To Prevent Mold:

     Spray, by means of an atomizer, with oil of lavender, pennyroyal, or other perfumed essential oils. Oil of cedar was used by the ancients to preserve their valuable manuscripts. Add a few drops to library paste or ink and apply the same to leather bindings.

Insect Pests:

     The principal insect pests in a library are the ordinary cockroach and the silver fish, silver louse, silver witch, sugar fish, or whatever it may be called locally, as it goes under a number of different names. This is a small, silvery, shining worm or moth that is seen when books and papers that have remained undisturbed for some time are moved. It shuns the lights and runs very rapidly to a place of concealment, so it is not often seen. But the effects of its ravages are very apparent. It feeds on the starch used in the bindings of books and also eats away the surface of heavily glazed paper to feed upon the sizing....

     Cover bits of cardboard with boiled starch paste poisoned with arsenic and lay them on book shelves...but, of course, take care that the paste is not within reach of children or household pets. Or dust bookshelves liberally with common Persian insect powder of pyrethum. A poison for roaches will be found elsewhere.

To Clean Books:

     If books become soiled with handling, rub with a soft piece of stale bread, then lay over the page a piece of clean blotting paper moistened with a saturated solution of citric, tartaric, or oxalic acid and go over it with a hot iron.

To Remove Fruit Stains:

     Hold the stain over an inverted cone or funnel filled with the fumes of sulphurous acid gas from a burning brimstone match.

To Restore Faded Manuscripts:

     ... which are usually written in iron -gall inks, apply by means of a soft brush a saturated solution of ferrocyanide of potash in water and copy the writing as soon as it appears, as it will again fade. Or apply gallnuts in alcohol ....

Reading Aloud:

     The best way to keep books in good order is to use them.... Do not make reading distasteful by attempting to choose books that give direct instruction, but consult the tastes of all and read for pleasure.... Once formed, the habit will grow by what it feeds on. Let all [in the family] take turns, and the hours so occupied will be long remembered as among the pleasantest and most fruitful that were spent in the family circle.... The greatest men in the world are those who formed during boyhood the habit of reading at every available moment.

-- Household Discoveries: An Encyclopedia of Practical Recipes & Processes by Sidney Morse. The Success Company, 1908.

We will pay one cent a word for new household discoveries not contained in this volume. If you have saved money or been otherwise benefited by using one of the within recipes, write the author and say so.