CONTENTS.
| Page | |
| [PREFACE] | iii |
| [LIST OF ENGRAVINGS] | xi |
| [LETTER I.] | |
| Introduction. | 1 |
| [BOOK I. THE HOUSE.] | |
| [LETTER II.] | |
| First Impressions of the Country.—Making Fires. | 5 |
| [LETTER III.] | |
| Hall.—Morning Room.—Book-Cases.—Plants in | |
| Pots.—Squirrels, Canary Birds, Parrots and Macaws, Monkeys, | |
| Gold Fish, and Cut Flowers.—Drawing-room.—Dining-room. | 14 |
| [LETTER IV.] | |
| Flies.—Servants' Offices, including the Housekeeper's | |
| Room and Store Closet, the Kitchen, and the | |
| Scullery.—Brewing; making Home-made Wines, Cider, and | |
| Perry; and making Bread, Rolls, Cakes, Rusks, Muffins | |
| and Crumpets, and Biscuits. | 35 |
| [LETTER V.] | |
| Impromptu Cookery.—Soups.—Poultry.—Pigeons.—Game.—Salads | |
| of Cold Meat and Potatoes.—Modes of | |
| dressing Potatoes and Carrots.—Sauces.—Omelettes, | |
| Creams, and Side Dishes.—Miscellaneous Cookery.—National | |
| Cookery.—The French Pot-au-Feu.—Italian | |
| Macaroni.—German Sauer Kraut—Polish Barsch.—Spanish | |
| Olla Podrida and Puchero.—Scotch Haggis, Barley | |
| Broth and Hotch-potch.—English Plum-pudding. | |
| Puddings.—Potato Flour.—Pickles.—Pork Pies. | 70 |
| [LETTER VI.] | |
| The Larder.—Salting Meat, Bacon, and Hams.—The | |
| Dairy.—Management of Milk.—Making and keeping | |
| Butter.—Making Cheese of various Kinds.—Ice-House, | |
| Ice-Cellar, and Ice-Cooler.—Ice-Creams. | 119 |
| [BOOK II. THE GARDEN.] | |
| [LETTER VII.] | |
| Planting a regular Geometrical Flower-Garden.—List of | |
| Plants.—Mode of laying out regular Figures on the | |
| Ground.—Rules for arranging Colours.—Planting Side | |
| Beds.—Plants with fragrant Flowers.—Culture of | |
| Bulbs.—Reserve Ground.—Culture of Annuals, Perennials, | |
| and Biennials.—Hotbeds and Frames for raising and | |
| keeping Half-hardy Flowers. | 153 |
| [LETTER VIII.] | |
| Use of Plant-Houses.—Nature of Climates.—Different | |
| Kinds of Hothouses.—The Dry Stove, the Bark Stove, | |
| and the Orchideous House.—Culture of Plants in the | |
| Bark Stove.—Aquarium and Water Plants.—Red | |
| Spider.—Culture of Succulent Stove Plants.—Culture | |
| of Orchideous Plants.—The Greenhouse.—The Australian | |
| House, and Culture of its Plants.—The common | |
| Greenhouse, the Heath House, the Conservatory, the | |
| Orangery, and the Camellia House.—The Culture of | |
| Plants in the common Greenhouse.—Potting | |
| Plants.—Heaths.—Culture of Plants in the | |
| Conservatory.—Culture of Orange Trees.—Aphides. | 186 |
| [LETTER IX.] | |
| The Park and Pleasure-Grounds.—Situation of old | |
| Houses.—Water.—Forest Scenery.—Effect of a Shrubbery in | |
| harmonising a Flower-Garden with a Park.—Opening | |
| Vistas.—Scenes in a Park.—Fences against Cattle.—Styles | |
| in Gardening.—Use of a Terrace.—Patte d'Oie.—Planting | |
| an Architectural Garden.—Planting an | |
| Arboretum.—Renovating Turf. | 210 |
| [LETTER X.] | |
| Laying out a Kitchen-Garden.—Making Gravel Walks.—Box | |
| Edgings.—Crops of Culinary Vegetables.—Cucumbers, | |
| Melons, and Mushrooms. | 226 |
| [LETTER XI.] | |
| The Management of Fruit Trees.—Planting.—Protecting | |
| the Blossoms.—Stone Fruits.—Fig Trees.—Grapes.—Management | |
| of a Vinery.—Growing Pine-apples.—Forcing | |
| Peaches and Nectarines.—Standard Fruit Trees.—Kernel | |
| Fruits.—Fruit Shrubs.—Strawberries.—Tart-Rhubarb. | 244 |
| [LETTER XII.] | |
| Operations of Gardening.—Digging, Forking, | |
| and Hoeing.—Sowing Seeds.—Taking off Suckers.—Making Layers | |
| and Cuttings.—Budding, Grafting, and Inarching.—Pruning | |
| and Training.—Disbudding.—Manuring.—Keeping Fruit in a | |
| Fruit-Room. | 268 |
| [BOOK III. DOMESTIC ANIMALS.] | |
| [LETTER XIII.] | |
| Quadrupeds kept for Amusement.—Horses for riding and | |
| driving in Pony Carriages.—Mules, Zebras, Quaggas, | |
| and Donkeys.—Dogs and Cats. | 284 |
| [LETTER XIV.] | |
| Quadrupeds kept for supplying Food.—Cows, Calves, | |
| Goats, Pigs, Rabbits, and Deer. | 309 |
| [LETTER XV.] | |
| Inhabitants of the Poultry-Yard: Fowls, Turkeys, Guinea | |
| Fowls, Geese, Ducks, and Pigeons.—Peacocks and | |
| Hens.—Diseases of Poultry, and their Cure. | 330 |
| [LETTER XVI.] | |
| The Inhabitants of the Ponds: Fish and Aquatic Fowls, | |
| including Swans, exotic Geese and Ducks.—Inhabitants | |
| of the Woods: including Pheasants and Partridges, | |
| Herons and Bitterns.—Aviary.—Apiary, and the | |
| Management of Bees.—Silk-worms. | 359 |
| [BOOK IV. RURAL WALKS.] | |
| [LETTER XVII.] | |
| Shoes and Apparatus for Walking.—Rural Seats.—Natural | |
| Objects noted in a Country Walk; the Mole; the Shrike; | |
| the Black Snail; the Siller Cups; the Woundwort.—Pleasures | |
| of studying Botany.—Granite.—Appearance | |
| of the Clouds. | 390 |
| [BOOK V. COUNTRY AMUSEMENTS.] | |
| [LETTER XVIII.] | |
| Archery: Targets; Self Bows and Backed Bows; Bowstrings; | |
| Arrows; Arm Bracer and Shooting-Glove; Belt and Tassel; and | |
| Quiver.—Sketching in the open Air: Block-Book and Pencils; | |
| Artist's Colours; Touch of the different | |
| Trees.—Swinging.—Pleasure-Boats.—Skating.—Sporting Terms. | 403 |
| [BOOK VI. COUNTRY DUTIES.] | |
| [LETTER XIX.] | |
| Relation between a Landed Proprietor and the Cottagers | |
| on his Estate.—How to relieve the Poor.—Establishing | |
| Schools.—Teaching the Daughters of the Poor to | |
| make Clothes, and teaching them Cooking.—Employing | |
| the Poor.—Assisting the Poor in Illness.—Making | |
| Clothes for the Poor. | 417 |
| [INDEX.] | 425 |
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
| Fig. | Page | |
| [Frontispiece.] | ||
| The Manor-House in its original State. | [4] | |
| 1. | Ground Plan of the Manor-House. | [16] |
| 2. | Spigot and Faucet. | [46] |
| 3. | Mash-stirrer. | [48] |
| 4. | Mash-tub. | [48] |
| 5. | Fruit-crusher. | [52] |
| 6. | Cabbage-cutting Machine for preparing Sauer Kraut. | [99] |
| Garden Front of the Manor-House in its improved State. | [152] | |
| 7. | Radiated Geometrical Flower-garden. | [157] |
| 8. | Square Geometrical Flower-garden | [161] |
| 9. | Diagram for forming the Beds of Flower-gardens. | [162] |
| 10. | Diagram for forming the Beds of Flower-gardens. | [163] |
| 11. | Diagram for forming the Beds of Flower-gardens. | [163] |
| 12. | Compound Geometrical Flower-garden. | [164] |
| 13. | Park Fence. | [219] |
| 14. | Poultry-yard. | [333] |
| 15. | Sitting-box for Hens. | [335] |
| 16. | Hen-roost. | [336] |
| 17. | Hen-coop. | [338] |
| 18. | Nidulària campanulàta. | [395] |
[LETTER I.]
INTRODUCTION.
Your letter, my dear Annie, informing me that you are about to be married and to settle in the country, has interested me exceedingly, as it reminds me of my own youth, when my first essays in housekeeping were made under circumstances very similar to those in which you will be placed. It is true I was not then married, but, as my mother was dead, the care of the house devolved on me; and I knew even less about household affairs than most girls of my age and rank in life, as my mother had an old and favourite housekeeper, who managed every thing, and who would not suffer the slightest interference in her department. When my mother died, this person left us; and my father, with a shattered constitution and a greatly diminished fortune, retired to a small estate he had in the country. I was then young and thoughtless; I had no sisters; and having, like you, been brought up in a town, I had no ideas of the country but as a place where eggs, cream, and fruit were in abundance; where I might keep as much poultry as I liked; and where there were shady lanes, and green fields abounding with pretty flowers.
The place we went to live at had a good house, commanding a splendid view; an excellent garden; three fish-ponds, and about thirty acres of grass land, which enabled us to keep cows and horses, without troubling us with any of the laborious duties of cultivating arable land.
At first I was enchanted with the change. I was never tired of feeding my poultry, watching the dairy-maid, and managing the fruit and flowers; but, alas! I soon found that there are few roses without thorns. My first trouble was three gentlemen calling on us one day unexpectedly, and my father asking them to stay dinner. We were seven miles from the town where we had formerly lived; and, though there was a small town within two miles of us, the road was bad, and the miles very long ones; while the town itself, when we reached it, was one of those provoking places the shopkeepers of which never have what is wanted, though they always say they had abundance of the required article the week before, and believe they shall have it again the week after. I need not enter into the details of my troubles in preparing for this well-remembered dinner. Meat was out of the question; and though I was enabled, with infinite difficulty, to give my father's friends enough to eat, no one but a young housekeeper in a similar situation can have any idea of what I suffered. The lesson, however, was not lost upon me; and you may easily imagine that ever afterwards I took care to have a cooked piece of hung beef, or ham, or some similar substantial article of food in the house, that I might be provided for a similar occurrence.
The recollection of what I underwent while buying my experience makes me anxious to spare you, my dear Annie, the pain of a similar ordeal; particularly as it is more disagreeable for a young newly married woman to feel in housekeeping difficulties than a single one; as it makes you fear your husband had a higher opinion of you than you deserve. In your situation the difficulty is increased by your husband not having lived at the Manor-House since the death of his parents, when he was only ten years old; so that he can have no idea of the petty troubles you will be exposed to. Under these circumstances I will do my best to clear the path that lies before you, and to teach you how to enjoy rationally a country life.
The Manor-House in its original State.