 8. Part 1 of Cottage Economy by William Cobbett. Paragraphs 208 to 234 on the converting of English grass and grain plants cut green into straw for the purpose of making plat for hats and bonnets. Kensington, May 30, 1823 The foregoing numbers have treated chiefly of the management of the affairs of a labourer's family, and more particularly of the mode of disposing of the money earned by the labour of the family. The present number will point out what I hope may become an advantageous kind of labour. All along I have proceeded upon the supposition that the wife and children of the labourer be as constantly as possible employed in work of some sort or other. The cuttings, the bleaching, the sorting, and the platting of straw seem to be of all employments the best suited to the wives and children of country labourers, and the discovery which I have made as to the means of obtaining the necessary materials will enable them to enter at once upon that employment. Before I proceed to give my directions relative to the performance of this sort of labour, I shall give the sort of history of the discovery to which I have just eluded. The practice of making hats, bonnets, and other things of straw is perhaps a very ancient date, but not to waste time in fruitless inquiries it is very well known that for many years past straw coverings for the head have been greatly in use in England, in America, and indeed in almost all the countries that we know much of. In this country the manufacture was only a few years ago very flourishing, but it has now greatly declined and has left in poverty and misery, those whom it once well fared and clothed. The cause of this change has been the importation of the straw hats and bonnets from Italy, greatly superior in durability and beauty to those made in England. The plat made in England was made of the straw of ripened grain, it was in general split, but the main circumstance was that it was made of the straw of ripened grain while the Italian plat was made of the straw of grain or grass cut green. Now the straw of ripened grain or grass is brittle or rather rotten. It dies while standing and in point of toughness the difference between it and straw from plants cut green is much about the same as the difference between a stick that has died on the tree and one that has been cut from the tree. But besides the difference in point of toughness, strength and durability there was the difference in beauty. The colour of the Italian plat was better, the plat was brighter and the Italian straws being small hole straws instead of small straws made by the splitting of large ones, there was a roundness in them that gave light and shade to the plat which could not be given by our flat bits of straw. It seems odd that nobody should have set to work to find out how the Italians came by this fine straw. The importation of these Italian articles was chiefly from the port of Leghorn, and therefore the bonnets imported were called Leghorn bonnets. The straw manufacturers in this country seem to have made no effort to resist this invasion from Leghorn, and which is very curious, the Leghorn straw has now began to be imported and to be platted in this country, so that we had hands to plat as well as the Italians, all that we wanted was the same kind of straw that the Italians had. And it is truly wonderful that these importations from Leghorn should have gone on increasing year after year, and our domestic manufacture dwindling away at a like pace, without there having been any inquiry relative to the way in which the Italians got their straw. Strange that we should have imported even straw from Italy, without inquiring whether similar straw could not be got in England. There really seems to have been an opinion that England could no more produce this straw than it could produce the sugarcane. Things were in this state when in 1821 a Miss Woodhouse, a farmer's daughter in Connecticut, sent a straw bonnet of her own making to the Society of Arts in London. This bonnet, superior in fineness and beauty to anything of the kind that had come from Leghorn, the maker stated to consist of a sort of grass, of which she sent along with the bonnet some of the seeds. The question was then, would these precious seeds grow and produce plants in perfection in England? A large quantity of the seed had not been sent, and it was therefore, by a member of the Society, thought desirable to get, with as little delay as possible, a considerable quantity of the seed. It was at this stage of the affair that my attention was called to it. The member just alluded to, applied to me to get the seed from America. I was of opinion that there could be no sort of grass in Connecticut that would not and that did not grow and flourish in England. My son James, who was then at New York, had instructions from me in June 1821 to go to Miss Woodhouse and to send me home an account of the matter. In September the same year I heard from him, who sent me an account of the cutting and bleaching, and also a specimen of the plant and grass of Connecticut. Miss Woodhouse had told the Society of Arts that the grass used was the poor pretensis. This is the smooth-stalked meadow-grass. So that it was quite useless to send for seed, it was clear that we had grass enough in England if we could but make it into straw as handsome as that of Italy. Upon my publishing an account of what had taken place with regard to the American bonnet, an importer of Italian straw applied to me to know whether I would undertake to import American straw. He was in the habit of importing Italian straw and of having it platted in this country, but having seen the bonnet of Miss Woodhouse he was anxious to get the American straw. This gentleman showed me some Italian straw which he had imported, and as the seed-heads were not on he could not see what plant it was. The gentleman who showed the straw to me told me, and doubtless he believed, that the plant was one that would not grow in England. I, however, who looked at the straw with the eyes of a farmer, perceived that it consisted of dry oat, wheat, and dry plants, and of Bennett and other common grass plants. This quite settled the point of growth in England. It was now certain that we had the plants in abundance, and the only question that remained to be determined was had we sun to give to those plants the beautiful colour which the American and Italian straw had. If that colour were to be obtained by art or by any chemical applications we could obtain it as easily as the Americans or the Italians, but if it was a gift of the sun solely here might be a difficulty impossible for us to overcome. My experiments have proved that the fear of such difficulty was wholly groundless. It was late in September 1821 that I obtained this knowledge after the kind of plants that produced the foreign straw. I could, at that time of the year, do nothing in the way of removing my doubts as to the powers of our sun in the bleaching of grass, but I resolved to do this when the proper season for bleaching should return. Accordingly, when the next month of June came I went into the country for the purpose. I made my experiments, and in short I proved to demonstration that we had not only the plants, but the sun also necessary for the making of straw yielding in no respect to that of America or of Italy. I think that upon the whole we have greatly the advantage of those countries, for grass is more abundant in this country than in any other. It flourishes here more than in any other country. It is here in a greater variety of all sorts, and for fineness in point of size there is no part of the world which can equal what might be obtained from some of our downs merely by keeping the land ungrazed till the month of July. When I had obtained the straw I got some of it made into plat. One piece of this plat was equal in point of colour and superior in point of fineness even to the plat of the bonnet of Miss Woodhouse. It seemed therefore now to be necessary to do nothing more than to make all this well known to the country. As the Society of Arts had interested itself in the matter, and as I heard that through its laudable zeal several sowings of the foreign grass seed had been made in England, I communicated an account of my experiments to that society. The first communication was made by me on the nineteenth of February last, when I sent to the society specimens of my straw and also of the plat. Some time after this I attended a committee of the society on the subject and gave them a verbal account of the way in which I had gone to work. The committee had before this given some of my straw to certain manufacturers of plat in order to see what it would produce. These manufacturers, with the exception of one, brought such specimens of plat as to induce at first sight any one to believe that it was nonsense to think of bringing a thing to any degree of perfection. But was it possible to believe this? Was it possible to believe that it could answer to import straw from Italy to pay a twenty percent duty on that straw, and to have it platted here, and that it would not answer to turn into plat straw of just the same sort grown in England? It was impossible to believe this, but possible enough to believe that persons now making profit by Italian straw or plat or bonnets would rather that English straw should not come to shut out the Italian and put an end to the leghorn trade. In order to show the character of the reports of those manufacturers I sent some parcels of straw into Hertfordshire, and got back in the course of five days fifteen specimens of plat. These I sent to the Society of Arts on the third of April, and I here insert a copy of the letter which accompanied them. To the Secretary of the Society of Arts, Kensington, April the third, 1823. Sir, with this letter I send you sixteen specimens of plat, and also eight parcels of straw, in order to show the sorts that the plat is made out of. The numbers of the plat correspond with those of the straw, but each parcel of straw has two numbers attached to it, except in the case of the first number which is the wheat straw. Of each kind of straw a parcel of the stoutest and a parcel of the smallest were sent to be platted, so that each parcel of the straw now sent, except that of the wheat, refers to two of the pieces of plat. For instance, two and three of the plat is of the sort of straw marked two and three, four and twelve of the plat is of the sort of straw marked four and twelve, and so on. These parcels of straw are sent in order that you may know the kind of straw, or rather of grass, from which the several pieces of plat have been made. This is very material, because it is by those parcels of straw that the kinds of grass are to be known. The piece of plat number sixteen is American, all the rest are from my straw. You will see that fifteen is the finest plat of all. Number seven is from the stout straws of the same kind as number fifteen. By looking at the parcel of straw numbers seven and fifteen, you will see what sort of grass this is. The next, in point of beauty and fineness combined, are the pieces numbers thirteen and eight, and by looking at the parcel of straw numbers thirteen and eight, you will see what sort of grass that is. Next comes ten and five, which are very beautiful too, and the sort of grass you will see is the common Bennett. The wheat, you see, is too coarse, and the rest of the sorts are either too hard or too brittle. I beg you to look at numbers ten and five, those appear to me to be the thing to supplant the leck on. The colour is good, the straws work well, they afford a great variety of sizes, and they come from the common Bennett grass which grows all over the kingdom, which is cultivated in all our fields, which is in bloom in the fair months of June, which may be grown as fine, or as coarse as we please, and ten acres of which would I dare say make ten thousand bonnets. However, seven and fifteen, and eight and thirteen are very good, and they are to be got in every part of the kingdom. As to platters, it is to be too childish to believe that they are not to be got when I could send off these straws and get back the plat in the course of five days. Far better work than this would have been obtained if I could have gone on the errand myself. What then will people not do who regularly undertake the business for their livelihood? I will as soon as possible send you an account of the manner in which I went to work with the grass. The card of plat which I sent you some time ago, you will be so good as to give me back again some time, because I have now not a bit of the American plat left. I am, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant, William Cobbett. I should observe that these written communications of mine to the society belong, in fact, to it, and will be published in its proceedings, a volume of which comes out every year. But in this case there would have been a year lost to those who may act in consequence of these communications being made public. The grass is to be got in great quantities and of the best sorts, only in June and July, and the society's volume does not come out till December. The society has therefore given its consent to the making of the communications public through the means of this little work of mine. Having shown what sort of plat could be produced from English grass straw, I next communicated to the society an account of the method which I pursued in the cutting and bleaching of the grass. The letter in which I did this I shall here insert a copy of before I proceed further. In the original the paragraphs were numbered from one to seventeen. They are here marked by letters in order to avoid confusion, the paragraphs of the work itself being marked by numbers. To the Secretary of the Society of Arts, Kensington, April 14th, 1823 A. Sir, agreeably to your request, I now communicate to you a statement of those particulars which you wish to possess relative to the specimens of straw and of plat which I have at different times sent to you for the inspection of the society. B. That my statement may not come too abruptly upon those members of the society who have not had an opportunity of witnessing the progress of this interesting inquiry, I will take a short review of the circumstances which led to the making of my experiments. C. In the month of June 1821 a gentleman, a member of the society, informed me by letter that a Miss Woodhouse, a farmer's daughter of Weathersfield in Connecticut had transmitted to the society a straw bonnet of very fine materials and manufacture, that this bonnet, according to her account, was made from the straw of a sort of grass called Poa Pratensis, that it seemed to be unknown whether the same grass would grow in England, that it was desirable to ascertain whether this grass would grow in England, that at all events it was desirable to get from America some of the seed of this grass, and that for this purpose my informant, knowing that I had a son in America, addressed himself to me, it being his opinion that if materials similar to those used by Miss Woodhouse could by any means be grown in England, the benefit to the nation must be considerable. D. In consequence of this application I wrote to my son James, then at New York, directing him to do what he was able in order to cause success to the undertaking. On the receipt of my letter in July he went from New York to Weathersfield, about a hundred and twenty miles, saw Miss Woodhouse, made the necessary inquiries, obtained a specimen of the grass and also of the plat, which other persons at Weathersfield as well as Miss Woodhouse were in the habit of making, and having acquired the necessary information as to cutting the grass and bleaching the straw, he transmitted to me an account of the matter, which account, together with his specimens of grass and plat, I received in the month of September. E. I was now, when I came to see the specimen of grass, convinced that Miss Woodhouse's materials could be grown in England, a conviction which, if it had not been complete at once, would have been made complete immediately afterwards by the sight of a bunch of bonnet straw imported from Leghorn, which straw was shown to me by the importer, and which I found to be that of two or three sorts of our common grass, and of oat, sweet and dry. F. That the grass or plants could be grown in England, was therefore now certain, and indeed that they were, in point of commonness, next to the earth itself. But before the grass could, with propriety, be called materials to bonnet-making, there was the bleaching to be performed, and it was by no means certain that this could be accomplished by means of an English son, the difference between which and that of Italy or Connecticut was well known to be very great. G. My experiments have, I presume, completely removed this doubt. I think that the straw produced by me to the society, and also some of the pieces of plat, are of a colour which no straw or plat can surpass. All that remains, therefore, is for me to give an account of the manner in which I cut and bleached the grass, which I have submitted to the society in the state of straw. H. First, as to the season of the year, all the straw, except that of one sort of couch-grass and the long coppice-grass, which too were got in Sussex, were got from grass cut in Hartfordshire on the twenty-first of June. A grass-headland in a wheat-field had been mowed during the four part of the day, and in the afternoon I went and took a handful here and a handful there out of the swathes. When I had collected as much as I could well carry, I took it to my friend's house and proceeded to prepare it for bleaching, according to the information sent me from America by my son, that is to say, I put my grass into a shallow tub, put boiling water upon it until it was covered by the water, let it remain in that state for ten minutes, then took it out and laid it very thinly on a closely mowed lawn in a garden. But I should observe that before I put the grass into the tub, I tied it up in small bundles or sheaves, each bundle being about six inches through the butt-end. This was necessary in order to be able to take the grass at the end of ten minutes out of the water without throwing it into a confused mixture as to tops and tails. Being tied up in little bundles, I could easily with a prong take it out of the hot water. The bundles were put into a large wicker basket, carried to the lawn in the garden, and there taken out one by one and laid in swathes as before mentioned. I. It was laid very thinly. Almost might I say that no stalk of grass covered another. The swathes were turned once a day. The bleaching was completed at the end of seven days from time of scolding and laying out. June is a fine month. The grass was, as it happened, cut on the longest day in the year, and the weather was remarkably fine and clear. But the grass which I afterwards cut in Sussex was cut in the first week in August, and as to the weather my journal speaks thus. August, 1822. Second, thunder and rain, began cutting grass. Third, beautiful day. Fourth, fine day. Fifth, cloudy day. Began scolding grass and laying it out. Sixth, cloudy greater part of the day. Seventh, same weather. Eighth, cloudy and rather misty, finished cutting grass. Ninth, dry but cloudy. Tenth, very close and hot, packed up part of the grass. Eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth, same weather. Fifteenth, hot and clear, finished packing the grass. K. The grass cut in Sussex was as well bleached as that cut in Hertfordshire, so that it is evident that we never can have a summer that will not afford sun sufficient for this business. L. The part of the straw used for platting is that part of the stalk which is above the upper joint, that part which is between the upper joint and the seed branches. This part is taken out and the rest of the straw thrown away, but the whole plant must be cut and bleached, because if you were to take off when green the part above described, that part would wither up next to nothing. This part must die in company with the whole plants, and be separated from the other parts after the bleaching has been performed. M. The time of cutting must vary with the seasons, the situation, and the sort of grass. The grass which I got in Hertfordshire, than which nothing can, I think, be more beautiful, was when cut generally in bloom, just in bloom. The wheat was in full bloom, so that a good time for getting grass may be considered to be that when the wheat is in bloom. When I cut the grass in Sussex the wheat was ripe, for reaping had begun, but that grass is of a very backward sort, and besides grew in the shade amongst coppice wood and under trees which stood pretty thick. N. As to the sorts of grass I have to observe generally that in proportion as the colour of the grass is deep, that is to say getting further from the yellow and nearer to the blue, it is of a deep and dead yellow when it becomes straw. Those kinds of grass are best which are in point of colour nearest to that of wheat which is a fresh pale green. Another thing is the quality of the straw as to pliancy and toughness. Experience must be our guide here. I had not time to make a large collection of sorts, but those which I have sent to you contain three sorts which are proved to be good. In my letter of the third instant I sent you sixteen pieces of plant and eight bunches of straw, having the seed heads on, in order to show the sorts of grass. The sixteenth piece of plant was American. The first piece was from wheat cut and bleached by me, the rest from grass cut and bleached by me. I will here, for fear of mistake, give a list of the names of the several sorts of grass, the straw of which was sent with my letter of the third instant, referring to the numbers as placed on the plant and on the bunches of straw. Read a note. There follows the table, the first column headed pieces of plant, the second column headed bunches of straw, and the third headed sorts of grass. Plant number one, straw number one, grass, wheat. Plant number two, plant number three, straw two and three, grass, mellica cariolia or purple mellica grass. Plant number four, plant number twelve, straw four and twelve, grass, agrostis stolonifera or thurin grass, that is say one sort of couch grass. Plant five, plant ten, straw five and ten, grass, lolium perene or ray grass. Plant six, plant eleven, straw six and eleven, grass, avina flavescans or yellow oat grass. Plant seven, plant fifteen, straw seven and fifteen, grass, sinusius cristatus or crested dog's tail grass. Plant eight, plant thirteen, straw eight and thirteen, grass, anthazanthum odoratum or sweet scented vernal grass. Plant nine, plant fourteen, straw nine and fourteen, grass, agrostis canina or brown bentgrass. Oh, these names are those given at the botanical garden at Q, but the same English names are not in the country given to these sorts of grass. The furin grass, the yellow oat grass and the brown bent are all called couch grass except that the latter is in Sussex called red robin. It is the native grass of the plains of Long Island and they call it red top. The ray grass is the common field grass which is all over the kingdom sewn with clover. The farmers in a great part of the kingdom call it bent or bennet grass and sometimes it is called darnal grass. The crested dog's tail goes in Sussex by the name of hendon bent for what reason I know not. The sweet scented vernal grass I have never amongst the farmers heard any name for. Miss Woodhouse's grass appears from the plants that I saw in the Adelphi to be one of the sorts of couch grass. Indeed I am sure that it is a couch grass if the plants I saw there come from her seed. My son who went into Connecticut who saw the grass growing and who sent me home a specimen of it is now in England and he was with me when I cut the grass in Sussex and he says that Miss Woodhouse's was a couch grass. However it is impossible to look at the specimens of straw and of plat which I have sent you without being convinced that there is no want of the raw material in England. I was after my first hearing of the subject very soon convinced that the grass grew in England but I had great doubts as to the capacity of our son. Those doubts my own experiments have completely removed but then I was not aware of the great effect of the scolding of which by the way Miss Woodhouse had said nothing and the knowledge of which we owe entirely to my son James's journey into Connecticut. P. Having thus given you an account of the time and manner of cutting the grass, of the mode of cutting and bleaching having given you the best account I am able as to the sorts of grass to be employed in this business and having in my former communications given you specimens of the plat wrought from the several sorts of straw I might hear close my letter but as it may be useful to speak of the expense of cutting and bleaching it I shall trouble you with a few words relating to it. If there were a field of ray grass or of crested dog's tail or any other good sort and nothing else growing with it the expense of cutting would be very little indeed seeing that the scythe or reap hook would do the business at a great rate. Doubtless there will be such fields but even if the grass have to be cut by the handful my opinion is that the expense of cutting and bleaching would not exceed fourpence for straw enough to make a large bonnet I should be willing to contract to supply straw at this rate for half a million of bonnets. The scolding must constitute a considerable part of the expense because there must be fresh water for every parcel of grass that you put in the tub when water has scolded one parcel of cold grass it will not scold another parcel besides the scolding draws out the sweet matter of the grass and makes the water the colour of that horrible stuff called London porter it would be very good by the by to give to pigs many people give hay tea to pigs and calves and this is grass tea to scold a large quantity therefore would require means not usually at hand and the scolding is an essential part of the business perhaps in a large and convenient farmhouse with a good brewing copper good fuel and water handy four or five women might scold a wagon load in a day and a wagon would I think carry straw enough in the rough to furnish the means of making a thousand bonnets however the scolding might take place in the field itself by means of a portable boiler especially if water were at hand and perhaps it would be better to carry the water to the field than to carry the grass to the farmhouse for they must be ground to lay it out upon the moment it has been scolded and no ground can be so proper as the newly mowed ground where the grasses stood the space too must be large for any considerable quantity of grass as to all these things however the best and cheapest methods will soon be discovered when people set about the work with a view to profit Q. the society will want nothing from me nor from anybody else to convince it of the importance of this matter but I cannot in concluding these communications to you sir refrain from making an observation or two on the consequences likely to arise out of these inquiries the manufacturer is alone of considerable magnitude not less than about five millions of persons in this kingdom have a dress which consists partly of manufactured straw and a large part and all the most expensive part of the articles thus used now come from abroad in cases where you can get from abroad any article at less expense than you can get it at home the wisdom of fabricating that article at home may be doubted but in this case you get the raw material by labour performed at home and the cost of that labour is not nearly so great as would be the cost of the mere carriage of the straw from a foreign country to this if our own people had all plenty of employment and that too more profitable to them and to the country than the turning of a part of our own grass into articles of dress then it would be advisable still to import leg horn bonnets but the fact being the reverse it is clear that whatever money or money's worth things be sent out of the country in exchange for leg horn bonnets is while we have the raw material here for next to nothing just so much thrown away the Italians it may be said take some of our manufacturers in exchange and let us suppose for the purpose of illustration that they take cloth from Yorkshire stop the exchange between leg horn and Yorkshire and does Yorkshire lose part of its custom no, for though those who make the bonnets out of English grass prevent the leg horners from buying Yorkshire cloth they with the money which they now get instead of its being caught by the leg horners by the Yorkshire cloth themselves and they wear this cloth too instead of its being worn by the people of Italy ISA and many now in rags will be well clad if the laudable object of the society be affected besides this however why should we not export the articles of this manufacture to America we certainly should and I should not be at all surprised if we were to export them to leg horn itself ah, notwithstanding all this however if the manufacture were of a description to require in order to give it success the collecting of the manufacturers together in great numbers I should however great the wealth that it might promise never have done anything to promote its establishment the contrary is happily the case here all is not only performed by hand but by hand singly without any combination of hands here there is no power of machinery or of chemistry wanted all is performed out in the open fields or sitting in the cottage there once no coal mines and no rivers to assist no water powers nor powers of fire no part of the kingdom is unfit for the business everywhere there are grass water sun and women and children's fingers and these are all that are wanted but the great thing of all is this that to obtain the materials for the making of this article of dress at once so gay so useful and in some cases so expensive there requires not a penny of capital many of the labourers now make their own straw hats to wear in summer poor rotten things made out of straw of ripened grain with what satisfaction will they learn that straw twenty times as durable to say nothing of the beauty is to be got from every hedge in short when the people are well and clearly informed of the facts which I have through you sir had the honour to lay before the society it is next to impossible that the manufacturer should not become general throughout the country in every labourers house a pot of water can be boiled what labourers wife cannot in the summer months find time to cut and bleach grass enough to give her and her children work for a part of the winter there is no necessity for all to be platters some may cut and bleach only others may prepare the straw as mentioned in paragraph L of this letter and doubtless as the farmers in Hertfordshire now sell their straw to the platters grass collectors and bleachers and preparers would do the same so that there is scarcely any country labourer's family that might not derive some advantage from this discovery and while I am convinced that this consideration has been by no means overlooked by the society it has been I assure you the great consideration of all with sir your most obedient and most humble servant William Cobbett in the last edition this closing part of the work relative to the straw plat was not presented to the public as a thing which admitted of no alteration but on the contrary it was presented to the public with the following concluding remark in conclusion I have to observe that I by no means send forth this essay as containing opinions and instructions that are to undergo no alteration I am indeed endeavouring to teach others but I am myself only a learner experience will doubtless make me much more perfect in a knowledge of the several parts of the subject and the fruit of this experience I shall be careful to communicate to the public I now proceed to make good this promise experience has proved that very beautiful and very fine plat can be made with the straw of diverse kinds of grass but the most ample experience has also proved to us that it is to the straw of wheat that we are to look for a manufacturer to supplant the leekhorn this was mentioned as a strong suspicion in my former edition of this work and I urged my readers to sow wheat for the purpose the fact is now proved beyond all contradiction that the straw of wheat or rye but particularly of wheat is the straw for this purpose finer plat may be made from the straw of grass than can possibly be made from the straw of wheat or rye but the grass plat is all of it more or less brittle and none of it has the beautiful and uniform colour of the straw of wheat since the last edition of this work I have received packets of the straw from Tuscany all of wheat and indeed I am convinced that no other straw is anything like so well calculated for the purpose wheat straw bleaches better than any other it has that fine pale golden colour which no other straw has it is much more simple more pliant than any other straw and in short this is the material I did not urge in vain a good quantity of wheat was sowed for this purpose a great deal of it has been well harvested and I have the pleasure to know that several hundreds of persons are now employed in the platting of straw one more year one more crop of wheat and another lecon bonnet will never be imported in England some great errors have been committed in the sowing of the wheat and in the cutting of it I shall now therefore availing myself of the experience which I have gained offer to the public some observations on the sort of wheat to be sowed for this purpose on the season for sowing on the land to be used for the purpose on the quantity of seed and the manner of cutting bleaching and housing on the platting on the knitting and on the pressing the sort of wheat the lecon plat is all made of the straw of the spring wheat this spring wheat is so called by us because it is sowed in the spring at the same time that barley is sowed the botanical name of it is triticum estivum it is a small grained bearded wheat it has very fine straw but experience has convinced me that the little brown grained winter wheat is just as good for the purpose in short any wheat will do I have now in my possession specimens of plat made of both winter and spring wheat and I see no difference at all I am decidedly of the opinion that the winter wheat is as good as the spring wheat for the purpose I have plat and I have straw both now before me and the above is the result of my experience the land proper for the growing of wheat the object is to have the straw as small as we can get it the land must not therefore be too rich yet it ought not to be very poor if it be you get the straw of no length I saw an acre this year as beautiful as possible sowed upon a light loam which bore last year a fine crop of potatoes the land ought to be perfectly clean at any rate so that when the crop is taken off the wheat straw may not be mixed with weeds and grass season for sowing this will be more conveniently stated in paragraph 228 quantity of seed and manner of sowing when first this subject was started in 1821 I said in the register that I would engage to grow as fine straw in England as the Italians could grow I recommended then as a first guess 15 bushels of wheat to the acre since that reflection told me that that was not quite enough I therefore recommend 20 bushels to the acre upon the beautiful acre which I have mentioned above 18 bushels I am told were sowed fine and beautiful as it was I think it would have been better if it had 20 bushels 20 bushels therefore is what I recommend you must sow broadcast of course and you must take great pains to cover the seed well it must be a good even-handed seedsman and there must be very nice covering season for cutting now mind it is fit to cut in just about one week after the bloom has dropped if you examine the ear at that time you'll find the grain just beginning to be formed and that is precisely the time to cut the wheat the straw has then got its full substance in it but I must now point out a very material thing it is by no means desirable to have all your wheat fit to cut at the same time it is a great misfortune indeed so to have it if fit to cut altogether it ought to be cut all at the same time for supposing you to have an acre it will require a fortnight or three weeks to cut it and bleach it unless you have a very great number of hands and very great vessels to prepare water in therefore if I were to have an acre of wheat for this purpose and were to grow all spring wheat I would sow a twelfth part of the acre every week from the first week in March to the last week in May if I relied partly upon winter wheat I would sow some every month from the latter end of September to March if I employed the two sorts of wheat or indeed if I employed only the spring wheat the Triticum Isthmum I should have some wheat fit to cut in June and some not fit to cut till September I should be sure to have a fair chance as to the weather and in short it would be next to impossible for me to fail of securing a considerable part of my crop I beg the reader's particular attention to the contents of this paragraph Manor of cutting the wheat it is cut by a little reap hook, close to the ground as possible it is then tied in little sheaves with two pieces of string, one near the butt and the other about half way up this little bundle or sheaf ought to be six inches through at the butt and no more it ought not to be tied too tightly, lest the scalding should not be perfect Manor of bleaching the little sheaves mentioned in the last paragraph are carried to a brewing mash, bat or other tub you must not put them into the tub in too large a quantity, lest the water get chilled before it get to the bottom pour on scalding water till you cover the whole of the little sheaves and let the water be a foot above the top sheaves when the sheaves have remained us a full quarter of an hour take them out with a prong, lay them in a clothes basket or upon a hurdle and carry them to the ground where the bleaching is to be finished this should be if possible a piece of grassland where the grass is very short take the sheaves and lay some of them along in a row untie them and lay the straw along in that row as thin as it can possibly be laid if it were possible no one straw ought to have another lying upon it or across it if the sun be clear it will require to lie twenty-four hours thus then to be turned and lie twenty-four hours on the other side if the sun be not very clear it must lie longer but the numerous sowings which I have mentioned will afford you so many chances, so many opportunities of having fine weather that the risk about weather would necessarily be very small if wet weather should come and if your straw remain out in it any length of time it will be spoiled but according to the mode of sowing above pointed out you really could stand very little chance of losing straw by bad weather if you had some straw out bleaching and the weather were to appear suddenly to be about to change the quantity that you would have out would not be large enough to prevent you from putting it under cover and keeping it there till the weather changed housing the straw when your straw is nicely bleached gather it up and with the same string that you used to tie it when green tie it up again into little sheaths put it by in some room where there is no damp and where mice and rats are not suffered to inhabit here it is always ready for use and it will keep I daresay four or five years very well the platting this is now so well understood that nothing need be said about the manner of doing the work but much might be said about the measures to be pursued by landowners, by parish officers, by farmers and more especially by gentlemen and ladies of sense, public spirit and benevolence of disposition the thing will be done the manufacturer will spread itself over all this kingdom but the exertions of those whom I have here pointed out might hasten the period of its being brought to perfection and I beg such gentlemen and ladies to reflect on the vast importance of such manufacture which it is impossible to cause to produce anything but good one of the great misfortunes of England at this day is that the land has had taken away from it those employments for its women and children which were so necessary to the well-being of the agricultural labourer the spinning, the carding, the reeling, the knitting these have been all taken away from the land and given to the lords of the loom the haughty lords of bands of abject slaves but let the landholder mark how the change has operated to produce his ruin he must have the labouring man and the labouring boy but alas he cannot have these without having the man's wife and the boy's mother and little sisters and brothers even nature herself says that he shall have the wife and little children or that he shall not have the man and the boy but the lords of the loom, the crabbed voice, hard favoured, hard hearted, puffed up, insolent, savage and bloody wretches of the north have assisted by a blind and greedy government taken all the employment away from the agricultural women and children this manufacture of straw will form one little article of employment for these persons it sets at defiance all the hatching and scheming of all the tyrannical wretches who caused the poor little creatures to die in their factories heated to 84 degrees there will need no inventions of what, none of your horse powers nor water powers no murdering of one set of wretches in the coal mines to bring up the means of murdering another set of wretches in the factories by the heat produced from those coals none of these are wanted to carry on this manufacture it wants no combination laws, none of the inventions of the hard hearted wretches of the north the knitting upon this subject I have only to congratulate my readers that there are great numbers of English women who can now knit flat together better than those famous duesses of whom we were told the pressing bonnets and hats are pressed after they are made I'm told that a proper press costs pretty nearly a hundred pounds but then that it will do a prodigious deal of business I would recommend to our friends in the country to teach as many children as they can to make the plat the plat will be knitted in London and in other considerable towns by persons to whom it will be sold it appears to me at least that this will be the course that the thing will take however we must leave this to time and here I conclude my observations upon the subject which is deeply interesting to myself and which the public in general deemed be of great importance paragraph 235 Post script on brewing I think it right to say here that ever since I published the instructions for brewing by copper and by wooden utensils the beer at my own house has always been brewed precisely agreeable to the instructions contained in this book and I have to add that I never have had such good beer in my house in all my lifetime as since I have followed that mode of brewing my table beer as well as my ale is always as clear as wine I have had hundreds and hundreds of quarters of malt brewed into beer in my house my people could always make it strong enough and sweet enough but never except by accident could they make it clear now I never have any that is not clear and yet my utensils are all very small and my brewers are sometimes one laboring man and sometimes another a man once showing how to brew the first time I should suppose that we use in my house about seven hundred gallons of beer every year taking both sorts together and I can positively assert that there has not been one drop of bad beer and indeed none which has not been most excellent in my house during the last two years I think it is since I began using the utensils and in the manner named in this book end of number eight part one number eight part two of cottage economy this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Philippa paragraphs two hundred and thirty six to two hundred and fifty three ice houses first begging the reader to read again paragraph one hundred and forty nine I proceed here in compliance with numerous requests to that effect to describe as clearly as I can the manner of constructing the sort of ice houses therein mentioned in England these receptacles of frozen water are generally underground and always if possible under the shade of trees the opinion being that the main thing if not the only thing is to keep away the heat is to be kept away certainly but moisture is the great enemy of ice and how is this to be kept away either underground or under the shade of trees abundant experience has proved that no thickness of wall that no cement of any kind will effectively resist moisture drops will at all times be seen hanging on the underside of an arch of any thickness and made from any materials if it have earth over it and even when it has the floor of a house over it and wherever the moisture enters the ice will quickly melt ice houses should therefore be in all their parts as dry as possible and they should be so constructed and the ice so deposited in them as to ensure the running away of the meltings as quickly as possible whenever such meltings come anything in the way of drains or gutters is too slow in its effect and therefore there must be something that will not suffer the water proceeding from any melting to remain an instant in the first place then the ice house should stand in a place quite open to the sun and air for whoever has travelled even but a few miles having eyes in his head need not be told how long that part of a road from which the sun and wind are excluded by trees or hedges or by anything else will remain wet or at least damp after the rest of the road is even in a state to send up dust the next thing is to protect the ice against wet or damp from beneath it should therefore stand on some spot from which water would run in every direction and if the natural ground present no such spot it is no very great job to make it then come the materials of which the house is to consist these for the reasons before mentioned must not be bricks stones mortar or earth for these are all affected by the atmosphere they will become damp at certain times and dampness is the great destroyer of ice the materials left are wood and straw wood will not do for though not liable to become damp it imbibes heat fast enough and besides it cannot be so put together as to shut out air sufficiently straw is wholly free from the quality of becoming damp except from water actually put upon it and it can at the same time be placed on a roof and on sides to such a degree of thickness as to exclude the air in a manner the most perfect the ice house ought therefore to be made of posts plates rafters laths and straw the best form is the circular and the house when made appears as I've endeavoured to describe it in figure three of the plate figure one a is the centre of a circle the diameter of which is ten feet and at this centre you put up a post to stand fifteen feet above the level of the ground which post ought to be about nine inches through the bottom and not a great deal smaller at the top great care must be taken that this post be perfectly perpendicular for if it be not the whole building will be a rye BBB are fifteen posts nine feet high and six inches through at the bottom without much tapering towards the top these posts stand about two feet apart reckoning from centre of post to centre of post which leaves between each two a space of eighteen inches CCCC are fifty four posts five feet high and five inches through at the bottom without much tapering towards the top these posts stand about two feet apart from centre of post to centre of post which leaves between each two a space of nineteen inches the space between these two rows of posts is four feet in width and as will be presently seen is to contain a wall of straw E is a passage through this wall D is the outside door of the passage F is the inside door and the inner circle of which A is the centre is the place in which the ice is to be deposited well then we have now got the posts up and before we talk of the roof of the house or of the bed for the ice it will be best to speak about the making of the wall it is to be made of straw wheat straw or rice straw with no rubbish in it and made very smooth by the hand as it is put in you lay it in very closely and very smoothly so that if the wall were cut across as at GG in figure two which figure two represents the whole building cut down through the middle emitting the centre post the ends of the straw would present a compact face as they do after the cut of a chaff cutter but there requires something to keep the straw from bulging out between the posts little stakes as big as your wrist will answer this purpose drive them into the ground and fasten at top to the plates of which I am now to speak the plates are pieces of wood which go all round both the circles and are nailed on upon the tops of the posts their main business is to receive and sustain the lower ends of the rafters as at mm and nn in figure two but to the plates also the stakes just mentioned must be fastened at the top thus then there will be this space of four feet wide having on each side of it a row of posts and stakes not more than about six inches from each other to hold up and to keep in its place this wall of straw next come the rafters as from s to n figure two carpenters best know what is the number and what the size of the rafters but from s to m there need be only about half as many as from m to n however carpenters know all about this it is their everyday work the roof is 45 degrees pitch as the carpenters call it if it were even sharper it would be none the worse there will be about 30 ends of rafters to lodge on the plate as at m and these cannot all be fastened to the top of the centre post rising up from a but carpenters know how to manage this matter so as to make all strong and safe the plate which goes along on the tops of the row of posts BBB must of course be put on in a somewhat sloping form otherwise there would be a sort of hip formed by the rafters however the thatch is to be so deep that this may not be of much consequence before the thatching begins there are laughs to be put up on the rafters thatchers know all about this and all that you have to do is to take care that the thatcher tie the straw on well the best way in the case of such deep thatch is to have a strong man to tie for the thatcher the roof is now raftered and it is to receive a thatch of clean sound and well prepared wheat or rice straw four feet thick as at HH in figure two the house having now got walls and roof the next thing is to make the bed to receive the ice the bed is the area of the circle of which a is the centre you begin by laying on the ground round logs eight inches through all thereabouts and placing them across the area leaving spaces between them of about a foot then crossways on them poles about four inches through placed at six inches apart then crossways on them other poles about two inches through placed at three inches apart then crossways on them rods as thick as your finger places an inch apart then upon these small clean dry last winter cut twigs to the thickness of about two inches or instead of these twigs good clean strong heath free from grass and moss and from rubbish of all sorts this is the bed for the ice to lie on and as you see the top of the bed will be seventeen inches from the ground the pressure of the ice may perhaps bring it to fourteen or thirteen upon this bed the ice is put broken and pummeled and beaten down together in the usual manner having got the bed filled with ice we have next to shut it safely up as we have seen there is a passage E two feet wide is enough for this passage and being as long as the wall is thick it is of course four feet long the use of the passage is thus that you may have two doors so that you may in hot or damp weather shut the outer door while you have the inner door open the inner door may be of hurdle work and straw and covered on one of the sides with sheepskins with the wool on so as to keep out the external air the outer door which must lock must be of wood made to shut very closely and besides covered with skins like the other at times of great danger from heat or from wet the whole of the passage may be filled with straw the door P figure three should face the north or between north and east as to the size of the ice house that must of course depend upon the quantity of ice that you may choose to have a house on the above scale is from W to X figure two maximum diameter 29 feet from Y to Z figure two maximum height 19 feet the area of the circle of which a is the center is 10 feet in diameter and as this area contains 75 superficial feet you will if you put ice on the bed to the height of only 5 feet and you may put it on to the height of 7 feet from the top of the bed you will have 375 cubic feet of ice and observe a cubic foot of ice will when broken up fill much more than a winchester bushel what it may do as to an imperial bushel engendered like Greek loan commissioners by the unnatural heat of prosperity God only knows however I do suppose that without making any allowance for the cold fit as Dr. Baring calls it into which the late panic has brought us I do suppose that even the scorching the burning dog-star of imperial prosperity may even that devise himself would hardly call for more than two bushels of ice in a day for more than two bushels a day it would be unless it were used in cold as well as in hot weather as to the expense of such a house it could in the country not be much none of the posts except the main or centre post need be very straight the other posts might be easily culled from tree-lops destined for firewood the straw would make all straight the plates must of necessity be short pieces of wood and as to the stakes the laths and the logs, poles, rods, twigs and heath they would not all cost twenty shillings the straw is the principal article and in most places even that would not cost more than two or three pounds if it last many years the price could not be an object and if but a little while it would still be nearly as good for litter as it was before it was applied to this purpose how often the bottom of the straw walls might want renewing I cannot say but I know that the roof would with few and small repairs last well for ten years I have said that the interior row of posts is to be nine feet high and the exterior row five feet high I in each case mean with the plate inclusive I have only to add that by way of super abundant precaution against bottom wet it will be well to make a sort of gutter to receive the drip from the roof and to carry it away as soon as it falls now after expressing a hope that I shall have made myself clearly understood by every reader it is necessary that I remind him that I do not pretend to pledge myself for the complete success nor for any success at all of this mode of making ice houses but at the same time I express my firm belief that complete success would attend it because it not only corresponds with what I've seen of such matters but I had the details from a gentleman who had ample experience to guide him and who was a man on whose word and judgment I placed a perfect reliance he advised me to erect an ice house but not caring enough about fresh meat and fish in summer or at least not setting them enough above prime pork to induce me to take any trouble to secure the former I never built an ice house thus then I only communicate that in which I believe there is however in all cases discomfort that if the thing fail as an ice house it will serve all generations to come as a model for a pig-bed End of number 8 Part 2 Addition to Cottage Economy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Philippa Addition Kensington November the 14th 1831 Paragraphs 254 to 257 Mangel-Wurzel This last summer I have proved that as keep for cows Mangel-Wurzel is preferable to Swedish turnips whether as to quantity or quality but there needs no other alteration in the book than merely to read Mangel-Wurzel wherever you find Swedish turnip the time of sowing, the mode and time of transplanting the distances and the cultivation all being the same and the only difference being in the application of the leaves and in the time of harvesting the roots The leaves of the Mangel-Wurzel are of great value especially in dry summers You begin about the third week in August to take off by a downward pull the leaves of the plants and they are excellent food for pigs and cows only observe this that if given to cows there must be for each cow six pounds of hay a day which is not necessary in the case of the Swedish turnips These leaves last till the crop is taken up which ought to be in the first week of November The taking off of the leaves does good to the plants new leaves succeed higher up and the plant becomes longer than it otherwise would be and of course heavier but in taking off the leaves they are much too near to the top When you take the plants up in November you must cut off the crowns and the remaining leaves and they again are for cows and pigs then you put the roots into some place to keep them from the frost and if you have no place under cover put them in piles in the same manner as directed for the Swedish turnips The roots will average in weight ten pounds each they may be given to cows whole or to pigs either and they are better than the Swedish turnip for both animals and they do not give any bad or strong taste to the milk and butter but besides this use of the mangle-wurzel there is another with regard to pigs at least of very great importance The juice of this plant has so much of sweetness in it that in France they make sugar of it and I have used the sugar and found it equal in goodness to West India sugar Many persons in England make beer of this juice and I have drunk of this beer and found it very good In short the juice is most excellent for the mixing of moist food for pigs I am now 20th of November 1831 boiling it for this purpose My copper holds seven strike bushels I put in three bushels of mangle-wurzel cut into pieces two inches thick and then fill the copper with water I draw off as much of the liquor as I want to wet pollard or meal for little pigs or fatting pigs and the rest, roots and all I feed the yard-hogs with and this I shall follow on till about the middle of May If you give boiled or steamed potatoes to pigs there wants some liquor to mix with the potatoes for the water in which potatoes have been boiled is hurtful to any animal that drinks it but mix the potatoes with juice of mangle-wurzel and they make very good food for hogs of all ages The mangle-wurzel produces a larger crop than the Swedish turnip Paragraphs 258 to 265 Cobbit's corn If you prefer bread and pudding to milk, butter and meat this corn will produce on your 40 rods 40 bushels each weighing 60 pounds at the least and more flour in proportion than the best white wheat To make bread with it you must use two thirds wheaten or rye flour but in puddings this is not necessary The puddings at my house are all made with this flour except meat and fruit pudding for the corn flour is not adhesive or clinging enough to make paste or crust This corn is the very best for hog-fatting in the whole world I last April sent parcels of the seed into several counties to be given away to working men and I sent them instructions for the cultivation which I shall repeat here I will first describe this corn to you It is that which is sometimes called Indian corn and sometimes people call it Indian wheat It is that sort of corn which the disciples ate as they were going up to Jerusalem on the Sabbath day They gathered it in the fields as they went along and ate it green they being unhungred for which you know they were reproved by the Pharisees I have written a treatise on this corn in a book which I sell for four shillings giving a minute account of the qualities, the culture the harvesting and the various uses of this corn but I shall here confine myself to what is necessary for a labourer to know about it so that he may be induced to raise and may be enabled to raise enough of it in his garden to fat a pig of ten score There are a great many sorts of this corn They come from all countries which are hot as in England This sort which my eldest son brought into England is a dwarf kind and is the only kind that I have known to ripen in this country and I know that it will ripen in this country in any summer for I had a large field of it in 1828 and 1829 and last year, my lease at my farm being out at Mickelmas and this corn not ripening till late in October I had about two acres in my garden at Kensington Within the memory of man there have not been three summers so cold as the last one after another and no one so cold as the last Yet my corn ripened perfectly well and this you will be satisfied of if you be amongst the men to whom this corn is given from me You will see that it is in the shape of the cone of a spruce fir You will see that the grains are fixed round a stalk which is called the cob These stalks or ears come out of the side of the plant which has leaves like a flag which plant grows to about three feet high and has two or three and sometimes more of these ears or bunches of grain Out of the top of the plant comes the tassel which resembles the plumes of feathers upon a hearse and this is the flower of the plant The grain is, as you will see, about the size of a large pea and there are from two to three hundred of these grains upon the ear or cob In my treatise I have shown that in America all the hogs and pigs or the poultry of every sort, the greater part of the oxen and a considerable part of the sheep are fatted upon this corn that it is the best food for horses and that when ground and dressed in various ways it is used in bread in puddings, in several other ways in families and that in short it is the real staff of life in all the countries where it is in common culture and where the climate is hot When used for poultry the grain is rubbed off the cob Horses, sheep and pigs bite the grain off and leave the cob but horned cattle eat cob and all I am to speak of it to you, however, only as a thing to make you some bacon for which use it surpasses all other grain whatsoever When the grain is in the whole ear it is called corn in the ear When it is rubbed off the cob it is called shelled corn Now observe, ten bushels of shelled corn are equal in the fatting of a pig to fifteen bushels of barley and fifteen bushels of barley, if properly ground and managed, will make a pig of ten score if he be not too poor when you begin to fat him Observe that everybody who has been in America knows that the finest hogs in the world are fatted in that country and no man ever saw a hog fatted in that country in any other way than tossing the ears of corn over to him in the stye leaving him to bite it off the ear and deal with it according to his pleasure The finest and solidest bacon in the world is produced in this way Now then, I know that a bushel of shelled corn may be grown upon one single rod of ground sixteen feet and a half each way I have grown more than that this last summer and any of you may do the same if you will strictly follow the instructions which I am now about to give you One, late in March, I am doing it now, or in the first fortnight of April Dig your ground up very deep and let it lie rough till between the seventh and fifteenth of May Two, then in dry weather if possible, dig up the ground again and make it smooth at top Draw drills with a line two feet apart just as you do drills for peas Rub the grains off the cob, put a little very rotten and fine manure along the bottom of the drill Lay the grains along upon that six inches apart Cover the grain over with fine earth so that there be about an inch and a half on the top of the grain Pat the earth down a little with the back of a hoe to make it lie solid on the grain Three, if there be any danger of slugs you must kill them before the corn comes up if possible and the best way to do this is to put a little hot lime in a bag and go very early in the morning and shake the bag all round the edges of the ground and over the ground Doing this three or four times very early in a dewy morning or just after a shower will destroy all the slugs and this ought to be done for all other crops as well as for that of corn Four, when the corn comes up you must take care to keep all birds off till it is two or three inches high for the spear is so sweet that the birds of all sorts are very apt to peck it off particularly the doves and the larks and pigeons As soon as it is fairly above ground give the whole of the ground in dry weather a flat hoeing and be sure to move all the ground close round the plants When the weeds begin to appear again give the ground another hoeing but always in dry weather When the plants get to be about a foot high or a little more dig the ground between the rows and work the earth up a little against the stems of the plants Five, about the middle of August you will see the tassels springing up out of the middle of the plant and the ears coming out of the sides If weeds appear in the ground hoes again to kill the weeds so that the ground may be always kept clean About the middle of September you will find the grains of the ears to be full of milk just in the state that the ears were at Jerusalem when the disciples cropped them to eat From this milky state they, like the grains of wheat, grow hard and as soon as the grains begin to be hard you should cut off the tops of the corn and the long flaggy leaves and leave the ears to ripen upon the stalk or stem If it be a warm summer they will be fit to harvest by the last of October but it does not signify if they remain out until the middle of November or even later The longer they stay out the harder the grain will be Six, each ear is covered in a very curious manner with a husk The best way for you will be when you gather in your crop to strip off the husks to tie the ears in bunches of six or eight or ten and to hang them up to nails in the walls or against the beams of your house for there is so much moisture in the cob that the ears are apt to heat if put together in great parcels The room in which I write in London is now hung all round with bunches of this corn The bunches may be hung up in a shed or stable for a while and when perfectly dry they may be put into bags Seven Now as to the mode of using the corn If for poultry you must rub the grains off the cob but if for pigs give them the whole ears You will find some of the ears in which the grain is still soft Give these to your pigs first and keep the hardest to the last You will soon see how much the pig will require in a day because pigs more decent than many rich men never eat any more than is necessary to them You will thus have a pig You will have two flitches of bacon, two pig's cheeks, one set of sauce, two griskins, two spare ribs from both which I trust in God you will keep the jaws of the Methodist person and if while you are drinking a mug of your own ale after having dined upon one of these you drink my health you may be sure that it will give you more merit in the sight of God as well as of man than you would acquire by groaning the soul out of your body in responses to the blasphemous cant of the sleek-headed Methodist thief that would persuade you to live upon potatoes You must be quite sensible that I cannot have any motive but your good in giving you this advice other than the delight which I take and the pleasure which I derive from doing that good You are all personally unknown to me In all human probability not one man in a thousand will ever see me You have no more power to show your gratitude to me than you have to cause me to live for a hundred years I do not desire that you should deem this a favour received from me The thing is worth your trying at any rate The corn is off by the middle of November The ground should then be well manured and deeply dug and planted with early York or early dwarf cabbages which will be loved in the latter end of April and maybe either sold or given to pigs or cows before the time to plant the corn again Thus you have two very large crops on the same ground in the same year End of addition End of Cottage Economy by William Cobbett