Farming

Thus we have the insoluble soaps of lime and magnesia formed when we attempt to wash in "hardwater"; again aluminum soaps are used extensively in polishing materials and to thicken lubricating oils; ammonia or "benzine" soaps are employed among the dry cleaners. Commonly, however, when we speak ofsoap we limit it to the sodium or potassium salt of a higher fatty acid.

It is very generally known that soap is made by combining a fat or oil with a water solution of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda lye), or potassium hydroxide (caustic potash). Sodium soaps are always harder than potassium soaps, provided the same fat or oil is used in both cases. Continue reading

Homemade Butter

Making butter is easy, and the results are sweeter and creamier than prepackaged brands from the store.

Homemade, fresh organic butter can be made in minutes-10, to be exact. All that's needed is cream and anelectric mixer.

Nutrition

While it's a good idea to consume butter in moderation, when made with cream from grass-fed cows raised onpasture, it does have virtues that go beyond its rich flavor. Such butter is high in conjugated linoleic acid(CLA), a beneficial fatty acid that protects against some forms of cancer.

his is true, also, though naturally in a less degree, of the townsman who fattens one or two pigs on the family kitchen slops, adding sufficient grain ration to finish off the pork for autumn slaughter.

The only popular book of the kind ever published, “Home Pork Making” furnishes in a plain manner just such detailed information as is needed to enable the farmer, feeder, or country butcher to successfully and economically slaughter his

own hogs and cure his own pork.

All stages of the work are fully presented, so that even without experience or special equipment any intelligent person can readily follow the instructions. Hints are given about finishing off hogs for bacon, hams, etc. Then, beginning with proper methods of slaughtering, the various processes are clearly presented, including every needful detail from the scalding vat to the Continue reading

My connection with the problem of housing, and especially of rural housing, i.e. cottage housing, now nearly a quarter of a century old, has been on the side of cheap material. Rightly or wrongly (Iknow that many great experts in building matters think quite wrongly), I have had the simplicity to believe that if you are to get cheap housing you must get it by the use of cheap material. It has always seemed to me that there is no otherway.

What more natural than first to ask why building material was so dear, and then what was the cause of its dearness? Ifound it in the fact that bricks are very expensive things to make, that stones are very expensive things to quarry, that cements are very expensive things to manufacture, and worst of all, that all these things are very heavy and very expensive to drag about the country, and to "dump" Continue reading

Carpentry is the oldest of the arts, and it has been said that the knowledge necessary to make a good carpenter fits one for almost any trade or occupation requiring the use of tools. The hatchet, the saw, and the plane are the three primal implements of the carpenter. The value is in knowing how to use them. The institution of Manual Training Schools everywhere is but a tardy recognition of the value of systematic training in the use of tools. There is no branch of

industry which needs such diversification, in order to become efficient.The skill of the blacksmith is centered in his ability to forge, to weld, and to temper; that of the machinist depends upon the callipered dimensions of his product; the painter in his taste for harmony; the mason on his ability to cut the stone accurately; and the plasterer to produce a uniform surface

and graduate by building the log houses; in doing this he will be closely following the history of the human race, because ever since our arboreal ancestors with prehensile toes scampered among the branches of the pre-glacial forests and builtnestlike shelters in the trees, men have made themselves shacks for a temporary refuge. But as one of the members of the Camp-Fire Club of America, as one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, and as the founder

of the Boy Pioneers of America, it would not be proper for the author to admit for one moment that there can be such a thing as a camp without a camp-fire, and for that reason the tree folks and the "missing link" whose remains were[viii] found in Java, and to whom the scientists gave the awe-inspiring name of Pithecanthropus erectus, cannot be counted as campers, because they did not know how to build a camp-fire; Continue reading

A mission chair suitable for the dining room can be made from any one of the furniture woods to match the other articles of furniture. The materials can be secured from the planing mill dressed and sand papered ready

ready tocut the tenons and mortises. The material list can be made up from the dimensions given in the detail drawing. The front legs or [7] posts, as well as the back ones, are made from 1-3/4-in. square stock, the back ones having a slope of 2 in. from the seat to the top. All the slats are made from 7/8-in. material and of such widths as are shown in the detail. Continue reading

Financial record template

Machinery cost calculator - dairy version

Payment schedule

Personal monthly budget

Template - partial budget

Template - cash book

Template - petty cash

Feasibility study of a machinery co-operative

Guide to using the machinery feasibility template

Options for joint machinery ownership

Organising a machinery co-operative

Agriculture Tutor

Fertiliser plan calculator

Grain drying cost calculator

Fertiliser blending calculator

Grass stocker worksheet

Agriculture Tutor

Practical Education & Self Help

Plant, Animal, Human & Environment Help

Dairy expansion

Heifer rearing calculator

Agriculture Tutor

New item form example

Pricing worksheet

Road to the consumer manual

Agriculture Tutor

Sell sheet