Cottage Economy Part 8

234. THE PRESSING. Bonnets and hats are pressed after they are made. I am told that a proper press costs pretty nearly a hundred pounds; but, then, that it will do prodigious deal of business. I would recommend to our friends in the country to teach as many children as they can to make the plat. The plat will be knitted in London, and in other considerable towns, by persons to whom it will be sold. It appears to me, at least, that this will be the course that the thing will take. However, we must leave this to time; and here I conclude my observations upon a subject which is deeply interesting to myself, and which the public in general deem to be of great importance.

235. POSTSCRIPT on _brewing_.--I think it right to say here, that, ever since I published the instructions for brewing by copper and by wooden utensils, the beer at _my own house_ has always been brewed precisely agreeable to the instructions contained in this book; and I have to add, that I never have had such good beer in my house in all my lifetime, as since I have followed that mode of brewing. My table-beer, as well as my ale, is always as clear as wine. I have had hundreds and hundreds of quarters of malt brewed into beer in my house. My people could always make it strong enough and sweet enough; but never, except by accident, could they make it CLEAR. Now I never have any that is not clear. And yet my utensils are all very small; and my brewers are sometimes one labouring man, and sometimes another. A man wants showing how to brew the first time. I should suppose that we use, in my house, about seven hundred gallons of beer every year, taking both sorts together; and I can positively a.s.sert, that there has not been one drop of bad beer, and indeed none which has not been most excellent, in my house, during the last two years, I think it is, since I began using the utensils, and in the manner named in this book.

ICE-HOUSES.

236. First begging the reader to read again paragraph 149, I proceed here, in compliance with numerous requests to that effect, to describe, as clearly as I can, the manner of constructing the sort of Ice-houses therein mentioned. In England, these receptacles of frozen water are, generally, _under ground_, and always, if possible, under the _shade of trees_, the opinion being, that the _main_ thing, if not the _only_ thing, is to keep away _the heat_. The heat is to be kept away certainly; but _moisture_ is the great enemy of _Ice_; and how is this to be kept away either _under ground_, or under the shade of trees? Abundant experience has proved, that no thickness of _wall_, that no cement of any kind, will effectually resist _moisture_. Drops will, at times, be seen hanging on the under side of an arch of any thickness, and made of any materials, if it have earth over it, and even when it has the floor of a house over it; and wherever the moisture enters, the ice will quickly melt.

237. Ice-houses should therefore be, in all their parts, _as dry_ as possible: and they should be so constructed, and the ice so deposited in them, as to ensure _the running away of the meltings_ as quickly as possible, whenever such meltings come. Any-thing in way of drains or gutters, is too slow in its effect; and therefore there must be something that will not suffer the water proceeding from any melting, to remain an instant.

238. In the first place, then, the ice-house should stand in a place quite open to the _sun and air_; for whoever has travelled even but a few miles (having eyes in his head) need not be told how long that part of a road from which the sun and wind are excluded by trees, or hedges, or by any-thing else, will remain wet, or at least damp, after the rest of the road is even in a state to send up dust.

239. The next thing is to protect the ice against wet, or damp, from _beneath_. It should, therefore, stand on some spot _from which water would run in every direction_; and if the natural ground presents no such spot, it is no very great job to _make it_.

240. Then come the _materials_ of which the house is to consist. These, for the reasons before-mentioned, must not be bricks, stones, mortar, nor earth; for these are all affected by the atmosphere; they will become _damp_ at certain times, and _dampness_ is the great destroyer of ice. The materials are _wood_ and _straw_. Wood will not do; for, though not liable to become damp, it imbibes _heat_ fast enough; and, besides, it cannot be so put together as to shut out air sufficiently. Straw is wholly free from the quality of becoming damp, except from water actually put upon it; and it can, at the same time, be placed on a roof, and on sides, to such a degree of thickness as to exclude the air in a manner the most perfect.

The ice-house ought, therefore, to be made of _posts, plates, rafters, laths, and straw_. The best form is the _circular_; and the house, when made, appears as I have endeavoured to describe it in _Fig. 3_ of the plate.

241. FIG. 1, _a_, is the centre of a circle, the diameter of which is ten feet, and at this centre you put up a post to stand fifteen feet above the level of the ground, which post ought to be about nine inches through at the bottom, and not a great deal smaller at the top. Great care must be taken that this post be _perfectly perpendicular_; for, if it be not, the whole building will be awry.

242. _b b b_ are fifteen posts, nine feet high, and six inches through at the bottom, without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about two feet apart, reckoning from centre of post to centre of post, which leaves between each two a s.p.a.ce of eighteen inches, _c c c c_ are fifty-four posts, five feet high, and five inches through at the bottom, without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about two feet apart, from centre of post to centre of post, which leaves between each two a s.p.a.ce of nineteen inches. The s.p.a.ce between these two rows of posts is four feet in width, and, as will be presently seen, is to contain _a wall of straw_.

243. _e_ is a pa.s.sage through this wall; _d_ is the outside door of the pa.s.sage; _f_ is the inside door; and the inner circle, of which _a_ is the centre, is the place in which the ice is to be deposited.

244. Well, then, we have now got _the posts_ up; and, before we talk of the _roof_ of the house, or of the _bed_ for the ice, it will be best to speak about the making of the _wall_. It is to be made of _straw_, wheat-straw, or rye-straw, with no rubbish in it, and made very smooth by the hand as it is put in. You lay it _in very closely_ and very smoothly, so that if the wall were cut across, as at _g g_, in FIG. 2 (which FIG.

2 represents _the whole building cut down through the middle_, omitting the centre post,) the ends of the straws would present a compact face as they do after a cut of a chaff-cutter. But there requires something _to keep the straw from bulging out between the posts_. Little stakes as big as your _wrist_ will answer this purpose. Drive them into the ground, and fasten, at top, to the _plates_, of which I am now to speak. The plates are pieces of wood which go all round both the circles, and are _nailed on upon the tops of the posts_. Their main business is to receive and sustain the _lower ends of the rafters_, as at _m m_ and _n n_ in FIG. 2. But to the plates also the _stakes_ just mentioned must be fastened at top. Thus, then, there will be this s.p.a.ce of four feet wide, having, on each side of it, a row of posts and stakes, not more than about six inches from each other, to hold up, and to keep in its place, this wall of straw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Fig. 1_, _Fig. 2_, _Fig. 3_]

245. Next come the _rafters_, as from _s_ to _n_, FIG. 2. Carpenters best know what is the _number_ and what the _size_ of the rafters; but from _s_ to _m_ there need be only about half as many as from _m_ to _n_. However, carpenters know all about this. It is their every-day work. The roof is forty-five _degrees pitch_, as the carpenters call it. If it were even _sharper_, it would be none the worse. There will be about _thirty_ ends of rafters to lodge on the plate, as at _m_; and these cannot _all_ be fastened to the top of the centre-post rising up from _a_; but carpenters know how to manage this matter, so as to make all strong and safe. The _plate_ which goes along on the tops of the row of posts, _b b b_, must, of course, be put on in a somewhat sloping form; otherwise there would be a sort of _hip_ formed by the rafters. However, the thatch is to be so deep, that this may not be of much consequence. Before the thatching begins, there are _laths_ to put upon the rafters. Thatchers know all about this, and all that you have to do is, to take care that the thatcher _tie the straw on well_. The best way, in a case of such deep thatch, is to have _a strong man to tie for the thatcher_.

246. The roof is now _raftered_, and it is to receive a thatch of _clean_, _sound_, and well-prepared wheat or rye straw, four _feet thick_, as at _h h_ in FIG. 2.

247. The house having now got _walls_ and _roof_, the next thing is to make the _bed_ to receive the ice. This bed is the area of the circle of which _a_ is the centre. You begin by laying on the ground _round logs_, eight inches through, or thereabouts, and placing them across the area, leaving s.p.a.ces between them of about a foot. Then, _crossways on them_, poles about four inches through, placed at six inches apart. Then, _crossways on them_, other poles, about two inches through, placed at three inches apart. Then, _crossways on them_, rods as thick as your finger, placed at an inch apart. Then upon these, small, clean, dry, last-winter-cut _twigs_, to the thickness of about two inches; or, instead of these twigs, good, clean, strong _heath_, free from gra.s.s and moss, and from rubbish of all sorts.

248. This is the _bed_ for the ice to lie on; and as you see, the top of the bed will be seventeen inches from the ground. The pressure of the ice may, perhaps, bring it to fourteen, or to thirteen. Upon this bed the ice is put, broken and pummelled, and beaten down together in the usual manner.

249. Having got the bed filled with ice, we have next to _shut it safely up_. As we have seen, there is a pa.s.sage (_e_). Two feet wide is enough for this pa.s.sage; and, being as long as the wall is thick, it is of course, four feet long. The use of the pa.s.sage is this: that you may have _two doors_, so that you may, in hot or damp weather, shut the outer door, while you have the inner door open. This inner door may be of hurdle-work, and straw, and covered, on one of the sides, with sheep-skins with the _wool on_, so as to keep out the external air. The outer-door, which must lock, must be of wood, made to shut very closely, and, besides, covered with skins like the other. At times of great danger from heat, or from wet, the whole of the pa.s.sage may be filled with straw. The door (_p._ FIG. 3) should face the North, or between North and East.

250. As to the _size_ of the ice-house, that must, of course, depend upon the _quant.i.ty_ of ice that you may choose to have. A house on the above scale, is from _w_ to _x_ (FIG. 2) twenty-nine feet; from _y_ to _z_ (FIG.

2) nineteen feet. The area of the circle, of which _a_ is the centre, is ten feet in diameter, and as this area contains seventy-five superficial feet, you will, if you put ice on the bed to the height of only five feet, (and you _may_ put it on to the height of seven feet from the top of the bed,) you will have _three hundred and seventy-five cubic feet of ice_; and, observe, a cubic foot of ice will, when broken up, fill much more than a _Winchester Bushel_: what it may do as to an "IMPERIAL BUSHEL,"

engendered like Greek Loan Commissioners, by the unnatural heat of "PROSPERITY," G.o.d only knows! However, I do suppose, that, without making any allowance for the "_cold_ fit," as Dr. Baring calls it, into which "_late_ panic" has brought us; I do suppose, that even the scorching, the burning dog-star of "IMPERIAL PROSPERITY;" nay, that even DIVES himself, would hardly call for more than two bushels of ice in a day; for more than two bushels a day it would be, unless it were used in cold as well as in hot weather.

251. As to the _expense_ of such a house, it could, in the country, not be much. None of the posts, except the main or centre-post, need be _very straight_. The other posts might be easily culled from tree-lops, destined for fire-wood. The straw would _make all straight_. The _plates_ must of necessity be short pieces of wood; and, as to the _stakes_, the _laths_, and the _logs_, _poles_, _rods_, _twigs_, and _heath_, they would not all cost _twenty s.h.i.+llings_. The straw is the princ.i.p.al article; and, in most places, even that would not cost more than two or three pounds. If it last many years, the price could not be an object; and if but a little while, it would still be nearly as good for litter as it was before it was applied to this purpose. How often the _bottom of the straw walls_ might want renewing I cannot say, but I know that the roof would with few and small repairs, last well for ten years.

252. I have said that the interior row of posts is to be nine feet high, and the exterior row five feet high. I, in each case, mean, _with the plate inclusive_. I have only to add, that by way of superabundant precaution against bottom wet, it will be well to make a sort of _gutter_, to receive the drip from the roof, and to carry it away as soon as it falls.

253. Now, after expressing a hope that I shall have made myself clearly understood by every reader, it is necessary that I remind him, that I do not pretend to pledge myself for the complete success, nor for any success at all, of this mode of making ice-houses. But, at the same time, I express my firm belief, that complete success would attend it; because it not only corresponds with what I have seen of such matters; but I had the details from a gentleman who had ample experience to guide him, and who was a man on whose word and judgment I placed a perfect reliance. He advised me to erect an ice-house; but not caring enough about _fresh meat_ and _fish_ in summer, or at least not setting them enough above "_prime pork_" to induce me to take any trouble to secure the former, I never built an ice-house. Thus, then, I only communicate that in which I believe; there is, however, in all cases, this comfort, that if the thing fail as an ice-house, it will serve all generations to come as a model for a pig-bed.

ADDITION.

_Kensington, Nov. 14th, 1831._

MANGEL WURZEL.

254. This last summer, I have proved that, as keep for cows, MANGEL WURZEL is preferable to SWEDISH TURNIPS, whether as to quant.i.ty or quality. But there needs no other alteration in the book, than merely to read _mangel wurzel_ wherever you find _Swedish turnip_; the time of sowing, the mode and time of transplanting, the distances, and the cultivation, all being the same; and the only difference being in the _application of the leaves_, and in _the time of harvesting_ the roots.

255. The leaves of the MANGEL WURZEL are of great value, especially in dry summers. You begin, about the third week in August, to take off by a _downward pull_, the leaves of the plants; and they are excellent food for pigs and cows; only observe this, that, if given to cows, there must be, for each cow, _six pounds of hay a day_, which is not necessary in the case of the Swedish turnips. These leaves last till the crop is taken up, which ought to be in the _first week of November_. The taking off of the leaves does good to the plants: new leaves succeed higher up; and the plant becomes _longer_ than it otherwise would be, and, of course, _heavier_. But, in taking off the leaves, you must not approach too near to the top.

256. When you take the plants up in November, you must cut off the _crowns_ and the remaining leaves; and they, again, are for cows and pigs.

Then you put the roots into some place to keep them from the frost; and, if you have no place under cover, put them in _pies_, in the same manner as directed for the Swedish turnips. The roots will average in weight 10 _lbs. each_. They may be given to cows _whole_, or to pigs either, and they are better than the Swedish turnip for both animals; and they do not give any bad or strong taste to the milk and b.u.t.ter. But, besides this use of the mangel wurzel, there is another, with regard to pigs at least, of very great importance. The _juice_ of this plant has so much of _sweetness_ in it, that, in France, they make _sugar_ of it; and have used the sugar, and found it equal in goodness to West India sugar. Many persons in England make _beer_ of this juice, and I have drunk of this beer, and found it very good. In short, the juice is most excellent for the mixing of moist food for pigs. I am now (20th Nov. 1831) boiling it for this purpose. My copper holds seven strike-bushels; I put in three bushels of mangel wurzel cut into pieces two inches thick, and then fill the copper with water. I draw off as much of the liquor as I want to wet pollard, or meal, for little pigs or fatting-pigs, and the rest, roots and all, I feed the _yard-hogs_ with; and this I shall follow on till about the middle of May.

257. If you give boiled, or steamed, _potatoes_ to pigs, there wants some liquor to mix with the potatoes; for the water in which potatoes have been boiled is _hurtful_ to any animal that drinks it. But mix the potatoes with juice of mangel wurzel, and they make very good food for hogs of all ages. The mangel wurzel produces _a larger_ crop than the Swedish turnip.

COBBETT'S CORN.

258. IF you prefer _bread_ and _pudding_ to milk, b.u.t.ter, and meat, this corn will produce, on your forty rods, forty bushels, each weighing 60 _lbs. at the least_; and more flour, in proportion, than the best white wheat. To make _bread_ with it you must use _two-thirds_ wheaten, or rye, flour; but in puddings this is not necessary. The puddings at my house are all made with this flour, except meat and fruit pudding; for the corn flour is not adhesive or _clinging_ enough to make paste, or crust. This corn is the very best for hog-fatting in the whole world. I, last April, sent parcels of the seed into several counties, to be given away to working men: and I sent them instructions for the cultivation, which I shall repeat here.

259. I will first describe this _corn_ to you. It is that which is sometimes called _Indian corn_; and sometimes people call it Indian wheat.

It is that sort of corn which the disciples ate as they were going up to Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day. They gathered it in the fields as they went along and ate it green, they being "an hungered," for which you know they were reproved by the pharisees. I have written a treatise on this corn in a book which I sell for four s.h.i.+llings, giving a minute account of the qualities, the culture, the harvesting, and the various uses of this corn; but I shall here confine myself to what is necessary for a labourer to know about it, so that he may be induced to raise and may be enabled to raise enough of it in his garden to fat a pig of ten score.

260. There are a great many sorts of this corn. They all come from countries which are hotter than England. This sort, which my eldest son brought into England, is a dwarf kind, and is the only kind that I have known to ripen in this country: and I know that it will ripen in this country in any summer; for I had a large field of it in 1828 and 1829; and last year (my lease at my farm being out at Michaelmas, and this corn not ripening till late in October) I had about two acres in my garden at Kensington. Within the memory of man there have not been three summers so cold as the last, one after another; and no one so cold as the last. Yet my corn ripened perfectly well, and this you will be satisfied of if you be amongst the men to whom this corn is given from me. You will see that it is in the shape of the cone of a spruce fir; you will see that the grains are fixed round a stalk which is called the _cob_. These _stalks_ or _ears_ come out of the side of the plant, which has leaves like a flag, which plant grows to about three feet high, and has two or three and sometimes more, of these ears or bunches of grain. Out of the top of the plant comes the ta.s.sel, which resembles the plumes of feathers upon a hea.r.s.e; and this is the flower of the plant.

261. The grain is, as you will see, about the size of a large pea, and there are from two to three hundred of these grains upon the ear, or cob.

In my treatise, I have shown that, in America, all the hogs and pigs, all the poultry of every sort, the greater part of the oxen, and a considerable part of the sheep, are fatted upon this corn; that it is the best food for horses; and that, when ground and dressed in various ways, it is used in bread, in puddings, in several other ways in families; and that, in short, it is the real staff of life, in all the countries where it is in common culture, and where the climate is hot. When used for poultry, the grain is rubbed off the cob. Horses, sheep, and pigs, bite the grain off, and leave the cob; but horned cattle eat cob and all.

262. I am to speak of it to you, however, only as a thing to make you some bacon, for which use it surpa.s.ses all other grain whatsoever. When the grain is in the whole ear, it is called corn in the ear; when it is rubbed off the cob, it is called sh.e.l.led corn. Now, observe, ten bushels of sh.e.l.led corn are equal, in the fatting of a pig, to fifteen bushels of barley; and fifteen bushels of barley, if properly ground and managed, will make a pig of ten score, if he be not too poor when you begin to fat him. Observe that everybody who has been in America knows, that the finest hogs in the world are fatted in that country; and no man ever saw a hog fatted in that country in any other way than tossing the ears of corn over to him in the sty, leaving him to bite it off the ear, and deal with it according to his pleasure. The finest and solidest bacon in the world is produced in this way.

263. Now, then, I know, that a bushel of sh.e.l.led corn may be grown upon one single rod of ground sixteen feet and a half each way; I have grown more than that this last summer; and any of you may do the same if you will strictly follow the instructions which I am now about to give you.

1. Late in March (I am doing it now,) or in the first fortnight of April, dig your ground up _very deep_, and let it lie rough till between the seventh and fifteenth of May.

2. Then (in dry weather if possible) dig up the ground again, and make it smooth at top. Draw drills with a line two feet apart, just as you do drills for peas; rub the grains off the cob; put a little very rotten and fine manure along the bottom of the drill; lay the grains along upon that six inches apart; cover the grain over with fine earth, so that there be about an inch and a half on the top of the grain; pat the earth down a little with the back of a hoe to make it lie solid on the grain.

3. If there be any danger of slugs, you must kill them before the corn comes up if possible: and the best way to do this is to put a little hot lime in a bag, and go very early in the morning, and shake the bag all round the edges of the ground and over the ground. Doing this three or four times very early in a dewy morning, or just after a shower, will destroy all the slugs; and this ought to be done for all other crops as well as for that of corn.

4. When the corn comes up, you must take care to keep all birds off till it is two or three inches high; for the spear is so sweet, that the birds of all sorts are very apt to peck it off, particularly the doves and the larks and pigeons. As soon as it is fairly above ground, give the whole of the ground (in dry weather) a flat hoeing, and be sure to move all the ground close round the plants. When the weeds begin to appear again, give the ground another hoeing, but always in dry weather. When the plants get to be about a foot high or a little more, dig the ground between the rows, and work the earth up a little against the stems of the plants.

5. About the middle of August you will see the ta.s.sel springing up out of the middle of the plant, and the ears coming out of the sides. If weeds appear in the ground, hoe it again to kill the weeds, so that the ground may be always kept clean. About the middle of September you will find the grains of the ears to be full of milk, just in the state that the ears were at Jerusalem when the disciples cropped them to eat. From this milky state, they, like the grains of wheat, grow hard; and as soon as the grains begin to be hard, you should cut off the tops of the corn and the long flaggy leaves, and leave the ears to ripen upon the stalk or stem. If it be a warm summer, they will be fit to harvest by the last of October; but it does not signify if they remain out until the middle of November or even later. The longer they stay out, the harder the grain will be.

6. Each ear is covered in a very curious manner with a husk. The best way for you will be, when you gather in your crop to strip off the husks, to tie the ears in bunches of six or eight or ten, and to hang them up to nails in the walls, or against the beams of your house; for there is so much moisture in the cob that the ears are apt to heat if put together in great parcels. The room in which I write in London is now hung all round with bunches of this corn. The bunches may be hung up in a shed or stable for a while, and, when perfectly dry, they may be put into bags.

7. Now, as to the mode of _using_ the corn; if for poultry, you must rub the grains off the cob; but if for pigs, give them the whole ears. You will find some of the ears in which the grain is still soft. Give these to your pig first; and keep the hardest to the last. You will soon see how much the pig will require in a day, because pigs, more decent than many rich men, never eat any more than is necessary to them. You will thus have a pig; you will have two flitches of bacon, two pig's cheeks, one set of souse, two griskins, two spare-ribs, from both which I trust in G.o.d you will keep the jaws of the Methodist parson; and if, while you are drinking a mug of your own ale, after having dined upon one of these, you drink my health, you may be sure that it will give you more merit in the sight of G.o.d as well as of man, than you would acquire by groaning the soul out of your body in responses to the blasphemous cant of the sleekheaded Methodist thief that would persuade you to live upon potatoes.

264. You must be quite sensible that I cannot have any motive but your good in giving you this advice, other than the delight which I take and the pleasure which I derive from doing that good. You are all personally unknown to me: in all human probability not one man in a thousand will ever see me. You have no more power to show your grat.i.tude to me than you have to cause me to live for a hundred years. I do not desire that you should deem this a favour received from me. The thing is worth your trying, at any rate.