Chapter I: Part 1

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COTTAGE ECONOMY;

CONTAINING

INFORMATION RELATIVE TO THE BREWING OF BEER, MAKING OF BREAD, KEEPING OF COWS, PIGS, BEES, EWES, GOATS, POULTRY, AND RABBITS, AND RELATIVE TO OTHER MATTERS DEEMED USEFUL IN THE CONDUCTING OF THE AFFAIRS OF A LABOURER'S FAMILY; TO WHICH ARE ADDED, INSTRUCTIONS RELATIVE TO THE SELECTING, THE CUTTING AND THE BLEACHING OF THE PLANTS OF ENGLISH GRASS AND GRAIN, FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING HATS AND BONNETS; AND ALSO INSTRUCTIONS FOR ERECTING AND USING ICE-HOUSES, AFTER THE VIRGINIAN MANNER.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND; OR, A DEFENCE OF THE RIGHTS OF THOSE WHO DO THE WORK, AND FIGHT THE BATTLES.

BY WILLIAM COBBETT.

New York: Published by John Doyle, 12, Liberty-St. Stereotyped by Conner & Cooke. 1833.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year of our Lord 1833, by John Doyle, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

CONTENTS.

No.

I.--Introduction. To the Labouring Classes of this
Kingdom--Brewing Beer, 5

II.--Brewing Beer, continued, 23

III.--Making Bread, 41

IV.--Making Bread, continued--Brewing Beer--Keeping Cows, 59

V.--Keeping Cows, continued,--Keeping Pigs, 73

VI.--Keeping Pigs, continued--Salting Mutton, and Beef, 86

VII.--Bees, Geese, Ducks, Turkeys, Fowls, Pigeons, Rabbits,
Goats, and Ewes, Candles and Rushes, Mustard, Dress
and Household Goods, and Fuel, Hops, and Yeast, 98

VIII.--Selecting, Cutting and Bleaching the Plants of English
Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and
Bonnets--Constructing and using Ice-houses, 122

ADDITION.--Mangel Wurzel--Cobbett's Corn, 151

INDEX, 158

COTTAGE ECONOMY.

No. I.

INTRODUCTION.

TO THE LABOURING CLASSES OF THIS KINGDOM.

1. Throughout this little work, I shall _number_ the Paragraphs, in order to be able, at some stages of the work, to refer, with the more facility, to parts that have gone before. The last Number will contain an _Index_, by the means of which the several matters may be turned to without loss of time; for, when _economy_ is the subject, _time_ is a thing which ought by no means to be overlooked.

2. The word _Economy_, like a great many others, has, in its application, been very much abused. It is generally used as if it meant parsimony, stinginess, or niggardliness; and, at best, merely the refraining from expending money. Hence misers and close-fisted men disguise their propensity and conduct under the name of _economy_; whereas the most liberal disposition, a disposition precisely the contrary of that of the miser, is perfectly consistent with economy.

3. ECONOMY means _management_, and nothing more; and it is generally applied to the affairs of a house and family, which affairs are an object of the greatest importance, whether as relating to individuals or to a nation. A nation is made powerful and to be honoured in the world, not so much by the number of its people as by the ability and character of that people; and the ability and character of a people depend, in a great measure, upon the _economy_ of the several families, which, all taken together, make up the nation. There never yet was, and never will be, a nation _permanently great_, consisting, for the greater part, of wretched and miserable families.

4. In every view of the matter, therefore, it is desirable; that the families of which a nation consists should be happily off: and as this depends, in a great degree, upon the _management_ of their concerns, the present work is intended to convey, to the families of the _labouring classes_ in particular, such information as I think may be useful with regard to that management.

5. I lay it down as a maxim, that for a family to be happy, they must be well supplied with _food_ and _raiment_. It is a sorry effort that people make to persuade others, or to persuade themselves, that they can be happy in a state of _want_ of the necessaries of life. The doctrines which fanaticism preaches, and which teach men to be _content_ with _poverty_, have a very pernicious tendency, and are calculated to favour tyrants by giving them passive slaves. To live well, to enjoy all things that make life pleasant, is the right of every man who constantly uses his strength judiciously and lawfully. It is to blaspheme God to suppose, that he created man to be miserable, to hunger, thirst, and perish with cold, in the midst of that abundance which is the fruit of their own labour. Instead, therefore, of applauding "_happy_ poverty," which applause is so much the fashion of the present day, I despise the man that is _poor_ and _contented_; for, such content is a certain proof of a base disposition, a disposition which is the enemy of all industry, all exertion, all love of independence.

6. Let it be understood, however, that, by _poverty_, I mean _real want_, a real insufficiency of the food and raiment and lodging necessary to health and decency; and not that imaginary poverty, of which some persons complain. The man who, by his own and his family's labour, can provide a sufficiency of food and raiment, and a comfortable dwelling-place, is not a _poor man_. There must be different ranks and degrees in every civil society, and, indeed, so it is even amongst the savage tribes. There must be different degrees of wealth; some must have more than others; and the richest must be a great deal richer than the least rich. But it is necessary to the very existence of a people, that nine out of ten should live wholly by the sweat of their brow; and, is it not degrading to human nature, that all the nine-tenths should be called _poor_; and, what is still worse, _call themselves poor_, and be _contented_ in that degraded state?

7. The laws, the economy, or management, of a state may be such as to render it impossible for the labourer, however skilful and industrious, to maintain his family in health and decency; and such has, for many years past, been the management of the affairs of this once truly great and happy land. A system of paper-money, the effect of which was to take from the labourer the half of his earnings, was what no industry and care could make head against. I do not pretend that this system was adopted _by design_. But, no matter for the _cause_; such was the effect.

8. Better times, however, are approaching. The labourer now appears likely to obtain that hire of which he is worthy; and, therefore, this appears to me to be the time to press upon him the _duty_ of using his best exertions for the rearing of his family in a manner that must give him the best security for happiness to himself, his wife and children, and to make him, in all respects, what his forefathers were. The people of England have been famed, in all ages, for their _good living_; for the _abundance of their food_ and _goodness of their attire_. The old sayings about English roast beef and plum-pudding, and about English hospitality, had not their foundation in _nothing_. And, in spite of all refinements of sickly minds, it is _abundant living_ amongst the people at large, which is the great test of good government, and the surest basis of national greatness and security.

9. If the labourer have his fair wages; if there be no false weights and measures, whether of money or of goods, by which he is defrauded; if the laws be equal in their effect upon all men: if he be called upon for no more than his due share of the expenses necessary to support the government and defend the country, he has no reason to complain. If the largeness of his family demand extraordinary labour and care, these are due from him to it. He is the cause of the existence of that family; and, therefore, he is not, except in cases of accidental calamity, to throw upon others the burden of supporting it. Besides, "little children are as arrows in the hands of the giant, and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of them." That is to say, children, if they bring their _cares_, bring also their _pleasures_ and _solid advantages_. They become, very soon, so many assistants and props to the parents, who, when old age comes on, are amply repaid for all the toils and all the cares that children have occasioned in their infancy. To be without sure and safe friends in the world makes life not worth having; and whom can we be so sure of as of our children? Brothers and sisters are a mutual support. We see them, in almost every case, grow up into prosperity, when they act the part that the impulses of nature prescribe. When cordially united, a father and sons, or a family of brothers and sisters, may, in almost any state of life, set what is called misfortune at defiance.

10. These considerations are much more than enough to sweeten the toils and cares of parents, and to make them regard every additional child as an additional blessing. But, that children may be a blessing and not a curse, care must be taken of their _education_. This word has, of late years, been so perverted, so corrupted; so abused, in its application, that I am almost afraid to use it here. Yet I must not suffer it to be usurped by cant and tyranny. I must use it: but not without clearly saying what I mean.

11. _Education_ means _breeding up_, _bringing up_, or _rearing up_; and nothing more. This includes every thing with regard to the _mind_ as well as the _body_ of a child; but, of late years, it has been so used as to have no sense applied to it but that of _book-learning_, with which, nine times out of ten, it has nothing at all to do. It is, indeed, proper, and it is the duty of all parents, to teach, or cause to be taught, their children as much as they can of books, _after_, and not before, all the measures are safely taken for enabling them to get their living by labour, or for _providing them a living without labour_, and that, too, out of the means obtained and secured by the parents out of their own income. The taste of the times is, unhappily, to give to children something of _book-learning_, with a view of placing them to live, in some way or other, _upon the labour of other people_. Very seldom, comparatively speaking, has this succeeded, even during the wasteful public expenditure of the last thirty years; and, in the times that are approaching, it cannot, I thank God, succeed at all. When the project has failed, what disappointment, mortification and misery, to both parent and child! The latter is spoiled as a labourer: his book-learning has only made him conceited: into some course of desperation he falls; and the end is but too often not only wretched but ignominious.

12. Understand me clearly here, however; for it is the duty of parents to give, if they be able, book-learning to their children, having _first_ taken care to make them capable of earning their living by _bodily labour_. When that object has once been secured, the other may, if the ability remain, be attended to. But I am wholly against children wasting their time in the idleness of what is called _education_; and particularly in schools over which the parents have no control, and where nothing is taught but the rudiments of servility, pauperism and slavery.

13. The _education_ that I have in view is, therefore, of a very different kind. You should bear constantly in mind, that nine-tenths of us are, from the very nature and necessities of the world, born to gain our livelihood by the sweat of our brow. What reason have we, then, to presume, that our children are not to do the same? If they be, as now and then one will be, endued with extraordinary powers of mind, those powers may have an opportunity of developing themselves; and if they never have that opportunity, the harm is not very great to us or to them. Nor does it hence follow that the descendants of labourers are _always_ to be labourers. The path upwards is steep and long, to be sure. Industry, care, skill, excellence, in the present parent, lay the foundation of _a rise_, under more favourable circumstances, for his children. The children of these take _another rise_; and, by-and-by, the descendants of the present labourer become gentlemen.

14. This is the natural progress. It is by attempting to reach the top at a _single leap_ that so much misery is produced in the world; and the propensity to make such attempts has been cherished and encouraged by the strange projects that we have witnessed of late years for making the labourers _virtuous_ and _happy_ by giving them what is called _education_. The education which I speak of consists in bringing children up to labour with _steadiness_, with _care_, and with _skill_; to show them how to do as many useful things as possible; to teach them to do them all in the best manner; to set them an example in industry, sobriety, cleanliness, and neatness; to make all these _habitual_ to them, so that they never shall be liable to fall into the contrary; to let them always see a _good living_ proceeding from _labour_, and thus to remove from them the temptation to get at the goods of others by violent or fraudulent means; and to keep far from their minds all the inducements to hypocrisy and deceit.

15. And, bear in mind, that if the state of the labourer has its disadvantages when compared with other callings and conditions of life, it has also its advantages. It is free from the torments of ambition, and from a great part of the causes of ill-health, for which not all the riches in the world and all the circumstances of high rank are a compensation. The able and prudent labourer is always _safe_, at the least; and that is what few men are who are lifted above him. They have losses and crosses to fear, the very thought of which never enters his mind, if he act well his part towards himself, his family and his neighbour.

16. But, the basis of good to him, is _steady and skilful labour_. To assist him in the pursuit of this labour, and in the turning of it to the best account, are the principal objects of the present little work. I propose to treat of brewing Beer, making Bread, keeping Cows and Pigs, rearing Poultry, and of other matters; and to show, that, while, from a very small piece of ground a large part of the food of a considerable family may be raised, the very act of raising it will be the best possible foundation of _education_ of the children of the labourer; that it will teach them a great number of useful things, _add greatly to their value when they go forth from_ their father's home, make them start in life with all possible advantages, and give them the best chance of leading happy lives. And is it not much more rational for parents to be employed in teaching their children how to cultivate a garden, to feed and rear animals, to make bread, beer, bacon, butter and cheese, and to be able to do these things for themselves, or for others, than to leave them to prowl about the lanes and commons, or to mope at the heels of some crafty, sleekheaded pretended saint, who while he extracts the last penny from their pockets, bids them be contented with their misery, and promises them, in exchange for their pence, everlasting glory in the world to come? It is upon the hungry and the wretched that the fanatic works. The dejected and forlorn are his prey. As an ailing carcass engenders vermin, a pauperized community engenders teachers of fanaticism, the very foundation of whose doctrines is, that we are to care nothing about this world, and that all our labours and exertions are in vain.

17. The man, who is doing well, who is in good health, who has a blooming and dutiful and cheerful and happy family about him, and who passes his day of rest amongst them, is not to be made to believe, that he was born to be miserable, and that poverty, the natural and just reward of laziness, is to secure him a crown of glory. Far be it from me to recommend a disregard of even outward observances as to matters of religion; but, can it be _religion_ to believe that God hath made us to be wretched and dejected? Can it be _religion_ to regard, as marks of his grace, the poverty and misery that almost invariably attend our neglect to use the means of obtaining a competence in worldly things? Can it be _religion_ to regard as blessings those things, those very things, which God expressly numbers amongst his curses? Poverty never finds a place amongst the _blessings_ promised by God. His blessings are of a directly opposite description; flocks, herds, corn, wine and oil; a smiling land; a rejoicing people; abundance for the body and gladness of the heart: these are the blessings which God promises to the industrious, the sober, the careful, and the upright. Let no man, then, believe that, to be poor and wretched is a mark of God's favour; and let no man remain in that state, if he, by any honest means, can rescue himself from it.

18. Poverty leads to all sorts of evil consequences. _Want_, horrid want, is the great parent of crime. To have a dutiful family, the father's principle of rule must be _love_ not _fear_. His sway must be gentle, or he will have only an unwilling and short-lived obedience. But it is given to but few men to be gentle and good-humoured amidst the various torments attendant on pinching poverty. A competence is, therefore, the first thing to be thought of; it is the foundation of all good in the labourer's dwelling; without it little but misery can be expected. "_Health_, _peace_, and _competence_," one of the wisest of men regards as the only things needful to man: but the two former are scarcely to be had without the latter. _Competence_ is the foundation of happiness and of exertion. Beset with wants, having a mind continually harassed with fears of starvation, who can act with energy, who can calmly think? To provide a _good living_, therefore, for himself and family, is the _very first duty_ of every man. "Two things," says AGUR, "have I asked; deny me them not before I die: remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full and deny thee; or lest I be poor and steal."

19. A _good living_ therefore, a _competence_, is the first thing to be desired and to be sought after; and, if this little work should have the effect of aiding only a small portion of the Labouring Classes in securing that competence, it will afford great gratification to their friend

WM. COBBETT.

_Kensington, 19th July, 1821._

BREWING BEER.

20. Before I proceed to give any directions about brewing, let me mention some of the inducements to do the thing. In former times, to set about to show to Englishmen that it was good for them to brew beer in their houses would have been as impertinent as gravely to insist, that they ought to endeavour not to lose their breath; for, in those times, (only forty years ago,) to have a _house_ and not to brew was a rare thing indeed. Mr. ELLMAN, an old man and a large farmer, in Sussex, has recently given in evidence, before a Committee of the House of Commons, this fact; that, _forty years ago_, there was not a labourer in his parish that did not _brew his own beer_; and that _now_ there is _not one that does it_, except by chance the malt be given him. The causes of this change have been the lowering of the wages of labour, compared with the price of provisions, by the means of the paper-money; the enormous tax upon the barley when made into _malt_; and the increased tax upon _hops_. These have quite changed the customs of the English people as to their drink. They still drink _beer_, but, in general, it is of the brewing of _common brewers_, and in public-houses, of which the common brewers have become the owners, and have thus, by the aid of paper-money, obtained a _monopoly_ in the supplying of the great body of the people with one of those things which, to the hard-working man, is almost a necessary of life.

21. These things will be altered. They must be altered. The nation must be sunk into nothingness, or a new system must be adopted; and the nation will not sink into nothingness. The malt now pays a tax of 4_s._ 6_d._[1] a bushel, and the barley costs only 3_s._ This brings the bushel of malt to 8_s._ including the maltster's charge for malting. If the tax were taken off the malt, malt would be sold, at the present price of barley, for about 3_s._ 3_d._ a bushel; because a bushel of barley makes more than a bushel of malt, and the tax, besides its amount, causes great expenses of various sorts to the maltster. The hops pay a tax of 2_d._[2] a pound; and a bushel of malt requires, in general, a pound of hops; if these two taxes were taken off, therefore, the consumption of barley and of hops would be exceedingly increased; for double the present quantity would be demanded, and the land is always ready to send it forth.

22. It appears impossible that the landlords should much longer submit to these intolerable burdens on their estates. In short, they must get off the malt tax, or lose those estates. They must do a great _deal more_, indeed; but that they must do at any rate. The paper-money is fast losing its destructive power; and things are, with regard to the labourers, coming back to what they were _forty years ago_, and therefore we may prepare for the making of beer in our own houses, and take leave of the poisonous stuff served out to us by common brewers. We may begin _immediately_; for, even at _present prices_, home-brewed beer is the _cheapest_ drink that a family can use, except _milk_, and milk can be applicable only in certain cases.

23. The drink which has come to supply the place of beer has, in general, been _tea_. It is notorious that tea has no _useful strength_ in it; that it contains nothing _nutritious_; that it, besides being _good_ for nothing, has _badness_ in it, because it is well known to produce want of sleep in many cases, and in all cases, to shake and weaken the nerves. It is, in fact, a weaker kind of laudanum, which enlivens for the moment and deadens afterwards. At any rate it communicates no strength to the body; it does not, in any degree, assist in affording what labour demands. It is, then, of no _use_. And, now, as to its _cost_, compared with that of _beer_. I shall make my comparison applicable to a year, or three hundred and sixty-five days. I shall suppose the tea to be only five shillings the pound; the sugar only sevenpence; the milk only twopence a quart. The prices are at the very lowest. I shall suppose a tea-pot to cost a shilling, six cups and saucers two shillings and sixpence, and six pewter spoons eighteen-pence. How to estimate the firing I hardly know; but certainly there must be in the course of the year, two hundred fires made that would not be made, were it not for tea drinking. Then comes the great article of all, the _time_ employed in this tea-making affair. It is impossible to make a fire, boil water, make the tea, drink it, wash up the things, sweep up the fire-place, and put all to rights again, in a less space of time, upon an average, than _two hours_. However, let us allow _one hour_; and here we have a woman occupied no less than three hundred and sixty-five hours in the year, or thirty whole days, at twelve hours in the day; that is to say, one month out of the twelve in the year, besides the waste of the man's time in hanging about waiting for the tea! Needs there any thing more to make us cease to wonder at seeing labourers' children with dirty linen and holes in the heels of their stockings? Observe, too, that the time thus spent is, one half of it, the best time of the day. It is the top of the morning, which, in every calling of life, contains an hour worth two or three hours of the afternoon. By the time that the clattering tea tackle is out of the way, the morning is spoiled; its prime is gone; and any work that is to be done afterwards lags heavily along. If the mother have to go out to work, the tea affair must all first be over. She comes into the field, in summer time, when the sun has gone a third part of his course. She has the heat of the day to encounter, instead of having her work done and being ready to return home at any early hour. Yet early she must go, too: for, there is the fire again to be made, the clattering tea-tackle again to come forward; and even in the longest day she must have _candle light_, which never ought to be seen in a cottage (except in case of illness) from March to September.

24. Now, then, let us take the bare cost of the use of tea. I suppose a pound of tea to last twenty days; which is not nearly half an ounce every morning and evening. I allow for each mess half a pint of milk. And I allow three pounds of the red dirty sugar to each pound of tea. The account of expenditure would then stand very high; but to these must be added the amount of the tea tackle, one set of which will, upon an average, be demolished every year. To these outgoings must be added the cost of beer at the public-house; for some the man will have, after all, and the woman too, unless they be upon the point of actual starvation. Two pots a week is as little as will serve in this way; and here is a dead loss of ninepence a week, seeing that two pots of beer, full as strong, and a great deal better, can be brewed at home for threepence. The account of the year's tea drinking will then stand thus:

_L._ _s._ _d._

18lb. of tea 4 10 0
54lb. of sugar 1 11 6
365 pints of milk 1 10 0
Tea tackle 0 5 0
200 fires 0 16 8
30 days' work 0 15 0
Loss by going to public-house 1 19 0
------------
_L._ 11 7 2[3]

25. I have here estimated every thing at its very lowest. The entertainment which I have here provided is as poor, as mean, as miserable as any thing short of starvation can set forth; and yet the wretched thing amounts to a good third part of a good and able labourer's wages! For this money, he and his family may drink good and wholesome beer; in a short time, out of the mere savings from this waste, may drink it out of silver cups and tankards. In a labourer's family, _wholesome_ beer, that has a little life in it, is all that is wanted in _general_. Little children, that do not work, should not have beer. Broth, porridge, or something in that way, is the thing for them. However, I shall suppose, in order to make my comparison as little complicated as possible, that he brews nothing but beer as strong as the generality of beer to be had at the public-house, and divested of the poisonous drugs which that beer but too often contains; and I shall further suppose that he uses in his family two quarts of this beer every day from the first of October to the last day of March inclusive: three quarts a day during the months of April and May; four quarts a day during the months of June and September; and five quarts a day during the months of July and August; and if this be not enough, it must be a family of drunkards. Here are 1097 quarts, or 274 gallons. Now, a bushel of malt will make eighteen gallons of better beer than that which is sold at the public-houses. And this is precisely a gallon for the price of a quart. People should bear in mind, that the beer bought at the public-house is loaded with a _beer tax_, with the tax on the public-house keeper, in the shape of license, with all the taxes and expenses of the brewer, with all the taxes, rent, and other expenses of the publican, and with all the _profits_ of both brewer and publican; so that when a man swallows a pot of beer at a public-house, he has all these expenses to help to defray, besides the mere tax on the malt and on the hops.

26. Well, then, to brew this ample supply of good beer for a labourer's family, these 274 gallons, requires _fifteen_ bushels of malt and (for let us do the thing well) _fifteen pounds of hops_. The malt is now eight shillings a bushel, and very good hops may be bought for less than a shilling a pound. The _grains_ and yeast will amply pay for the labour and fuel employed in the brewing; seeing that there will be pigs to eat the grains, and bread to be baked with the yeast. The account will then stand thus:

_L._ _s._ _d._

15 bushels of malt 6 0 0
15 pounds of hops 0 15 0
Wear of utensils 0 10 0
-----------
_L._ 7 5 0[4]

27. Here, then, is the sum of four pounds two shillings and twopence saved every year. The utensils for brewing are, a brass kettle, a mashing tub, coolers, (for which washing tubs may serve,) a half hogshead, with one end taken out, for a tun tub, about four nine-gallon casks, and a couple of eighteen-gallon casks. This is an ample supply of utensils, each of which will last, with proper care, a good long lifetime or two, and the whole of which, even if purchased new from the shop, will only exceed by a few shillings, if they exceed at all, the amount of the saving, arising _the very first year_, from quitting the troublesome and pernicious practice of drinking tea. The saving of each succeeding year would, if you chose it, purchase a silver mug to hold half a pint at least. However, the saving would naturally be applied to purposes more conducive to the well-being and happiness of a family.

28. It is not, however, the _mere saving_ to which I look. This is, indeed, a matter of great importance, whether we look at the amount itself, or at the ultimate consequences of a judicious application of it; for _four pounds_ make a great _hole_ in a man's wages for the year; and when we consider all the advantages that would arise to a family of children from having these four pounds, now so miserably wasted, laid out upon their backs, in the shape of a decent dress, it is impossible to look at this waste without feelings of sorrow not wholly unmixed with those of a harsher description.

29. But, I look upon the thing in a still more serious light. I view the tea drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and a maker of misery for old age. In the fifteen bushels of malt there are 570 pounds weight of _sweet_; that is to say, of nutricious matter, unmixed with any thing injurious to health. In the 730 tea messes of the year there are 54 pounds of sweet in the sugar, and about 30 pounds of matter equal to sugar in the milk. Here are 84 pounds instead of 570, and even the good effect of these 84 pounds is more than over-balanced by the corrosive, gnawing and poisonous powers of the tea.

30. It is impossible for any one to deny the truth of this statement. Put it to the test with a lean hog: give him the fifteen bushels of malt, and he will repay you in ten score of bacon or thereabouts. But give him the 730 tea messes, or rather begin to give them to him, and give him nothing else, and he is dead with hunger, and bequeaths you his skeleton, at the end of about seven days. It is impossible to doubt in such a case. The tea drinking has done a great deal in bringing this nation into the state of misery in which it now is; and the tea drinking, which is carried on by "dribs" and "drabs;" by pence and farthings going out at a time; this miserable practice has been gradually introduced by the growing weight of the taxes on malt and on hops, and by the everlasting penury amongst the labourers, occasioned by the paper-money.

31. We see better prospects however, and therefore let us now rouse ourselves, and shake from us the degrading curse, the effects of which have been much more extensive and infinitely more mischievous than men in general seem to imagine.

32. It must be evident to every one, that the practice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while, as I have shown, it deducts from the means of replenishing the belly and covering the back. Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking for the fire-side, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, all the characteristics of idleness, for which, in this case, real want of strength furnishes an apology. The tea drinking fills the public-house, makes the frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as they are able to move from home, and does little less for the girls, to whom the gossip of the tea-table is no bad preparatory school for the brothel. At the very least, it teaches them idleness. The everlasting dawdling about with the slops of the tea tackle, gives them a relish for nothing that requires strength and activity. When they go from home, they know how to do nothing that is useful. To brew, to bake, to make butter, to milk, to rear poultry; to do any earthly thing of use they are wholly unqualified. To shut poor young creatures up in manufactories is bad enough; but there, at any rate, they do something that is useful; whereas, the girl that has been brought up merely to boil the tea-kettle, and to assist in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere consumer of food, a pest to her employer, and a curse to her husband, if any man be so unfortunate as to fix his affections upon her.

33. But is it in the power of any man, any good labourer, who has attained the age of fifty, to look back upon the last thirty years of his life, without cursing the day in which tea was introduced into England? Where is there such a man, who cannot trace to this cause a very considerable part of all the mortifications and sufferings of his life? When was he ever _too late_ at his labour; when did he ever meet with a frown, with a turning off, and pauperism on that account, without being able to trace it to the tea-kettle? When reproached with lagging in the morning, the poor wretch tells you that he will make up for it by _working during his breakfast time_! I have heard this a hundred and a hundred times over. He was up time enough; but the tea-kettle kept him lolling and lounging at home; and now, instead of sitting down to a breakfast upon bread, bacon, and beer, which is to carry him on to the hour of dinner, he has to force his limbs along under the sweat of feebleness, and at dinner time to swallow his dry bread, or slake his half-feverish thirst at the pump or the brook. To the wretched tea-kettle he has to return at night, with legs hardly sufficient to maintain him; and thus he makes his miserable progress towards that death, which he finds ten or fifteen years sooner than he would have found it had he made his wife brew beer instead of making tea. If he now and then gladdens his heart with the drugs of the public house, some quarrel, some accident, some illness, is the probable consequence; to the affray abroad succeeds an affray at home; the mischievous example reaches the children, corrupts them or scatters them, and misery for life is the consequence.

34. I should now proceed to the _details_ of brewing; but these, though they will not occupy a large space, must be put off to the _second number_. The custom of brewing at home has so long ceased amongst labourers, and, in many cases, amongst tradesmen, that it was necessary for me fully to state my reasons for wishing to see the custom revived. I shall, in my next, clearly explain how the operation is performed; and it will be found to be so _easy a thing_, that I am not without hope, that many _tradesmen_, who now spend their evenings at the public house, amidst tobacco smoke and empty _noise_, may be induced, by the finding of better drink at home, at a quarter part of the price, to perceive that home is by far the pleasantest place wherein to pass their hours of relaxation.

35. My work is intended chiefly for the benefit of _cottagers_, who must, of course, have some _land_; for, I purpose to show, that a large part of the food of even a large family may be raised, without any diminution of the labourer's earnings abroad, from forty rod, or a quarter of an acre, of ground; but at the same time, what I have to say will be applicable to larger establishments, in all the branches of domestic economy: and especially to that of providing a family with _beer_.

36. The _kind of beer_, for a labourer's family, that is to say, the _degree of strength_, must depend on circumstances; on the numerousness of the family; on the season of the year, and various other things. But, generally speaking, beer _half_ the strength of that mentioned in paragraph 25 will be quite strong enough; for that is, at least, one-third stronger than the farm-house "_small beer_," which, however, as long experience has proved, is best suited to the purpose. A judicious labourer would probably always have some _ale_ in his house, and have small beer for the general drink. There is no reason why he should not keep _Christmas_ as well as the farmer; and when he is _mowing_, _reaping_, or is at any other hard work, a quart, or three pints, of _really good fat ale_ a-day is by no means too much. However, circumstances vary so much with different labourers, that as to the _sort_ of beer, and the number of brewings, and the times of brewing, no general rule can be laid down.

37. Before I proceed to explain the uses of the several brewing utensils, I must speak of the _quality_ of the materials of which beer is made; that is to say, the _malt_, _hops_, and _water_. Malt varies very much in quality, as, indeed, it must, with the quality of the barley. When good, it is full of flour, and in biting a grain asunder, you find it bite easily, and see the _shell thin_ and filled up well with flour. If it bite _hard_ and _steely_, the malt is bad. There is _pale_ malt and _brown_ malt; but the difference in the two arises merely from the different degrees of heat employed in the drying. The main thing to attend to is, the _quantity of flour_. If the barley was bad; _thin_, or _steely_, whether from unripeness or blight, or any other cause, it will not _malt_ so well; that is to say, it will not send out its roots in due time; and a part of it will still be barley. Then, the world is wicked enough to think, and even to say, that there are maltsters who, when they send you a bushel of malt, _put a little barley amongst it_, the malt being _taxed_ and the barley _not_! Let us hope that this is seldom the case; yet, when we _do know_ that this terrible system of taxation induces the beer-selling gentry to supply their customers with stuff little better than poison, it is not very uncharitable to suppose it possible for some maltsters to yield to the temptations of the devil so far as to play the trick above mentioned. To detect this trick, and to discover what portion of the barley is in an unmalted state, take a handful of the _unground_ malt, and put it into a bowl of cold water. Mix it about with the water a little; that is, let every grain be _just wet all over_; and whatever part of them _sink_ are not good. If you have your malt _ground_, there is not, as I know of, any means of detection. Therefore, if your brewing be considerable in amount, _grind your own malt_, the means of doing which is very easy, and neither expensive nor troublesome, as will appear, when I come to speak of _flour_. If the barley be _well malted_, there is still a variety in the quality of the malt; that is to say, a bushel of malt from fine, plump, heavy barley, will be better than the same quantity from thin and light barley. In this case, as in the case of wheat, the _weight_ is the criterion of the quality. Only bear in mind, that as a bushel of wheat, weighing _sixty-two_ pounds, is better worth _six_ shillings, than a bushel weighing _fifty-two_ is worth _four_ shillings, so a bushel of malt weighing _forty-five_ pounds is better worth _nine_ shillings, than a bushel weighing _thirty-five_ is worth _six_ shillings. In malt, therefore, as in every thing else, the word _cheap_ is a deception, unless the quality be taken into view. But, bear in mind, that in the case of _unmalted_ barley, mixed with the malt, the _weight_ can be no rule; for barley is _heavier_ than malt.

No. II.

BREWING BEER--(_continued._)

38. As to using _barley_ in the making of beer, I have given it a full and fair trial twice over, and I would recommend it to neither rich nor poor. The barley produces _strength_, though nothing like the malt; but the beer is _flat_, even though you use half malt and half barley; and flat beer lies heavy on the stomach, and of course, besides the bad taste, is unwholesome. To pay 4_s._ 6_d._ tax upon every bushel of our own barley, turned into malt, when the barley itself is not worth 3_s._ a bushel, is a horrid thing; but, as long as the owners of the land shall be so dastardly as to suffer themselves to be thus deprived of the use of their estates to favour the slave-drivers and plunderers of the East and West Indies, we must submit to the thing, incomprehensible to foreigners, and even to ourselves, as the submission may be.

39. With regard to _hops_, the quality is very various. At times when some sell for 5_s._ a pound, others sell for _sixpence_. Provided the purchaser understand the article, the quality is, of course, in proportion to the price. There are two things to be considered in hops: the _power of preserving beer_, and that of giving it a _pleasant flavour_. Hops may be _strong_; and yet not _good_. They should be _bright_, have no _leaves_ or bits of branches amongst them. The hop is the _husk_, or _seed-pod_, of the hop-vine, as the _cone_ is that of the fir-tree; and the _seeds_ themselves are deposited, like those of the fir, round a little soft stalk, enveloped by the several folds of this pod, or cone. If, in the gathering, leaves of the vine or bits of the branches are mixed with the hops, these not only help to make up the _weight_, but they give a _bad taste_ to the beer; and indeed, if they abound much, they spoil the beer. Great attention is therefore necessary in this respect. There are, too, numerous _sorts_ of hops, varying in size, form, and quality, quite as much as _apples_. However, when they are in a state to be used in brewing, the marks of goodness are an absence of _brown colour_, (for that indicates perished hops;) a colour _between green_ and _yellow_; a great _quantity of the yellow farina_; seeds _not too large nor too hard_; a _clammy feel_ when rubbed between the fingers; and a _lively_, pleasant smell. As to the _age_ of hops, they retain for twenty years, probably, their _power of preserving beer_; but not of giving it a pleasant flavour. I have used them at _ten years old_, and should have no fear of using them at twenty. They lose none of their _bitterness_; none of their power of preserving beer; but they lose the other quality; and therefore, in the making of fine ale, or beer, new hops are to be preferred. As to the _quantity_ of hops, it is clear, from what has been said, that that must, in some degree depend upon their _quality_; but, supposing them to be good in quality, a pound of hops to a bushel of malt is about the quantity. A good deal, however, depends upon the length of time that the beer is intended to be kept, and upon the season of the year in which it is brewed. Beer intended to be kept a long while should have the full pound, also beer brewed in warmer weather, though for present use: half the quantity may do under an opposite state of circumstances.

40. The _water_ should be soft by all means. That of brooks, or rivers, is best. That of a _pond_, fed by a rivulet, or spring, will do very well. _Rain-water_, if just fallen, may do; but stale rain-water, or stagnant pond-water, makes the beer _flat_ and difficult to keep; and _hard water_, from wells, is very bad; it does not get the sweetness out of the malt, nor the bitterness out of the hops, like soft water; and the wort of it does not ferment well, which is a certain proof of its unfitness for the purpose.

41. There are two descriptions of persons whom I am desirous to see brewing their own beer; namely, _tradesmen_, and _labourers_ and _journeymen_. There must, therefore, be two _distinct scales_ treated of. In the former editions of this work, I spoke of a _machine_ for brewing, and stated the advantages of using it in a family of any considerable consumption of beer; but, while, from my desire to promote _private brewing_, I strongly recommended the _machine_, I stated that, "if any of my readers could point out any method by which we should be more likely to restore the practice of private brewing, and especially to the _cottage_, I should be greatly obliged to them to communicate it to me." Such communications have been made, and I am very happy to be able, in this new edition of my little work, to avail myself of them. There was, in the _Patent Machine_, always, an objection on account of the _expense_; for, even the machine for _one bushel of malt_ cost, at the reduced price, _eight pounds_; a sum far above the reach of _a cottager_, and even above that of a small tradesman. Its _convenience_, especially in _towns_, where room is so valuable, was an object of great importance; but there were _disadvantages_ attending it which, until after some experience, I did not ascertain. It will be remembered that the method by the brewing machine requires the malt to be put into _the cold water_, and for the water to make the malt _swim_, or, at least, to be in such proportion as to prevent the fire beneath from burning the malt. We found that our beer was _flat_, and that it did _not keep_. And this arose, I have every reason to believe, from this process. The malt should be put _into hot water_, and the water, at first, should be but just sufficient in quantity to _stir the malt in_, and _separate it well_. Nevertheless, when it is merely to make _small beer_; beer _not wanted to keep_; in such cases the brewing machine may be of use; and, as will be seen by-and-by, a moveable _boiler_ (which has nothing to do with the _patent_) may, in many cases, be of great convenience and utility.

42. The two _scales_ of which I have spoken above, are now to be spoken of; and, that I may explain my meaning the more clearly, I shall suppose, that, for the tradesman's family, it will be requisite to brew eighteen gallons of ale and thirty-six of small beer, to fill three casks of eighteen gallons each. It will be observed, of course, that, for larger quantities, larger utensils of all sorts will be wanted. I take this quantity as the one to give directions on. The utensils wanted here will be, FIRST, a _copper_ that will contain _forty gallons_, at least; for, though there be to be but thirty-six gallons of small beer, there must be space for the hops, and for the liquor that goes off in steam. SECOND, a _mashing-tub_ to contain sixty gallons; for the malt is to be in this along with the water. THIRD, an _underbuck_, or shallow tub to go under the mash-tub, for the wort to run into when drawn from the grains. FOURTH, a _tun-tub_, that will contain thirty gallons, to put the ale into to work, the mash-tub, as we shall see, serving as a tun-tub for the small beer. Besides these, a couple of _coolers_, shallow tubs, which may be the heads of wine buts, or some such things, about a foot deep; or if you have _four_ it may be as well, in order to effect the cooling more quickly.