Part 1

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COTTAGE ECONOMY;

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 THE 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.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND; OR, A DEFENCE OF THE RIGHTS OF THOSE WHO DO THE WORK, AND FIGHT THE BATTLES.

BY WILLIAM COBBETT.

New York: Published by John Doyle, 12, Liberty-St. Stereotyped by Conner & Cooke. 1833.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year of our Lord 1833, by John Doyle, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

CONTENTS.

No.

I.--Introduction. To the Labouring Classes of this Kingdom--Brewing Beer, 5

II.--Brewing Beer, continued, 23

III.--Making Bread, 41

IV.--Making Bread, continued--Brewing Beer--Keeping Cows, 59

V.--Keeping Cows, continued,--Keeping Pigs, 73

VI.--Keeping Pigs, continued--Salting Mutton, and Beef, 86

VII.--Bees, Geese, Ducks, Turkeys, Fowls, Pigeons, Rabbits, Goats, and Ewes, Candles and Rushes, Mustard, Dress and Household Goods, and Fuel, Hops, and Yeast, 98

VIII.--Selecting, Cutting and Bleaching the Plants of English Grass and Grain, for the purpose of making Hats and Bonnets--Constructing and using Ice-houses, 122

ADDITION.--Mangel Wurzel--Cobbett's Corn, 151

INDEX, 158

COTTAGE ECONOMY.

No. I.

INTRODUCTION.

TO THE LABOURING CLASSES OF THIS KINGDOM.

1. Throughout this little work, I shall _number_ the Paragraphs, in order to be able, at some stages of the work, to refer, with the more facility, to parts that have gone before. The last Number will contain an _Index_, by the means of which the several 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 meant parsimony, stinginess, or niggardliness; and, at best, merely the refraining from expending money. Hence misers and close-fisted men disguise their propensity and conduct under the name of _economy_; whereas the most liberal disposition, a disposition precisely the contrary of that of the miser, is perfectly consistent with economy.

3. ECONOMY means _management_, and nothing more; and it is generally applied to the affairs of a house and family, which affairs are an object of the greatest importance, whether as relating to individuals or to a nation. A nation is made powerful and to be honoured in the world, not so much by the number of its people as by the ability and character 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, a nation _permanently great_, consisting, for the greater part, of wretched and miserable families.

4. In every view of the matter, therefore, it is desirable; that the families of which a nation consists should be happily off: and as this depends, in a great degree, upon the _management_ of their concerns, the present work is intended to convey, to the families of the _labouring classes_ in particular, such information as I think may be useful with regard to that management.

5. I lay it down as a maxim, that for a family to be happy, they must be well supplied with _food_ and _raiment_. It is a sorry effort that people make to persuade others, or to persuade themselves, that they can be happy in a state of _want_ of the necessaries of life. The doctrines which fanaticism preaches, and which teach men to be _content_ with _poverty_, have a very pernicious tendency, and are calculated to favour tyrants by giving them passive slaves. To live well, to enjoy all things that make life pleasant, is the right of every man who constantly uses his strength judiciously and lawfully. It is to blaspheme God to suppose, that he created man to be miserable, to hunger, thirst, and perish with cold, in the midst of that abundance which is the fruit of their own labour. Instead, therefore, of applauding "_happy_ poverty," which applause is so much the fashion of the present day, I despise the man that is _poor_ and _contented_; for, such content is a certain proof of a base disposition, a disposition which is the enemy of all industry, all exertion, all love of independence.

6. Let it be understood, however, that, by _poverty_, I mean _real want_, a real insufficiency of the food and raiment and lodging necessary to health and decency; and not that imaginary poverty, of which some persons complain. The man who, by his own and his family's labour, can provide a sufficiency of food and raiment, and a comfortable dwelling-place, is not a _poor man_. There must be different ranks and degrees in every civil society, and, indeed, so it is even amongst the savage tribes. There must be different degrees of wealth; some must have more than others; and the richest must be a great deal richer than the least rich. But it is necessary to the very existence of a people, that nine out of ten should live wholly by the sweat of their brow; and, is it not degrading to human nature, that all the nine-tenths should be called _poor_; and, what is still worse, _call themselves poor_, and be _contented_ in that degraded state?

7. The laws, the economy, or management, of a state may be such as to render it impossible for the labourer, however skilful and industrious, to maintain 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 labourer 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 labourer 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 plum-pudding, and about English hospitality, had not their foundation in _nothing_. And, in spite of all refinements of sickly minds, it is _abundant living_ amongst the people at large, which is the great test of good government, and the surest basis of national greatness and security.

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 upon all men: if he be called upon for no more than his due share of the expenses necessary to support the government and defend 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 is the cause of the existence of that family; and, therefore, he is not, except in cases of accidental calamity, to throw upon others the burden of supporting 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, so many assistants and props to the parents, 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 having; and whom can we be so sure of as of our children? Brothers and sisters are a mutual support. We see them, in almost every case, grow up into prosperity, when they act the part that the impulses of nature prescribe. When cordially united, a father and sons, or a family of brothers and sisters, may, in almost any state of life, set what is called misfortune at defiance.

10. These considerations are much more than enough to sweeten the toils and cares of parents, and to make them regard every additional child as an additional blessing. But, that children may be a blessing and not a curse, care must be taken of their _education_. This word has, of late years, been so perverted, so corrupted; so abused, in its application, that I am almost afraid to use it here. Yet I must not suffer it to be usurped by cant and tyranny. I must use it: but not without clearly saying what I mean.

11. _Education_ means _breeding up_, _bringing up_, or _rearing up_; and nothing more. This includes every thing with regard to the _mind_ as well as the _body_ of a child; but, of late years, it has been so 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 is 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 by labour, or for _providing them a living without 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 to live, in some way or other, _upon the labour of other people_. Very seldom, comparatively speaking, has this succeeded, even during the wasteful public expenditure of the last thirty years; and, in the times that are approaching, it cannot, I thank God, succeed 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 conceited: into some course of desperation 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 _first_ 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 particularly in schools over which the parents have no control, and where nothing is taught but the rudiments of servility, pauperism and slavery.

13. The _education_ that I have in view is, therefore, of a very different kind. You should bear constantly 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 brow. What reason 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 opportunity, the harm is not very great to us or to them. Nor does it hence follow that the descendants of labourers are _always_ to be labourers. The path upwards is steep and long, to be sure. Industry, care, skill, excellence, in the present parent, lay the foundation of _a rise_, under more favourable circumstances, for his children. The children of these take _another rise_; and, by-and-by, the descendants of the present labourer become gentlemen.

14. This is the natural progress. It is by attempting 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 encouraged by the strange projects that we have witnessed 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 _skill_; to show them how to do as many useful things as possible; to teach them to do them all in the best manner; to set them an example in industry, sobriety, cleanliness, 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 labourer has its disadvantages when compared with other callings and conditions of life, it has also its advantages. It is free from the torments of ambition, 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 _education_ 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 rear animals, to make bread, beer, bacon, butter 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, sleekheaded 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 in 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 community engenders teachers of fanaticism, the very foundation of whose doctrines is, that we are to care nothing about this world, and that all our labours and exertions are in vain.

17. The man, who is doing well, who is in good health, who has a blooming and dutiful and cheerful and happy family about him, and who passes his day of rest amongst them, is not to be made to believe, that he was born to be miserable, and that poverty, the natural and just reward of laziness, is to 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 _religion_ to believe that God hath made us to be wretched and dejected? Can it be _religion_ to regard, as marks of his grace, the poverty and misery that almost invariably attend our neglect to use the means of obtaining a competence in worldly things? Can it be _religion_ to regard as blessings those things, those 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, corn, 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, can rescue himself 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 obedience. But it is given to but few men to be 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 of 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 happiness 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 provide a _good living_, therefore, for himself and family, is the _very first duty_ of every man. "Two things," says AGUR, "have I asked; deny me them not 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 first 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

WM. COBBETT.

_Kensington, 19th 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 ought 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. ELLMAN, an old man and a large farmer, in Sussex, has recently given in evidence, before a Committee of the House of Commons, this fact; that, _forty years ago_, there was 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 increased 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 paper-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 necessary 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 4_s._ 6_d._[1] a bushel, and the barley costs only 3_s._ This brings the bushel of malt to 8_s._ including the maltster's charge for malting. If the tax were taken off the malt, malt would be sold, at the present price of barley, for about 3_s._ 3_d._ 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 maltster. The hops pay a tax of 2_d._[2] a pound; and a bushel of malt requires, in general, a pound of hops; if these two taxes were taken off, therefore, the consumption of barley and of hops would be exceedingly increased; for double the present quantity would be demanded, and the land is always ready to send it forth.

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. They must do a great _deal more_, indeed; but that they must do at any rate. The paper-money is fast losing its 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 milk can be applicable only in certain cases.