THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
11 
Airnir. I.] 
people grumble so much, and no country in which they take 
so little advantage of the good so providentially provided for 
them. In Germany, France, and Scotland, the poor people 
chiefly subsist on vegetable diet—animal food being a luxury 
seldom tasted; but in England it is either a question of meat 
or nothing. In families of working-men when a piece of 
beef or mutton is achieved, at a sacrifice of many other 
things absolutely necessary, it is taken to the baker's, where 
' it is wastefully prepared; there being no other way appa¬ 
rently known of cooking it in a savoury or satisfactory 
i manner; while amongst our neighbours, the Scotch, if a small 
piece of meat is got once in the week, it is cooked in a 
manner which affords comparatively nutritious food either 
for a larger number of persons or for a series of days. In 
France the support of the working people is prepared much 
in the same way—in soup, or savoury broth; animal food 
being little used even in the making of potages. I fear, 
that the receipts I mean to append to these few remarks 
may not reach the class for whom they are intended; but 
there is scarcely any family in the middling ranks of life 
who have not some poor neighbours or dependants, and 
it is the assistance of these families I solicit to aid me in 
making known the following simple receipts. Simple as 
these are, however, they require in practice time and attention, 
for nothing can be done in cooking without attention; and 
here an objection may be urged, as the time of a working 
man’s wife is valuable, hence her resorting to the baker’s, or 
the cookslmp ; but even supposing she by her labour earns a 
few shillings a week, I am fully persuaded that by attending 
to the wants of her little household, cooking for her husband 
and children satisfying grateful meals, she might save more 
than she earns. Dry, unsubstantial food creates wants which 
the beer shop too readily supplies; and in a week, more 
pennies may be muddled away than would provide at least 
one good meal. I have known a family of six children fed 
by the mother on bread and butter for dinner ; a complaint 
being made at the same time of its unsatisfactory nature, 
and that the children could eat it till they became hungry 
again ! When the husband was in employment, and a dinner 
was to be obtained, baked meat was of course the solace for 
former privation ; and this was a remarkably industrious, 
I well-doing woman; but she knew no better; with her there 
] was no temporising between poor and rich fare, when her 
husband was in wort,- they had a “ bit of meat,” or pudding, 
i or sausages, every day, but when he was idle, the loaf sup- 
I plied the wants of the family. This is a very common case 
I I apprehend. 
Fish might also be more used, and with advantage, in the 
dietary of humble families. To the higher class of house¬ 
keepers in London, it is a comparatively expensive article of 
consumption; but they go to the dearest market, and gene¬ 
rally at an early hour in the day, when good prices are de¬ 
manded ; but towards evening a tradesman’s wife may buy 
in her next day's dinner for very little ; and in almost even- 
neighbourhood there are stalls, where a tempting variety may 
always be had at a moderate price. But fish, more than 
anything, wants nice cooking; and here the good helpmate 
of the working-man must shew her skill in the preparation; 
for the usual modes of dressing fish, boiling and frying, are 
by no means either the most economical or the most pa¬ 
latable. 
Fish and Sauce. —Take a few whitings when they are cheap, 
or haddocks, and cut off the heads, tails, and fins, which put 
into a saucepan with a pint and a half or a quart of water, ac¬ 
cording to the quantity of fish you may have. Add to this 
an onion or two sliced, and some heads of parsley ; boil it for 
an hour and strain it. Put an ounce of butter in your sauce¬ 
pan with a tablespoonful of flour; brown this well, taking 
care it does not burn; pour in the liquor, add some more 
parsley chopped, and pepper, and salt. Cut your fish into 
pieces, and boil it in this sauce for a quarter of an hour. 
Cod, or flounders, or any other white fish, will be found 
equally good dressed in this manner. 
Baked Fish. —Whitings, or haddocks, or flounders, or cod, 
are excellent baked. Lay your fish in a pie dish, or oven- 
pan ; sprinkle amongst it some finely-shred onion, chopped 
parsley, and pepper and salt. Put an ounce of butter, or 
dripping, broken into small pieces, amongst the fish, fill up 
the dish with water, and bake for three quarters of an hour. 
J. W. 
EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 
Bees. —Seeing at page 2!)D a communication from 
one of your correspondents respecting a box of bees in 
his possession, 1 venture to make the following sugges¬ 
tion to him:—I should allow the bees to swarm, and 
immediately afterwards I would stupify tbo bees by 
means of fungus, and then cut away one half of the 
combs; I should then return the bees to the box, and 
the following year, after swarming, I should repeat the 
stupifying of the bees, and cut away the other half of 
the combs. The hole in the top might be easily made 
during the time the bees are lying in a stupified state.— 
A Subscriber. 
Celery Culture. —In your number for 3rd October 
last you inserted a communication from me, in which I 
mentioned that I was in the course of testing the plan 
recommended by Mr. Nutt and Mr. Turner in The 
Cottage Gardener for rearing celery, and promised to 
let you know how I succeeded, and which I found to 
answer best. I have now to say that, although owing 
to my own absence during a material part of the process, 
and my gardener's want of experience in the manage¬ 
ment of a frame, the plants were put out in a weak 
spindly state, I never before grew such celery. The j 
stems were not perhaps such as would have carried a i 
prize at a competition, hut they were line, large, solid 
celery, some of them of three and a hall inches diameter. 
As to the comparative merits of the plans, I would 
certainly be disposed to give the preference to Mr. Nutt s 
if I were growing for competition, for the plants grown 
according to his directions were, upon the whole, the 
heavier. To save manure and trouble, however, and for 
the purpose of producing splendid celery for the table, I 
shall content myself with Mr. Turner’s. I do not say 
anything of Air. Barnes’s plan, because it was very late 
iu the season before I tried it, and with inferior plants, 
which came to no size. 
While I have the paper before me I would strongly 
recommend such of your readers as may be planting out 
new gooseberries to apply to Mr. Turner lor them, and 
to follow his directions lor planting—see vol. i., p. 138 
of The Cottage Gardener. I got a few plants from 
him about this time last year, and put them in the 
ground strictly as he advises; last season I allowed a , 
very few of the berries to come to maturity, to see what 
they were like—and such thumpers! and this spring, 
after careful pruning and training according to his di¬ 
rections, I have very handsome miniature bushes, full 
of promises of fruit.—C. 
IIu me a Elegans. —Should you think the following ex¬ 
periment worthy of a place in The Cottage Gardener. 
it may he of some use to others:—“About the 10th of 
September, I sowed seeds of this graceful plant in equal 
parts of peat, leaf-mould, and sand; placed them in a 
shady part of a warm greenhouse; but, as the seedlings 
got up, I brought them forward iuto a lighter place. They 
remained in their seed-pots until the middle of February. 
I then potted them off into two-inch pots, using the 
same compost as before, and encouraged them to grow 
as much as possible. When these pots are pretty well 
[ filled with roots, I again shift them into pots two sizes 
larger, using one part loam, one peat, two ot leaf- 
■ mould, and a little sand. As they fill these pots, I bring 
them iuto a cooler house; I again give them another 
shift, about the end of June, iuto pots suitable to their 
i size. I place them in a cold frame for the summer, and 
bring them back into the house about the first week in 
October. There they soon begin to show for flower, and 
I then give them a good soaking of weak manure-water 
1 twice a week. By this treatment, I have them in flower 
1 by the end of November, and they last until late in the 
spring, and have a very pretty appearance in the hack row 
of a house.— Charles' Levktt, Burg St. Edmunds. 
