II. BOOKS ON DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND DUTIES.
COTTAGE ECONOMY.
COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOMY (Price 2s. 6d.); containing information relative to the brewing of Beer, making of Bread, keeping of Cows, Pigs, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Poultry, and Rabbits, 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 bleaching of the Plants of English Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and Bonnets; and also instructions for erecting and using Ice-houses, after the Virginian manner. In my own estimation, the book that stands first is the Poor Man's Friend; and the one that stands next is this Cottage Economy; and beyond all description is the pleasure I derive from reflecting on the number of happy families that this little book must have made. I dined in company with a lady in Worcestershire, who desired to see me on account of this book; and she told me that until she read it she knew nothing at all about these two great matters, the making of bread and of beer; but that from the moment she read the book, she began to teach her servants, and that the benefits were very great. But, to the labouring people, there are the arguments in favour of good conduct, sobriety, frugality, industry, all the domestic virtues; here are the reasons for all these; and it must be a real devil in human shape who does not applaud the man who could sit down to write this book, a copy of which every parson ought, upon pain of loss of ears, to present to every girl that he marries, rich or poor.—W. C.
"Differing as I do from Mr. Cobbett in his politics, I must say that he has been of great use to the poor. This 'Cottage Economy' gives them hints and advice which have, and continue to be, of the greatest service to them; it contains a little mine of wealth, of which the poor may reap the advantage; for no one understands the character of the English labourer better than Mr. Cobbett. Since writing the above, Mr. Cobbett is no more; his 'Cottage Economy' should be considered as his legacy to the poor."—Jesse's Gleanings. Vol. 2. p. 358.
"Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to Cobbett's political writings, and as to his peculiar views and prejudices, there cannot be a doubt that all his works on domestic management, on rural affairs, and on the use of language, are marked by strong sense, and by great clearness of thought and precision of language. His power of conveying instruction is, indeed, almost unequalled; he seems rather to woo the reader to learn than to affect the teacher; he travels with his pupil over the field of knowledge upon which he is engaged, never seeming to forget the steps by which he himself learned. He assumes that nothing is known, and no point is too minute for the most careful investigation. Above all, the pure mother English in which his instructions are conveyed, makes him a double teacher; for whilst the reader is ostensibly receiving instruction on some subject of rural economy, he is at the same time insensibly imbibing a taste for good sound Saxon English—the very type of the substantial matters whereof his instructor delights to discourse. Most of Cobbett's works on rural and domestic economy, though written for the industrious and middle classes of this country, are admirably adapted to the use of settlers in new countries. For an old and thickly-peopled country like England, perhaps Cobbett carried his notion of doing everything at home a little too far; but in a new country, where a man is at times compelled to turn his hand to everything, it is really well to know how everything connected with rural economy should be done, and we really know of no works whence this extended knowledge can be acquired so readily as from those of Cobbett. He understood all the operations incidental to the successful pursuit of husbandry, and his very prejudice of surrounding the farm with a wall of brass, and having every resource within, prompted him to write on rural affairs with completeness.
"The little half-crown book, which we now introduce to our readers, contains a mine of most valuable instruction, every line of which is as useful to the colonist as to those for whom it was written. We have just read it through, from the title to the imprint, with especial regard to the wants of the colonists, and we do not believe there is a single sentence of the instructional portion that need be rejected. The treatise on brewing and making bread are particularly applicable to New Zealand. We observe by the published list of prices, that while flour was there selling at a moderate price, bread was enormously high. There is nobody to blame for this; it arises simply out of the high rate of retail profit which prevails in new countries, and we know no reason why bakers should be expected to keep shop for less remuneration than other tradesmen. The remedy then is, not to abuse the baker, but to bake at home. How this is to be accomplished Cobbett here points out. Some idea of the saving by means of home baking in our colonies, where retail profits are high, may be gleaned from the great difference between the price of flour and that of bread at Wellington, at the same date. When flour was selling at 20l. per ton, the bakers of Wellington were charging 1s. 8d. for the 4lb. loaf. Now, one cwt. of flour would make from 126lb. to 134lb of bread, that is, on an average, 32 loaves of 4lb. each. These would cost:—flour 20s, yeast 1s, salt 6d, with fuel 1s—together 22s 6d, or something under 9d per 4lb loaf. Here, then, would be an enormous saving to the settler's family by means of home bread making:—is not Cobbett right when he deprecates the idea of the farm labourer going to the baker's shop? and, if he be right in England, where the baker works for a small profit, his recommendation has ten times the force when applied to a colony like New Zealand. Let it be remembered also, that, by home-baking, the quality of the bread is guaranteed. Doubtless, honest bakers do exist; but if there be only a few who occasionally make use potatoes, and other materials less nourishing than wheat, surely the guarantee is worth something where soundness of muscle and sinew is of so much importance. Earnestly, then, do we recommend every New Zealand emigrant to purchase this little book, and make himself master of all it contains."—New Zealand Journal, 8th January, 1842.
ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, and (incidentally) to Young Women, in the middle and higher Ranks of Life (Price 5s.) It was published in fourteen numbers, and is now in one volume complete.
SERMONS.