VILLAGE AMENITIES 161 



be stirred up and washed with fresh cold water. This may be 

 done two or three times, till it becomes perfectly white. It 

 must then be carefully dried in the sun or in a warm room 

 (our method was to hang it up in small muslin bags in the 

 kitchen) ; the bags must be repeatedly " kneaded " to prevent 

 its clotting. When perfectly dry, it will keep for any length 

 of time. Of course, it is precisely the same thing as sago, 

 tapioca, cornflour, arrowroot, etc. and can be used like them. 

 All our potatoes in the Rectory garden were rotten, but we 

 recovered at least two sacks of starch. I remember taking a 

 large sponge-cake to school, more or less made with this potato- 

 flour, and making my reverend master somewhat incredulous 

 by telling him it was made out of rotten potatoes ! 



Professor Henslow printed and circulated the receipt for the 

 extraction of starch, in the village; so that several, who thought 

 it worth while, obtained considerable quantities of starch. 



In one of his lectures, dealing with this subject, he pointed 

 out how a good basin of "arrowroot" can be made in ten 

 minutes from two or three fair-sized potatoes ; for as soon as 

 the starch has been thoroughly "washed," it is ready for the 

 boiling milk. It is essential the milk or water should be actually 

 boiling, or the granules of starch do not burst and so make the 

 required "jelly." 



The school children of Hitcham were by no means left out 

 in the cold as to the knowledge of natural phenomena. They 

 were early instructed as to the harmless nature of toads and 

 slow-worms, which were very abundant, on the one hand ; and 

 of the danger of handling a viper, on the other. This last is 

 the only poisonous reptile in England, and easily recognisable 

 by the lozenge-shaped marks down the back. Having speci- 

 mens in spirit, they had no excuse for confounding them ; but, 

 as always happens with children, if there is an alternative of 

 any sort between which they are well taught the difference, 

 some one is sure to get them transposed in his memory. Con- 

 sequently, a boy came up to the Rectory with his arm greatly 

 swollen ; he had been bitten by a viper which he had taken up, 

 thinking it was a slow-worm, because, as he said, it had the 

 marks along its back ! 



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