THE HONEY-BEE IN NEW ZEALAND. 
59 
better—the harder, for spreading on linen, to apply to any 
sore made by long confinement in bed. An excellent 
ointment. for a burn is made by dissolving a lump of 
camphor in the oil before you add it to the wax. Remember 
what I said about stirring. 
Many other things may be made of wax—lip salve, &c,; 
but I shall not stop now to give receipts for them, as 
almost any old woman knows how to make them. 
Now, to speak of the uses of honey: It will save you 
many a sugar bill if you have plenty of it; and many a 
bill for other things too. Excellent, wine may be made 
from it, which, when it has been kept for some few years, 
can hardly be told from sherry. First-rate beer may be 
made from honey. Without reckoning the worth of the 
honey, it is found to stand the maker at a penny a gallon. 
And what hard working man can have any excuse for 
sotting in a pothouse, when he can have a drink so 
strengthening and wholesome as this, if taken in modera¬ 
tion ; with his wife, too, to share it after the labour ot the 
day is over ? 
Mead or Hydromel. 
This is of two sorts ; the weaker, and the stronger mead, 
or metheglin. 
If your mead be not strong enough by the refuse of your 
combs, then put so much of your coarse honey into it as 
will make it strong enough to bear an egg the breadth of 
a twopence above the top of the liquor, which is sufficient 
for ordinary mead; and afterwards, till night, ever and 
anon, stir it about the vat. If you would make a greater 
quantity, then you must add a greater measure of water 
and honey ; namely, six gallons of water to one of honey. 
Some will boil this proportion of six to one, to four; but I 
think to five is very sufficient. The spices to this propor¬ 
tion are cinnamon, ginger, pepper, grains of paradise, 
cloves, of each two drams. The next morning, put to the 
liquor some of the scum of the honey ; stir them together, 
and stoop the vat a little backwards : when it hath settled 
an hour or two, draw it off to be boiled : and when you see 
the sediment appear, stop, and let the rest run into some 
