_To make Soft Soap._—Save all drippings and fat, melt them, and set them away in cakes. Some persons keep, for soap-grease, a half-barrel, with weak lye in it, and a cover over it. To make soft soap, take the proportion of one pailful of lye to three pounds of fat. Melt the fat, and pour in the lye, by degrees. Boil it steadily, through the day, till it is ropy. If not boiled enough, on cooling it will turn to lye and sediment. While boiling, there should always be a little oil on the surface. If this does not appear, add more grease. If there is too much grease, on cooling, it will rise, and can be skimmed off. Try it, by cooling a small quantity. When it appears like jelly on becoming cold, it is done. It must then be put in a cool place and often stirred. _To make cold Soft Soap_, melt thirty pounds of grease, put it in a barrel, add four pailfuls of strong lye, and stir it up thoroughly. Then gradually add more lye, till the barrel is nearly full, and the soap looks _about right_. _To make Potash-Soap_, melt thirty-nine pounds of grease, and put it in a barrel. Take twenty-nine pounds of light ash-colored potash, (the _reddish_-colored will spoil the soap,) and pour hot water on it; then pour it off into the grease, stirring it well. Continue thus till all the potash is melted. Add one pailful of cold water, stirring it a great deal every day, till the barrel be full, and then it is done. This is the cheapest and best kind of soap. It is best to sell ashes and buy potash. The soap is better, if it stand a year before it is used; therefore make two barrels at once. _To prepare Starch._—Take four table-spoonfuls of starch; put in as much water, and rub it, till all lumps are removed. Then add half a cup of cold water. Pour this into a quart of boiling water, and boil it for half an hour, adding a piece of spermaceti, or a lump of salt or sugar, as large as a hazelnut. Strain it, and put in a very little bluing. Thin it with hot water. _Beef’s-Gall._—Send a junk-bottle to the butcher, and have several gall-bladders emptied into it. Keep it salted, and in a cool place. Some persons perfume it; but fresh air removes the unpleasant smell which it gives, when used for clothes. DIRECTIONS FOR STARCHING MUSLINS AND LACES. Many ladies clap muslins, then dry them, and afterward sprinkle them. This saves time. Others clap them till nearly dry, then fold and cover, and then iron them. Iron wrought muslins on soft flannel, and on the wrong side.