Cottage Economy Part 6

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 cla.s.ses.

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, n.o.body but the gypsies and mumpers, that went a hop-picking in the season, carried gla.s.s or earthen bottles. As to _gla.s.s_ 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 G.o.d'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 gla.s.s 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 _gla.s.s 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 Gra.s.s, 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.

211. The cause of this change has been, the importation of the straw hats and bonnets from _Italy_, greatly superior, in durability and beauty, to those made in England. The plat made in England was made of the straw of _ripened grain_. It was, in general, _split_; but the main circ.u.mstance was, that it was made of the straw of _ripened grain_; while the Italian plat was made of the straw of grain, or gra.s.s, _cut green_. Now, the straw of ripened grain or gra.s.s is brittle; or, rather, rotten. It _dies_ while standing, and, in point of toughness, the difference between it and straw from plants cut green is much about the same as the difference between a stick that has _died on the tree_, and one that has been _cut from the tree_. But besides the difference in point of toughness, strength, and durability, there was the difference in beauty. The colour of the Italian plat was better; the plat was brighter; and the Indian straws, being _small whole_ straws, instead of small straws made by the splitting of large ones, here was a _roundness_ in them, that gave _light and shade_ to the plat, which could not be given by our flat bits of straw.

212. It seems odd, that n.o.body should have set to work to find out how the Italians _came_ by this fine straw. The importation of these Italian articles was chiefly from the port of LEGHORN; and therefore the bonnets imported were called _Leghorn Bonnets_. The straw manufacturers in this country seem to have made no effort to resist this invasion from Leghorn.

And, which is very curious, the Leghorn _straw_ has now began to be imported, and to be _platted in this country_. So that we had _hands_ to plat as well as the Italians. All that we wanted was the _same kind of straw_ that the Italians had: and it is truly wonderful that these importations from Leghorn should have gone on increasing year after year, and our domestic manufacture dwindling away at a like pace, without there having been any inquiry relative to the way in which the Italians _got their straw_! Strange, that we should have imported even _straw_ from Italy, without inquiring whether similar straw could not be got in England! There really seems to have been an opinion, that England could no more produce this straw than it could produce the sugar-cane.

213. Things were in this state, when in 1821, a Miss WOODHOUSE, a farmer's daughter in CONNECTICUT, sent a straw-bonnet of her own making to the _Society of Arts_ in London. This bonnet, superior in fineness and beauty to anything of the kind that had come from Leghorn, the maker stated to consist of a sort of gra.s.s of which she sent along with the bonnet some of the _seeds_. The question was, then, would these precious seeds _grow and produce plants in perfection in England_? A large quant.i.ty of the seed had not been sent: and it was therefore, by a member of the Society, thought desirable to get, with as little delay as possible, a considerable quant.i.ty of the seed.

214. It was in this stage of the affair that my attention was called to it. The member just alluded to applied to me to get the seed from America.

I was of opinion that there could be no sort of gra.s.s in Connecticut that would not, and that _did not_, grow and flourish in England. My son JAMES, who was then at New-York, had instructions from me, in June 1821, to go to Miss WOODHOUSE, and to send me home an account of the matter. In September, the same year, I heard from him, who sent me an account of the cutting and bleaching, and also a specimen of the plat and gra.s.s of Connecticut. Miss WOODHOUSE had told the Society of Arts, that the gra.s.s used was the _Poa Pratensis_. This is the _smooth-stalked meadow-gra.s.s_.

So that it was quite useless to send for _seed_. It was clear, that we had _gra.s.s enough_ in England, if we could but make it into straw as handsome as that of Italy.

215. Upon my publishing an account of what had taken place with regard to the American Bonnet, _an importer of Italian straw_ applied to me to know whether I would _undertake to import American straw_. He was in the habit of importing Italian straw, and of having it platted in this country; but having seen the bonnet of Miss WOODHOUSE, he was anxious to get the American straw. This gentleman showed me some Italian straw which he had imported, and as the seed heads were on, I could not see what plant it was. The gentleman who showed the straw to me, told me (and, doubtless, he believed) that the plant was one that _would not grow in England_. I however, who looked at the straw with the eyes of a farmer, perceived that it consisted of dry _oat_, _wheat_, and _rye_ plants, and of _Bennet_ and other _common gra.s.s_ plants.

216. This quite settled the point of _growth in England_. It was now certain that we had the plants in abundance; and the only question that remained to be determined was, Had we SUN to give to those plants the beautiful colour which the American and Italian straw had? If that colour were to be obtained by _art_, by any chemical applications, we could obtain it as easily as the Americans or the Italians; but, if it were the gift of the SUN solely, here might be a difficulty impossible for us to overcome. My experiments have proved that the fear of such difficulty was wholly groundless.

217. It was late in September 1821 that I obtained this knowledge, as to the kind of plants that produced the foreign straw. I could, at that time of the year, do nothing in the way of removing my doubts as to the _powers of our Sun_ in the bleaching of gra.s.s; but I resolved to do this when the proper season for bleaching should return. Accordingly, when the next month of _June_ came, I went into the country for the purpose. I made my experiments, and, in short, I proved to demonstration, that we had not only the _plants_, but the _sun_ also, necessary for the making of straw, yielding in no respect to that of America or of Italy. I think that, upon the whole, we have greatly the advantage of those countries; for gra.s.s is more abundant in this country than in any other. It flourishes here more than in any other country. It is here in a greater variety of sorts; and for _fineness_ in point of size, there is no part of the world which can equal what might be obtained from some of our _downs_, merely by keeping the land ungrazed till the month of July.

218. When I had obtained the straw, I got some of it made into plat. One piece of this plat was equal in point of colour, and superior in point of fineness, even to the plat of the bonnet, of Miss WOODHOUSE. It seemed, therefore, now to be necessary to do nothing more than to _make all this well known to the country_. As the SOCIETY OF ARTS had interested itself in the matter, and as I heard that, through its laudable zeal, several _sowings of the foreign gra.s.s-seed_ had been made in England, I communicated an account of my experiments to that Society. The first communication was made by me on the 19th of February last, when I sent to the Society, specimens of my straw and also of the plat. Some time after this I attended a committee of the Society on the subject, and gave them a verbal account of the way in which I had gone to work.

219. The committee had, before this, given some of my straw to certain _manufacturers_ of plat, in order to see what it would produce. These manufacturers, with the exception of one, brought _such_ specimens of plat as to induce, at first sight, any one to believe that it was nonsense to think of bringing the thing to any degree of perfection! But, was it _possible_ to believe this? Was it possible to believe that it could _answer_ to import straw from Italy, to pay a twenty per cent. duty on that straw, and to have it platted here; and that it would _not answer_ to turn into plat straw of just the same sort grown in England? It was impossible to believe _this_; but possible enough to believe, that persons now making profit by Italian straw, or plat, or bonnets, would rather that English straw should come to shut out the Italian and to put an end to the Leghorn trade.

220. In order to show the character of the reports of those manufacturers, I sent some parcels of straw into Hertfordshire, and got back, in the course of five days, _fifteen specimens of plat_. These I sent to the Society of Arts on the 3d of April; and I here insert a copy of the letter which accompanied them.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.

KENSINGTON, April 3, 1823.

SIR,--With this letter I send you sixteen specimens of plat, and also eight parcels of straw, in order to show the sorts that the plat is made out of. The numbers of the plat correspond with those of the straw; but each parcel of straw has two numbers attached to it, except in the case of the first number, which is the _wheat straw_. Of each kind of straw a parcel of the _stoutest_ and a parcel of the _smallest_ were sent to be platted; so that each parcel of the straw now sent, except that of the wheat, refers to _two of the pieces of plat_. For instance, 2 and 3 of the plat is of the sort of straw marked 2 and 3; 4 and 12 of the plat is of the sort of straw marked 4 and 12; and so on. These parcels of straw are sent in order that you may know the _kind_ of straw, or rather, of gra.s.s, from which the several pieces of plat have been made. This is very _material_; because it is by those parcels of straw that the _kinds of gra.s.s_ are to be known.

The piece of plat No. 16 is _American_; all the rest are from my straw.

You will see, that 15 is the _finest plat of all_. No. 7 is from the _stout_ straws of the same _kind_ as No. 15. By looking at the parcel of straw Nos. 7 and 15, you will see what sort of gra.s.s this is. The next, in point of beauty and fineness combined, are the pieces Nos. 13 and 8; and by looking at the parcel of straw, Nos. 13 and 8, you will see what sort of gra.s.s that is. Next comes 10 and 5, which are very beautiful too; and the sort of gra.s.s, you will see, is the _common Bennet_. The wheat, you see, is too coa.r.s.e; and the rest of the sorts are either _too hard_ or _too brittle_. I beg you to look at Nos. 10 and 5. Those appear to me to be the thing to supplant the Leghorn. The colour is good, the straws _work well_, they afford a great _variety of sizes_, and they come from the common _Bennet gra.s.s_, which grows all over the kingdom, which is cultivated in all our fields, which is in bloom in the fair month of June, which may be grown as fine or as coa.r.s.e as we please, and ten acres of which would, I dare say, make ten thousand bonnets. However, 7 and 15, and 8 and 13, are very good; and they are to be got in every part of the kingdom.

As to _platters_, it is to be too childish to believe that they are not to be got, when I could send off these straws, and get back the plat, in the course of five days. Far _better work_ than this would have been obtained if I could have gone on the errand myself. What then will people not do, who regularly undertake the business for their livelihood?

I will, as soon as possible, send you an account of the manner in which I went to work with the gra.s.s. The card or plat, which I sent you some time ago, you will be so good as to give me back again some time; because I have now not a bit of the American plat left.

I am, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

WM. COBBETT.

221. I should observe, that these written communications, of mine to the Society, _belong_, in fact, to it, and will be published in its PROCEEDINGS, a volume of which comes out every year; but, in this case, there would have been _a year lost_ to those who may act in consequence of these communications being made public. The gra.s.s is to be got, in great quant.i.ties and of the best sorts, only in _June_ and _July_; and the Society's volume does not come out till _December_. The Society has, therefore, given its consent to the making of the communications public through the means of this little work of mine.