_To manufacture Ley, Soap, Starch, and other Articles used in Washing._
_To make Ley._ Provide a large tub, made of pine or ash, and set it on a form, so high, that a tub can stand under it. Make a hole, an inch in diameter, near the bottom, on one side. Lay bricks, inside, about this hole, and straw over them. To every seven bushels of ashes, add two gallons of unslacked lime, and throw in the ashes and lime in alternate layers. While putting in the ashes and lime, pour on boiling water, using three or four pailfuls. After this, add a pailful of cold soft water, once an hour, till all the ashes appear to be well soaked. Catch the drippings, in a tub, and try its strength with an egg. If the egg rise so as to show a circle as large as a ten cent piece, the strength is right; if it rise higher, the ley must be weakened by water; if not so high, the ashes are not good, and the whole process must be repeated, putting in fresh ashes, and running the weak ley through the new ashes, with some additional water. _Quick-ley_ is made by pouring one gallon of boiling soft water on three quarts of ashes, and straining it. Oak ashes are best.
_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 ley in it, and a cover over it. To make soft-soap, take the proportion of one pailful of ley to three pounds of fat. Melt the fat, and pour in the ley, by degrees. Boil it steadily, through the day, till it is ropy. If not boiled enough, on cooling, it will turn to ley 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 gelly, 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 ley, and stir it up thoroughly. Then gradually add more ley, 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.