Since finding a wonderful "Reipt" (receipt, widely used instead of recipe in the 19th century) "to tempur [sic] edge tools" some months ago, I have been keeping a close eye out for other examples of manuscript instructions of a related nature, which feel both so immediate, as if just being passed along from one person to another, and also so much of their time and place. And not just one but two here--on the reverse instructions for making a "strip carpet.")
To Give a Fine Color to Mahogany. Let the table be washed perfectly clean with vinegar, having first taken out any ink stains there may be with spirits of salt, but it must be used with the greatest care, only touching the parts affected and instantly washing it off. Use the following liquid: into a pint of cold drawn linseed oil put four pennyworth of alkanet root and 2 pennyworth of rose pink. Apply to the table and rub it with bright linen cloths.
The text on reverse is a bit more faded/harder to read, but describes the process of making a strip carpet using cotton warp yarn and whatever colors "you fancy" and involving twisting and doubling and quilling and and weaving forward and back, with the stripes in the carpet going across the cloth.
7 3/4" x 6 1/4". Good condition, ink on natural color wove, ink very strong on the mahogany side. Paper is soft and strong and just the right paper for the purpose. Second quarter/mid 19th century I believe.
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