Historical Document · 1826
Cottage Economy Containing Information Relative to the Brewing of Beer, etc.
- brewing
Historical Document · 1826
COTTAGE ECONOMY: ~ CONTAINING Information relative to the brewing of Beer, making’ of Breav, keeping of Cows, Pics, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Pouttay and Rassits, 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 Enciisu Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and Bonnets; and also In- " structions for erecting and using Ice-houses, after the Virginian manner. BY WILLIAM COBBETT. A NEW EDITION. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM COBBETT, 183, FLEET-STREET. 1826, ly S si! Cer ie 26 oe, Miils, Jowett ,and Mille, Bplt-court, Fleet-street, CONTENTS. 1, Introduction. To the Labouring Classes of this ‘ Kingdom.—Brewing Beer. 2, Brewing Beer continued. 3. Making Bread. 4, Making. Bread continued .—Brewing Beer.— Keeping Cows. 5. Keeping Cows. 6. Keeping Pigs.—Salting Mutton and Beef. 7, Bees, Geese, Ducks, Turkeys, Fowls, Pigeons, Rabbits, Goats and Ewes, Candles and Rushes, Mustard, Dress and Household Goods and Fuel, Hops and Yeast. 8. Selecting cutting and bleaching of the Plants of English Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and Bonnets. 9. Constructing and using Ice-Houses., COTTAGE ECONOMY. No. I INTRODUCTION. . To the Labouring Classes of this Kingdom. 1, THROUGHOUT this little work, I shall num- ber the Paragraphs, in order to be able, at some stages of the work, to refer, with the more facility, to parts that have gore before. The; last Number will contain an Index,-by the means of which the se-, _ vera] 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 meaned parsimony, stingi- ness,’ or ‘niggardliness ; and, at’ best, merely the re- fraining.from expending money., Hence misers and, close-fisted men disguise their propensity and con- duct under the name of Economy ; whereas the most liberal disposition, a disposition precisely the con-, trary of that of the: miser, is perfectly consistent with. economy. oo - i . 3. Economy means, " management, “and nothing, more; and it is generally applied to the affaira of, & house and family, which affairs are an object of. B INTRODUCTION. the greatest importance, whether as relating to indi- viduala or td & nation. A nation is made powérful and to be honoured in the world, not so much by the number of its people as by the ability and cha- racter 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, 4 nation permanently great, consisting, for the greater party of wretched and tniserable familied. 4, In every view of the matter, therefore, it is de- Sirable, that the families of which a nation consists should be happily off} and, as this depends, in a great degree, upoii the management of their con- eatas, the present work is intended to convey to tle families of the Zabouring Classés in particular, suck information ag I think may be useful with regard to that management. 5. I lay it down as & maxim, that, for 4 family to be happy, they must be well supplied with food and raiment. It ia a sotry effort that people make to persnade others, or to persuade themselves, that they can be happy in a state of want of the necés- saries of life. The doctrines, which fanaticism preaches, and which teach.men to be content with poverty, have a very pernicious tendency, and aré calculated té favour tyrants by giving them passive staves, To live well, to enjoy all things that make Jife pleasant, is the right of every man who con- INPRODECTION. Gantly neds his strength jadiciously and lawfully. itis t6 blaspheme God to sappote, that he created miéit to be miserable, to hunger, thirst; and perish With cold, in the midst of thaé abundance which is the fruit of their own labour. Instead, therefore; of épplaudite “! happy poverty,” which applause is sé tiech the fashion of the present day, I despise the mar that is poor and contented ; for, such content is f dértaim proof of a base disposition, # disposition Which is the enemy of all Radney, ail exertion, all love of imdeperdetice.: © 6. Let it be understood, however, thaty by poverty Ny I mean real wart, 4 teal insufficiency. of the food and raimedt and lodgiig necessary to health and: decency; aid not that imagifiaty poverty, of which some persotis complain, - Fhe nian, who, by his. own and: his family’s labour, can provide a sufficiency of food asd raiment dnd d comfortable dwelling. place, fs not a-poor man. There: must be différest rankd and degrees in every civil society, and, indeed, so it is even drnongst-the savage tribes. There must bé different degree? of wealth; some must have mioré than othets: dnd the richest must be a great deal richer than the least rich. But, it is necessary to the very existence ef a people, that nine out of ten shoiild Hive wholly by the sweat’ of their brow; tind; is it fot degrading to haman nature, that all the nine-tenths should be called poor; and, what is still’ worse; call themselves pobrs and be contented in that degraded state? Bz ANTRODUCTION. 7. The laws, the economy, or management,” ofa state may be such as to render it impossible for the labourer, however skilful apd industrious, to. main- tain 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 laboarer 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 Inbeurer 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 plumb-pudding, ‘and about English hospitality, had not their founda- tion in nothing. And, in spite of all the refinements of sickly minds, it is abundant living amongst the people at large, which is the great test of good go- vernment, and the surest basis of national greatness and security. INTRODUCTION. ‘ 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 on all men; if he be called upon for no more than his due share of the ex- penses necessary to support the government and de- fend 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 ig the ‘cause of the existence of that family; and, therefore, he is not, except in cases of accidental cae lamity, to throw upon others the burden of support- ing 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, s0.many assistants and ‘props to the pa- rents, 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 hay- ing; and whom can we be so sure of as of our chil- dren? Brothers and sisters are a mutual support.’ We “see them, in almost every. case, grow up into pros- ‘perity, when they act the part that the impulses of nature prestribe When cordially united, a father -and sons, or‘a family of brothers and sisters, may, in ‘almost any state of life, set what i is called misfortune -at defiance, INTRODUCTION, 10. Theae eondiderations ‘ara much niore than enough to sweeten the toils and. cares of parenta, . and to make them regard every additional child as an additional blessing. But, that, children may be a blessing and not a curéd, care muat be taken of their education. This word has, of late years, heey so perverted, se corrupted, eq abused, in its appli ¢ation, that I am almost afraid to use it here.’ Yok I must not suffer. it to be uaurped by cant aid tyranny. ° I must use it; but, not without cleasly saying what 1 - 1]. Edueation means breeding up,. bringing up, er rearing up; and nothing more, ‘This includes every thing with regard to the mind ‘as well aa the body of the child; but, of late years, it has bean 80 ‘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 ig 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 hy lahaur, or, for providing them a living urithoué 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 ta hire, in some way or other, upon the labour af qther peo- ple. Very seldom, comparatively speaking, has this succeeded, even during the wasteful public expendi- oe INTRODUCTIONS ture of the Jast thirty years; and, in the times that are approaching, it eannot, I thank God, succeéd 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 véonceiteds into some eourse of desperqtion 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 frst 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 par- ticularly in schools over which the parents have no control, and where nothing is taught but the rudi-" ments of sérvility, pauperism and slavery. 13. The education that I have in view is, there- fore, of a very different kind. You should bear con- stantly 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 braw. What rea- son 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 opportu- nity, the harm is not very great to us or to them. INTRODUCTION. Nor does it hence follow, that the descendants of la- bourers are always to be labourers. The path up- wards is steep and long, to be sure. Industry, care, skill, excellence, in the present parent lays the foun- dation of a rise, ‘under more favourable circumstances, for his children. . The children of these take another vise; and, by and by, the descendants of the present labourer become gentlemen. . 14, This is the natural progress. It is a by attempt- ing 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 en- couraged by the strange projects that we have wit- nessed 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 shill; ta show them how to do as many. useful things as pogsible ; to teach. them to do them all in the best manner; to set them an example. in indus- try, sobriety, cleanlifesa 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 la- bourer has its disadvantages when compared with INTRODUCTION, other callings and conditions of life, it has also its advantages. _ It is free from the torments of ambi- tion, 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 editation 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 tear animala, to tnake ‘bread, beer, bacon, butter, BO INTRODUCTION. 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, sleek-headed 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 ia 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 eommunity engenders teachers of fanaticism, the very founda- tion of whose doctrines is, that we are to care nothing about this world, and that all our labours and exer- tions are in vain. 17, The man, who is doing well, who is in goed health, who has a blooming and dutiful and cheerful and happy family about him; and who passes hia day of rest amongst them, is not to be made to’be- lieve, that he was born to be miserable, and that poverty, the natural and just reward of laziness, is te 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 religian, te believe, that God has made us to be wretched and. dejected ? Can it be religion to regard, as marks of his grace, the poverty and misery that almost inva- riably attend our neglect to use the means of ob- taining a competence in worldly things? Can it be religion to regard as blessings those things, these INTRODUCTION. 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, eorn, 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, ean rescue himeelf 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 obe- dience. But, it is given to but few men to he 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 ef 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 happi- ness 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 BREWING, s provide a good living, therefore, for himself and fa- »mily, is the very jirst duty of every man. ‘‘ Two , things,” says Acun, “ haveI asked; deny me them ;“‘ mpt 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 firgt 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, Wa. COBBETT. _ Kensington, 19 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 dught 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. Fiumay, an old man and a large farmer, in Sussex, has recently given in Evidence, before a Committee of the House of Com- mons, this fact; that, forty years ago, there was BREWING, 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 in- creased 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 papér-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 neceesary 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 4s. 6d.a bushel, and the barley costs only 3s. This brings the bushel’ of malt to 8s. in- cluding the maltster’s charge for malting. If the tax were taken off the malt, malt would be sald, at the present price of barley, for about’ 3s, 3d. 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 malt- ster. The hops pay a tax of 2d..a pond; and a . BREWING. bushel 6f malt requires, in general, a pound of hops. If these two taxes were taken off, therefore, the con- sumption of barley and of hops would be exceedingly ‘inereased ; for double the present quantity would be demanded, and the jJand is always ready te send it "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. ‘Fhey must do a great deal more, indeed; but that they must do at any rate. The paper-money is fast losing ite 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 mitk ean 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 noto- rious, that tea has no useful strength in it; that it eontains nothing nutricious; 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 faet, a weaker kind of laudanum, which enlivens for the moment and deadens afterwards. At any BREWING. . ‘rate ‘it- communicates. no strength to’ the ‘body s- it ‘does not, in any degree, assist in ‘affording whet ‘labour demands, It is, then, of na use. And, new, ‘as to its cost, cempared with that ef heer, I shall ‘make my comparison applicable te a year, ar three ‘hundred and sixty-five days. I: shall ‘suppose the © tea to be only five shillings the pound ; the. sugar only seven-pence; the milk only twopence a quart. The prices are at the very lowest. I shall suppade a teaspot to cost a shilling, six cups and saucers two shillings and sixpence, and six pewter -spnats eighteen pence. How to estimate the firing I hardly know; but certainly there must, in the course of the yeas, be two hundred fires made that would nat he made, were it not for tea drinking. Then comes the great article of all, the time employed in this tes making affair. It is impossible to make a fire, boil water, make the tea, drink it, wash up the things, - sweep up the fire-placée, and put all to rights again in a leas space of time, upon an average, than éwo hours. However, let us allow dre hour; and here we have a woman occupied no less than thred hundred and sixty-five hours in the yeat, or, thirty whole days, at twelve hours in the day; thas is ta 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 mak te eease to wonder at seeing labourers’ childrén with dirty linen and holes in the heels of their stackings? Observe, too, that the time thus spent, is, one half of “BREWING. “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. Ifthe 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.an early hour. ‘Yet early she must go, too; for, there is the fre again to be made, the clattering tea tackle again to come forward ;' and even in the longest day she must shave candlelight, which never ought to be seen in a Cottage (except in case of illness) from March to September. | 1 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 morn- ivog 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 expen- diture 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 ypan the BREWIXG. point of actual starvation. “Two pots a week is as little as will serve in this way; and ‘here is a dead losa of ninepence a week, seeing that two pots of beer,- full as strong, anda great deal: better, can‘ be brewed. at home for threepence. The account of the year's tea drinking will, then, stand thus: 18lb. of Tea - = - £410 0° . 54Ib. of Sugar - - - .1-)1 6 365 Pints of Milk - 110 0 Tea Tackle - - - 05 0. 200 Fires - 7 - 016 8 30 Day's Works - 015 0, Loss by going to public house - 119 0. , “£1 7 20 "95. I have here estimated every thing at its very lowest. The entertainment which I have here pro- vided 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 aad his family may drink good and wholesome beer, and, 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. Brath, porridge, or something in that way is the thing for them. However, U shall suppose, in order to make my comparison as little complicated as pos- sible, 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 BREWINGS too often contains; and'I shall farther suppose thet 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 duting the months: ef April and May; four quarts a-day duting the thontlis of June and Septembers and five qaarts a. day’ during the months ef July and August; and if this be not ¢nopgh it must.be a family of drunkards. Here arg 1097 quarts, or, “274 gallons. Now, a bushel of malt will make eighteen gallons af better beer than that which {s 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, bonghit’at the public house, ig loaded with a beer tax, with the’ tax on the public House keeper, in the shape of eence, with al] 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 heer at a public house, he has all these experses to help to defray, besides the mere tax on the malt and on the hops. - 26. Well, then, to brew this ample supply af good beer for a labourer’s family; these 274 gallons, re- quires 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 gratns and yeast will amply pay for the labour and fuel em- ployed in the brewing ; seeing that there will be pigs 4 BREWING, to eat the g@yains, and bread ta be baked with the yeast. The agsount will; then, stand thus: - * # es d poun ops o - 7 Wear of Utensils 7 7 910 0 £750 . 2%, Here, then, is the aum ef four poudds, two shil- ling and twopence saved every year. The utensils for brewing are, brage kettle, 9 maxhing tub, codlers {fox which- washing tubs may sexve), a half hagshead, avith ene end'taken out for a tun tub, about four fine gallen casks, and a couple of eighteon gallon casks. ‘Thie isan ample supply of utensils; each of which “will lest with proper edre a good lang lifetime or two; and the whole of whieh, ever if purchased new from the shop, will'only exgeed -by a few shillings, if they exceed-at all, the amount of the saving, ariking “the very first year, from quitting the traubleaome and pernicious practi¢e of drinking tea. ‘The saving of “each eucceading year would, if you chose it, pyrehase 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 '28, It is not, however, the mere saviag to which. -look. This is, indeed, a matter of great importance, whether we look at the amount itaelf, or at the ulti- mate conadquences of a judicious application of # ; for, four paunds make a great hole in a man’s wages for the year; and when we consider all the advan- BREWING. tages 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 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 se- rious 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 mieery 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 eighty-four pounds instead of five hundred and seventy, and even. the geod effect of ‘these eighty-four pounds is more than overbalanced ‘by the corrosive, gnawing, the. 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 re- Jyay you in ten score of bacon or thereabouts. But -give him the 730‘tea miesses, 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 > deubdt in such a case. The tea drinking has done a BREWING«. great deal in bringing this natidn into the state’ of injkery in which it;;now is; and: the. tea: drinking, which is carried on by “dribs” and.\“.drebs;” by pence and farthings going out at a: time; this mise- rable practice has been ‘gradually introduced by the growing weight of the taxes’ on Malt and on Hopa, and by the everlasting pentiry ationgst. the labourers; occasioned by the paper-money. «35, We see better prospects, hdwever, and there fore let us‘now rouse ourselves, and shake from us the degrading corse, the effects of which -have been much mote extensive and;infinitely mote mischievous . than men in general seem to imagine. ' 32. It must, be -evident to every oie, that’ the practice.- of. tea drinking. must . render the ‘frame feeble and: unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while, as,I-haye shown, it deducts from the means of. replenishing the Wally and . covering’ the back. :Hence succeeds a softness, an effeininacy, a secking. 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 apolegy: 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 leas for the. girls, ‘to whiom the gossip of the tea table is no bad preparatory échdol far the brothel. ‘ At the very: least, it teaches them idleness. The everlasting -dawdljng about with the slope of the tea tackle ‘gives them a relish for nathing that ‘res BREWING, quirés atretigth and uetivity. When they po fom lume, they know how to do nothing that is asefel. To brew, to’ bake, to mak butter, to milk, to rear . poultry; to do any earthly thing of tao they ara whelly unqualified. To shut poor young orentetes vp in Manufactories ia bad enough 3 but there at any - rate, they do something that is usefuls whetexs the girl that has been brotight up pierely to boil the tea kettle, and to amist in the gussip inseparable from the practiés, isa mere eonsunter of food, & pest td her empleyer, and a curse to- her hustand, iff any mac bo oo unfortunate as. to Ax his dffectione upon her. “33, But, is it in the power of -any wan; day good labourer who has attained the age of fifty, to look baek upon the last thirty years of his life, without eutsing the day ia which tea was introduced ints Knhgland ? Whers is there such a man, who cumet trace to this cause, a very cousiderable part of aif the mértifications and sufferings of his 16? When was he ever too /ade-at his labour; whe did he ever mect with a frown, with a tarning off and pauperism on that account; without being able to tidce it to the tea kettle? When reprodched with lagging in the iherning, the poor wretch tells you, that he will make tp for it by working during his breakfast time! f have heard this a hundred and 4 handred tithes evers He was up tite atough; but the tea kettle kept him letting: and lounging at home; and now itistend of hitting down to 0 breakfast upon bread,. bacon and BREWING. beer, which js to carry hith ox 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 ov the brook. To the wretched tea kettle he has té return at night with legs hardly sufficient to maintain him; ahd thus he makes his miserable progress tor wards that death which he finds ten or fifteen yebrs sooner than he would have found it had he made hia wife braw beet instead of making ted. If he now and then gladdens his heart with the drugs of the public house, some quarrel, some accident, some ill« ness is the probable consequence } to the affray abrdad succeeds an affray at homes 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 Brew- ing; but these, though they will not occupy a large space, must be put off to the second Number. The custom of brewing at hoing 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 ta be sb easy a thing, that I am not without hope, that mahy trades- mei, who now spend their evenings at the public house amidst tobacco smeke and empty noise, may, be induced; by the finding of better drink at home ata quarter part of the price, to perceive that- home BREWING. 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 come land ; for, I propose to show, that a large part of the food of even a large family may be raised, without any di- minution of the labourer’s earnings abroad, from 40 red, 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 hind.of beer for a labourer’s family ; that is to say, the degree of strength, must depend or circumstances; on the numerousness of the family, on the season of the year, and various other. 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 preved, is best suited to the purpose, A judicious labourer would, probably, always have some ale in his house, and have smal? 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, cir- cumstances vary so much with different labourers, that, as to the sort of beer and the number of brew-- t) ry ' BREWING, ings and the times of brewing no general rulé ¢ can be - laid dowi. : 37, Before I proceed -to’ explain the .uses: of the. sevéral brewing utensils, I must speak of the quality of the materials of which beer is made; that isto say, the malt, hops, and water. Malt varies very much in quality, as, indeed, it ‘must, ‘with the quality of the harley. When good it is full of flour, and in biting | _B grain asunder, you find it bite easily, arid 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 tw6 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 sd 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. malteters, 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 hdpe, that this. is seldom ‘the case; yet, when: we do fxow 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 uticharitable to 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 dis- - c BALWINGs cover whit portion of the barley is in ah ufmalted state, take a handful of the sxground malt, and put it inte a bowl of sold water. Mix it about with the water a little; that is, let every grain be sust wet all over; and whatever part of them tink are not gond. If you have your malt ground, there is uot, that § know of, any means of detettion. Therefore, if your brewing be considerable in smeuat, grind your own malt, the means of doing which is very easy, and neither expeasive nor troublesome, as will appear, when I come to speak of flour, If tha barley be all well madied, there is still a variety in the quality of the malt; thas isto say, n bushel of malt from fine, plump, heavy batity, will ba better then the -same quantity from thin aad light barley, In thie case, asia the cage of whant, tho weight is that as a bushel of wheat, weighing sizty-two pounds, is better wosth siz cbillings, than a bushel, weighing JAfty-twe is worth four shillings, 40 ® bushel of malt weighing forty+five pounds is better worth nine shil- lings, than a bushel weighing. (Airty-sive is worth | ‘six shillings, In malt, therefore, asin every thing , else, the word cheap is 9 deseption, uzless the quality be taken into view. But, bear in mind, that, in the ease of unmalted barley mixed with the