. Rub in well, however, when you are doing it. It is well to have glass or metal caps on heavy furniture as narrow castors are prone to furrow. For cork floors: Sweep daily. They must be washed with tepid water and weak soap. Polishing is unnecessary. Floors of tiles, etc., should be swept daily. Flush with warm water. Scrub once a week, strong soap and elbow grease. Soda and water will remove stains. If not, use a weak hydrochloric acid or oxalic acid and wash off immediately with water and soap which will stop the further action of the acid on the tile. (One part of acid to two parts of water.) Wooden floors also should be swept daily. Swab (don’t scrub a varnished or painted floor) with warm water and weak soap. Keep hardwood floors free from grit, which bites and grays. Use a soft dry mop of felt or the brushes the reliable manufacturers make for the hardwood floors. Occasionally wipe off with some well known and tested floor finish. To-day with rustless and ordinary steel the problem of cutlery is simpler and yet more diversified. In the case of cleaning and scouring ordinary steel you can use almost any good scouring powder, but not in the case of the stainless rustless variety, as it reduces the polish, the very thing that maintains imperviousness to rust and stain. Cutlery should be cleaned immediately after using. Sharpening knives is best done by an expert. Yet there are good rotary sharpeners and stones and steels for home usefulness or knife destruction depending upon how they are used. Remember when you use a stone not to feel that you must cut through the stone itself and that what you are trying to do is to flatten the edge of the knife and wear off the offending bluntnesses. The ideal thing is once or twice a year to send the knives to a grinder and then occasionally at home run the knife blade flatly over a carborundum stone to get a smoother edge. The stainless steel cutlery has a special kind of sharpening stone at present on the market and it is well to use this. Good knives need no further edging when new.