168 Cottage Gardens, live Stock of the Cottager, 



he is not in the immediate want of them, until his increasing family absorbs the 

 whole. His wife's relations quarrel with him, or can no longer accommodate 

 him ; he applies to the overseer for a house or employment ; is insulted and 

 exposed before his neighbours ; and soon, very soon, the same individual who 

 would, in all probability, under more favourable circumstances, have become 

 a useful member of society, now gradually becomes a careless, reckless, con- 

 firmed pauper ; is pronounced " incorrigible " by the magistrate-s and parish 

 officers ; while he does not lack offensive epithets, nor the disposition to 

 bestow them, upon those whom he only considers as enemies and oppres- 

 sors. This melancholy, and, I fear, too true, picture, clearly shows how 

 necessary, how essential, to the future happiness and well-doing in life it is, 

 for a man to commence his matrimonial life with possessing himself of a 

 decently furnished 



Cottage and Garden. — With a cottage of at least two rooms ; with a dairy, 

 pantry, and a coal or wood house; and a garden of not less than 20 rods of 

 ground adjoining ; and with a clean industrious helpmate in his wife, a labour- 

 ing man is a person of some consequence. He fills a station which, though 

 humble, is yet important; because, from the moral or immoral conduct of him, 

 and the class to which he belongs, much good or evil will ensue to society. 

 He becomes, as it were, the first link of an ascending or descending chain of 

 causes, which lead to moral rectitude or moral turpitude ; for his actions 

 will not only have a baneful or beneficial influence on his own immediate 

 offspring (" as is the father so is the son "), but, through them, on society 

 at large : and, if this view of the case were generally taken by the wealthy 

 portion of the community, I think it would induce them to assist their 

 humble neighbours, not only with their purses, in cases of emergency, but 

 with their advice and countenance, when both may be required, as in the 

 case of an improvident marriage. If distress and difficulties are allowed to 

 accumulate around an individual so unfortunately circumstanced, it is idle 

 to suppose that such a poor, deserted, despised creature, whose character 

 none respects, will long continue to respect himself. Profligacy and dissi- 

 pation ensue : his home becomes wretched ; and, with a wretched home, a 

 man has no motive to be industrious, save merely to obtain the means of 

 dragging out his existence. Without a character, he has no motive to be 

 honest but the fear of the tread-mill : therefore, a man, to be both honest 

 and industrious, must have motives sufficiently influential to counterbalance 

 any propensity to be otherwise ; and these motives will always be found in a 

 comfortable clean home. For it ought always to be kept in view by the rich, 

 that a poor man's self-respect, his desire to improve his condition, to pro- 

 vide for and rear his family in a decent and creditable manner, all proceed 

 from this simple fact, that he has a comfortable home, a home which he loves. 



Let us, then, suppose a new-married couple in possession of a decently 

 furnished cottage : the first resolution they will, or ought, to come to, will 

 be to live within their income ; and, for that purpose, will consider how they 

 can limit or entirely get rid of the baker's, butcher's, and grocer's bills. The 

 following, I trust, may be of some assistance to them in so doing : — 



Making Bread and brewing Beer. — A sack of flour, a flitch of bacon, and 

 a barrel of beer, are as agreeable articles, in the shape of household stuff, as 

 any poor man can wish to contemplate ; nor would any labouring man ever 

 be without them, if I could induce him to adopt the system I propose. 

 With regard to the first, let a sack of wheat be purchased at the market, or 

 at the market-price from a farmer. After grinding it at the nearest mill, let 

 but the very coarse bran be taken out of the flour : it will, when made into 

 bread, be fine enough for any healthy person ; and be more nutritious than 

 the compound of flour, potatoes, alum, and burnt bones, which otherwise 

 he will have to purchase of the baker, at an exorbitant price : and, as to the 

 making up, why, every woman ought to be able to make bread ; indeed, the 

 process is so simple, and generally known, that it would be useless to state 

 the particulars, unless it be to observe, that, after the dough has been well 



