them; but they are of this use; they are very pretty creatures; very
interesting in their manners; they are an object to delight _children_,
and to give them the _early habit_ of fondness for animals and of
_setting a value_ on them, which, as I have often had to observe before,
is a very great thing. A considerable part of all the _property_ of a
nation consists of animals. Of course a proportionate part of the cares
and labours of a people appertain to the breeding and bringing to
perfection those animals; and, if you consult your experience, you will
find that a labourer is, generally speaking, of value in proportion as he
is worthy of being intrusted with the care of animals. The most careless
fellow cannot _hurt_ a hedge or ditch; but to trust him with the _team_,
or the _flock_, is another matter. And, mind, for the _man_ to be
trust-worthy in this respect, the _boy_ must have been in the _habit_ of
being kind and considerate towards animals; and nothing is so likely to
give him that excellent habit as his seeing, from his very birth, animals
taken great care of, and treated with great kindness by his parents, and
now-and-then having a little thing to _call his own_.
RABBITS.
184. In this case, too, the chief use, perhaps, is to give children those
habits of which I have been just speaking. Nevertheless, rabbits are
really profitable. Three does and a buck will give you a rabbit to eat for
_every three days in the year_, which is a much larger quantity of food
than any man will get by spending half his time in the pursuit of _wild_
animals, to say nothing of the toil, the tearing of clothes, and the
danger of pursuing the latter.
185. Every-body knows how to knock up a rabbit hutch. The does should not
be allowed to have more than _seven litters_ in a year. Six young ones to
a doe is all that ought to be kept; and then they will be fine. _Abundant
food_ is the main thing; and what is there that a rabbit will _not eat_? I
know of nothing _green_ that they will not eat; and if hard pushed, they
will eat bark, and even wood. The best thing to feed the young ones on
when taken from the mother, is the _carrot_, wild or garden. Parsnips,
Swedish turnips, roots of dandelion; for too much green or _watery_ stuff
is not good for _weaning_ rabbits. They should remain as long as possible
with the mother. They should have oats once a-day; and, after a time, they
may eat any-thing with safety. But if you give them too much _green_ at
first when they are weaned, they _rot_ as sheep do. A _variety_ of food is
a great thing; and, surely, the fields and gardens and hedges furnish this
variety! All sorts of grasses, strawberry-leaves, ivy, dandelions, the
_hog-weed_ or _wild parsnip_, in root, stem, and leaves. I have fed
working horses, six or eight in number, upon this plant for weeks
together. It is a tall bold plant that grows in prodigious quantities in
the hedges and coppices in some parts of England. It is the _perennial
parsnip_. It has flower and seed precisely like those of the parsnip; and
hogs, cows, and horses, are equally fond of it. Many a half-starved pig
have I seen within a few yards of cart-loads of this pig-meat! This arises
from want of the early habit of attention to such matters. I, who used to
get hog-weed for pigs and for rabbits when a little chap, have never
forgotten that the wild parsnip is good food for pigs and rabbits.
186. When the doe has young ones, feed her most abundantly with all sorts
of greens and herbage and with carrots and the other things mentioned
before, besides giving her a few oats once a-day. That is the way to have
fine healthy young ones, which, if they come from the mother in good case,
will very seldom die. But do not think, that because she is a small
animal, a little feeding is sufficient! Rabbits eat a great deal more than
cows or sheep in proportion to their bulk.
187. Of all animals rabbits are those that _boys_ are most fond of. They
are extremely pretty, nimble in their movements, engaging in their
attitudes, and always completely under immediate control. The produce has
not long to be waited for. In short, they keep an interest constantly
alive in a little chap's mind; and they really _cost nothing_; for as to
the _oats_, where is the boy that cannot, in harvest-time, pick up enough
along the _lanes_ to serve his rabbits for a year? The _care_ is all; and
the habit of taking care of things is, of itself, a most valuable
possession.
188. To those gentlemen who keep rabbits for the use of their family (and
a very useful and convenient article they are,) I would observe, that when
they find their rabbits die, they may depend on it, that ninety-nine times
out of the hundred _starvation_ is the malady. And particularly short
feeding of the doe, while, and before she has young ones; that is to say,
short feeding of her _at all times_; for, if she be poor, the young ones
will be good for nothing. She will _live_ being poor, but she will not,
and cannot breed up fine young ones.
GOATS AND EWES.
189. In some places where a cow cannot be kept, a goat may. A
correspondent points out to me, that a Dorset ewe or two might be kept on
a common near a cottage to give milk; and certainly this might be done
very well; but I should prefer a goat, which is hardier and much more
domestic. When I was in the army, in New Brunswick, where, be it observed,
the snow lies on the ground seven months in the year, there were many
goats that _belonged to the regiment_, and that went about with it on
shipboard and every-where else. Some of them had gone through nearly the
whole of the _American War_. We _never fed_ them. In summer they picked
about wherever they could find grass; and in winter they lived on
cabbage-leaves, turnip-peelings, potatoe-peelings, and other things flung
out of the soldiers' rooms and huts. One of these goats belonged to me,
and, on an average throughout the year, she gave me more than three
half-pints of milk a day. I used to have the kid killed when a few days
old; and, for some time, the goat would give nearly or quite, two quarts
of milk a day. She was seldom dry more than three weeks in the year.
190. There is one great inconvenience belonging to goats; that is, they
bark all young trees that they come near; so that, if they get into a
_garden_, they destroy every thing. But there are seldom trees on commons,
except such as are too large to be injured by goats; and I can see no
reason against keeping a goat where a cow cannot be kept. Nothing is so
hardy; nothing is so little nice as to its food. Goats will pick peelings
out of the kennel and eat them. They will eat mouldy bread or biscuit;
fusty hay, and almost rotten straw; furze-bushes, heath-thistles; and,
indeed, what will they not eat, when they will make a hearty meal on
_paper_, brown or white, printed on or not printed on, and give milk all
the while! They will lie in any dog-hole. They do very well clogged, or
stumped out. And, then, they are very _healthy_ things into the bargain,
however closely they may be confined. When sea voyages are so stormy as to
kill geese, ducks, fowls, and almost pigs, the goats are well and lively;
and when a dog of no kind can keep the deck for a minute, a goat will skip
about upon it as bold as brass.
191. Goats do not _ramble_ from home. They come in regularly in the
evening, and if called, they come like dogs. Now, though ewes, when taken
great care of, will be very gentle, and though their milk may be rather
more delicate than that of the goat, the ewes must be fed with nice and
clean food, and they will not do much in the milk-giving way upon a
common; and, as to _feeding them_, provision must be made pretty nearly as
for a cow. They will not endure _confinement_ like goats; and they are
subject to numerous ailments that goats know nothing of. Then the ewes are
done by the time they are about six years old; for they then lose their
teeth; whereas a goat will continue to breed and to give milk in abundance
for a great many years. The sheep is _frightened_ at everything, and
especially at the least sound of a dog. A goat, on the contrary, will
_face a dog_, and if he be not a big and courageous one, beat him off.
192. I have often wondered how it happened that none of our labourers kept
goats; and I really should be glad to see the thing tried. They are
pretty creatures, domestic as a dog, will stand and watch, as a dog does,
for a crumb of bread, as you are eating; give you no trouble in the
milking; and I cannot help being of opinion, that it might be of great use
to introduce them amongst our labourers.
CANDLES AND RUSHES.
193. We are not permitted to make candles ourselves, and if we were, they
ought seldom to be used in a labourer's family. I was bred and brought up
mostly by _rush-light_, and I do not find that I see less clearly than
other people. Candles certainly were not much used in English labourers'
dwellings in the days when they had meat dinners and Sunday coats.
Potatoes and taxed candles seem to have grown into fashion together; and,
perhaps, for this reason: that when the pot ceased to afford _grease_ for
the rushes, the potatoe-gorger was compelled to go to the chandler's shop
for light to swallow the potatoes by, else he might have devoured peeling
and all!
194. My grandmother, who lived to be pretty nearly ninety, never, I
believe, burnt a candle in her house in her life. I know that I never saw
one there, and she, in a great measure, brought me up. She used to get the
meadow-rushes, such as they tie the hop-shoots to the poles with. She cut
them when they had attained their full substance, but were still _green_.
The rush at this age, consists of a body of _pith_ with a green _skin_ on
it. You cut off both ends of the rush, and leave the prime part, which, on
an average, may be about a foot and a half long. Then you take off all the
green skin, except for about a fifth part of the way round the pith. Thus
it is a piece of pith all but a little strip of skin in one part all the
way up, which, observe, is necessary to hold the pith together all the way
along.
195. The rushes being thus prepared, the _grease_ is melted, and put in a
melted state into something that is as _long_ as the rushes are. The
rushes are put into the grease; soaked in it sufficiently; then taken out
and laid in a bit of bark taken from a young tree, so as not to be too
large. This bark is fixed up against the wall by a couple of straps put
round it; and there it hangs for the purpose of holding the rushes.
196. The rushes are carried about _in the hand_; but to sit by, to work
by, or to go to bed by, they are fixed in _stands_ made for the purpose,
some of which are high to stand on the ground, and some low, to stand on a
table. These stands have an iron port something like a pair of _pliers_ to
hold the rush in, and the rush is shifted forward from time to time, as it
burns down to the thing that holds it.
197. Now these rushes give a _better light_ than a common small
dip-candle; and they cost next to nothing, though the labourer may with
them have as much light as he pleases, and though, without them he must
sit the far greater part of the winter evenings _in the dark_, even if he
expend _fifteen shillings_ a year in candles. You may do any sort of work
by this light; and, if reading be your taste, you may read the foul
libels, the lies and abuse, which are circulated gratis about _me_ by the
"Society for promoting _Christian Knowledge_," as well by rush-light, as
you can by the light of taxed candles; and, at any rate, you would have
one evil less; for to be deceived and to pay a tax for the deception are a
little too much for even modern loyalty openly to demand.
MUSTARD.
198. Why _buy_ this, when you can _grow_ it in your garden? The stuff you
buy is half _drugs_; and is injurious to health. A _yard square_ of
ground, sown with common Mustard, the crop of which you would grind for
use, in a little mustard-mill, as you wanted it, would save you _some
money_, and probably save your _life_. Your mustard would look _brown_
instead of _yellow_; but the former colour is as good as the latter: and,
as to the _taste_, the _real_ mustard has certainly a much better than
that of the _drugs_ and flour which go under the name of mustard. Let any
one _try_ it, and I am sure he will never use the drugs again. The drugs,
if you take them freely, leave _a burning at the pit of your stomach_,
which the real mustard does not.
DRESS, HOUSEHOLD GOODS, AND FUEL.
199. In Paragraph 152, I said, I think, enough to caution you, the English
labourer, against the taste, now too prevalent, for _fine_ and _flimsy_
dress. It was, for hundreds of years, amongst the characteristics of the
English people, that their taste was, in all matters, for things solid,
sound, and good; for the _useful_, and _decent_, the _cleanly_ in dress,
and not for the _showy_. Let us hope that this may be the taste again; and
let us, my friends, fear no troubles, no perils, that may be necessary to
produce a return of that taste, accompanied with full bellies and warm
backs to the labouring classes.
200. In _household goods_, the _warm_, the _strong_, the _durable_, ought
always to be kept in view. Oak tables, bedsteads and stools, chairs of oak
or of yew tree, and never a bit of miserable deal board. Things of this
sort ought to last several lifetimes. A labourer ought to inherit from his
great grandfather something besides his toil. As to bedding, and other
things of that sort, all ought to be good in their nature, of a durable
quality, and plain in their colour and form. The plates, dishes, mugs, and
things of that kind, should be of _pewter_, or even of wood. Any-thing is
better than crockery-ware. Bottles to carry a-field should be of wood.
Formerly, nobody but the gypsies and mumpers, that went a hop-picking in
the season, carried glass or earthen bottles. As to _glass_ of any sort, I
do not know what business it has in any man's house, unless he be rich
enough to live on his means. It pays a tax, in many cases, to the amount
of two-thirds of its cost. In short, when a house is once furnished with
sufficient goods, there ought to be no renewal of hardly any part of them
wanted for half an age, except in case of destruction by fire. Good
management in this way leaves the man's wages to provide an _abundance of
good food and good raiment_; and these are the things that make happy
families; these are the things that make a good, kind, sincere, and brave
people; not little pamphlets about "loyalty" and "content." A good man
will be contented fast enough, if he be fed and clad sufficiently; but if
a man be not well fed and clad, he is a base wretch to be contented.
201. _Fuel_ should be, if possible, provided in summer, or at least some
of it. Turf and peat must be got in summer, and some _wood_ may. In the
woodland countries, the next winter ought to be thought of in _June_, when
people hardly know what to do with the fuelwood; and something should, if
possible, be saved in the bark-harvest to get a part of the fuel for the
next winter. Fire is a capital article. To have no fire, or a bad fire, to
sit by, is a most dismal thing. In such a state man and wife must be
something out of the common way to be in good humour with each other, to
say nothing of colds and other ailments which are the natural consequence
of such misery. If we suppose the great Creator to condescend to survey
his works in detail, what object can be so pleasing to him as that of the
labourer, after his return from the toils of a cold winter day, sitting
with his wife and children round a cheerful fire, while the wind whistles
in the chimney and the rain pelts the roof? But, of all God's creation,
what is so miserable to behold or to think of as a wretched, half-starved
family creeping to their nest of flocks or straw, there to lie shivering,
till sent forth by the fear of absolutely expiring from want?
HOPS.
202. I treated of them before; but before I conclude this little Work, it
is necessary to speak of them again. I made a mistake as to the _tax_ on
the Hops. The positive tax is 2_d._ a pound, and I (in former editions)
stated it at 4_d._ However, in all such cases, there falls upon the
_consumer_ the _expenses_ attending the paying of the tax. That is to say,
the cost of interest of capital in the grower who pays the tax, and who
must pay for it, whether his hops be cheap or dear. Then the _trouble_ it
gives him, and the rules he is compelled to obey in the drying and
bagging, and which cause him great _expense_. So that the tax on hops of
our own English growth, may _now be reckoned_ to cost the _consumer_ about
3-1/4_d._ a pound.
YEAST.
203. Yeast is a great thing in domestic management. I have once before
published a receipt for making _yeast-cakes_, I will do it again here.
204. In Long Island they make _yeast-cakes_. A parcel of these cakes is
made _once a year_. That is often enough. And, when you bake, you take one
of these cakes (or more according to the bulk of the batch) and with them
raise your bread. The very best bread I ever ate in my life was lightened
with these cakes.
205. The materials for a good batch of cakes are as follows:--3 ounces of
good fresh Hops; 3-1/2 pounds of Rye Flour; 7 pounds of Indian Corn Meal;
and one Gallon of Water.--Rub the hops, so as to separate them. Put them
into the water, which is to be boiling at the time. Let them boil half an
hour. Then strain the liquor through a fine sieve into an earthen vessel.
While the liquor is hot, put in the Rye-Flour; stirring the liquor well,
and quickly, as the Rye-Flour goes into it. The day after, when it is
working, put in the Indian Meal, stirring it well as it goes in. Before
the Indian Meal be all in, the mess will be very stiff; and it will, in
fact, be _dough_, very much of the consistence of the dough that bread is
made of.--Take this dough; knead it well, as you would for _pie-crust_.
Roll it out with a rolling-pin, as you roll out pie-crust, to the
thickness of about a third of an inch. When you have it (or a part of it
at a time) rolled out, cut it up into cakes with a tumbler glass turned
upside down, or with something else that will answer the same purpose.
Take a clean board (a _tin_ may be better) and put the cakes _to dry in
the sun_. Turn them every day; let them receive _no wet_; and they will
become as hard as ship biscuit. Put them into a bag, or box, and keep them
in a place _perfectly free from damp_. When you bake, take two cakes, of
the thickness above-mentioned, and about 3 inches in diameter; put them
into hot water, _over-night_, having cracked them first. Let the vessel
containing them stand near the fire-place all night. They will dissolve by
the morning, and then you use them in setting your sponge (as it is
called) precisely as you would use the yeast of beer.
206. There are _two things_ which may be considered by the reader as
obstacles. FIRST, where are _we_ to get the _Indian Meal_? Indian Meal is
used merely because it is of a _less adhesive_ nature than that of wheat.
White pea-meal, or even barley-meal, would do just as well. But SECOND, to
_dry_ the cakes, to make them (and _quickly_ too, mind) _as hard as ship
biscuit_ (which is much harder than the timber of Scotch firs or Canada
firs;) and to do this _in the sun_ (for it must not be _fire_,) where are
we, in this climate, to _get the sun_? In 1816 we could not; for, that
year, melons rotted in the _glazed frames_ and never ripened. But, in
every nine summers out of ten, we have in June, in July, or in August, _a
fortnight of hot sun_, and that is enough. Nature has not given us a
_peach-climate_; but we _get peaches_. The cakes, when put in the sun, may
have a _glass sash_, or a _hand-light_, put over them. This would make
their birth _hotter_ than that of the hottest open-air situation in
America. In short to a farmer's wife, or any good housewife, all the
little difficulties to the attainment of such an object would appear as
nothing. The _will_ only is required; and, if there be not that, it is
useless to think of the attempt.
SOWING SWEDISH TURNIP SEED.
207. It is necessary to be a little more full than I have been before as
to the _manner of sowing_ this seed; and I shall make my directions such
as to be applied on a small or a large scale.--Those that want to
transplant on a large scale will, of course, as to the other parts of the
business, refer to my larger work.--It is to get plants for
_transplanting_ that I mean to sow the Swedish Turnip Seed. The _time_ for
sowing must depend a little upon the nature of the situation and soil. In
the north of England, perhaps early in April may be best; but, in any of
these southern counties, any time after the _middle of April and before
the 10th of May_, is quite early enough. The ground which is to receive
the seed should be made very _fine_, and manured with wood-ashes, or with
good compost well mixed with the earth. Dung is not so good; for it breeds
the fly more; or, at least, I think so. The seed should be sown in drills
_an inch deep_, made as pointed out under the head of _Sowing_ in my book
on _Gardening_. When deposited in the drills _evenly_ but _not thickly_,
the ground should be raked across the drills, so as to fill them up; and
then the whole of the ground should be _trodden hard_, with shoes not
nailed, and not very thick in the sole. The ground should be laid out in
four-feet _beds_ for the reasons mentioned in the "_Gardener_." When the
seeds come up, thin the plants to two inches apart as soon as you think
them clear from the fly; for, if left thicker, they injure each other even
in this infant state. Hoe frequently between the rows even before thinning
the plants; and when they are thinned, hoe well and frequently between
them; for this has a tendency to make them strong; and the hoeing _before
thinning_ helps to keep off the fly. A rod of ground, the rows being eight
inches apart, and plants two inches apart in the row, will contain about
_two thousand two hundred_ plants. An acre in rows four feet apart and the
plants a foot apart in the row, will take about ten thousand four hundred
and sixty plants. So that to transplant an acre, you must sow about _five
rods of ground_. The plants should be kept very clean; and, by the last
week in June, or first in July, you put them out. I have put them out (in
England) at all times between 7th of June and middle of August. The first
is certainly earlier than I like; and the very finest I ever grew in
England, and the finest I ever saw for a large piece, were transplanted on
the 14th of July. But one year with another, the last week in June is the
best time. For size of plants, manner of transplanting, intercultivation,
preparing the land, and the rest, see "_Year's Residence in America_."
No. VIII.
_On the converting of English Grass, and Grain Plants cut green, into
Straw, for the purpose of making Plat for Hats and Bonnets._
KENSINGTON, MAY 30, 1823.
208. The foregoing Numbers have treated, chiefly, of the management of the
affairs of a labourer's family, and more particularly of the mode of
disposing of the money earned by the labour of the family. The present
Number will point out what I hope may become _an advantageous kind of
labour_. All along I have proceeded upon the supposition, that the wife
and children of the labourer be, as constantly as possible, employed _in
work of some sort or other_. The cutting, the bleaching, the sorting, and
the platting of straw, seem to be, of all employments, the best suited to
the wives and children of country labourers; and the discovery which I
have made, as to the means of obtaining the necessary materials, will
enable them to enter at once upon that employment.
209. Before I proceed to give my directions relative to the performance of
this sort of labour, I shall give a sort of history of the discovery to
which I have just alluded.
210. The practice of making hats, bonnets, and other things, of _straw_,
is perhaps of very ancient date; but not to waste time in fruitless
inquiries, it is very well known that, for many years past, straw
coverings for the head have been greatly in use in England, in America,
and, indeed, in almost all the countries that we know much of. In this
country the manufacture was, only a few years ago, _very flourishing_; but
it has now greatly declined, and has left in poverty and misery those whom
it once well fed and clothed.