Part 14

251. 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 fire-wood. 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.

252. 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 superabundant 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.

253. 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 have 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, this comfort, that if the thing fail as an ice-house, it will serve all generations to come as a model for a pig-bed.

ADDITION.

_Kensington, Nov. 14th, 1831._

MANGEL WURZEL.

254. 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.

255. 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, you must not approach too near to the top.

256. 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 _pies_, in the same manner as directed for the Swedish turnips. The roots will average in weight 10 _lbs. 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 mangel 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 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 Nov. 1831) boiling it for this purpose. My copper holds seven strike-bushels; I put in three bushels of mangel 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.

257. 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 mangel wurzel, and they make very good food for hogs of all ages. The mangel wurzel produces _a larger_ crop than the Swedish turnip.

COBBETT'S CORN.

258. IF you prefer _bread_ and _pudding_ to milk, butter, and meat, this corn will produce, on your forty rods, forty bushels, each weighing 60 _lbs. 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.

259. 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 "an hungered," 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.

260. There are a great many sorts of this corn. They all come from countries which are hotter than 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 Michaelmas, 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.

261. 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, all 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.

262. 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 sty, 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.

263. 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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. About the middle of August you will see the tassel springing up out of the middle of the plant, and the ears coming out of the sides. If weeds appear in the ground, hoe it 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.

6. 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.

7. 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 pig 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 souse, two griskins, two spare-ribs, from both which I trust in God you will keep the jaws of the Methodist parson; 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 sleekheaded Methodist thief that would persuade you to live upon potatoes.

264. 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.

265. 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 _loaved_ in the _latter end of April_, and may be 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.

INDEX.

PARAGRAPH

Agur 18

Bees 160

Bread, making of 77

Brewing Beer 20, 108 _See also_ "POSTSCRIPT."

Brewing-machine 41

Brougham, Mr. 41

Candles and Rushes 199

Castlereagh's and Mackintosh's Oratory 152

Combination Laws 108

Corn, Cobbett 258

Cows, keeping 111

Cusar, Mr. 86

Custom Laws 108

Drennen, Dr. 80

Dress, Household Goods, and Fuel 199

Ducks 169

Economy, meaning of the term 2, 3

Education 11

Ellman, Mr. 20, 60

Excise Laws 108

Fowls 176

Geese 167

Goats and Ewes 189

Hanning, Mr. Wm. 99

Hill, Mr. 98

Hops 202

Ice-houses 236

Leghorn 212

Libel Laws 108

Malthus, Parson 141

Mangel Wurzel 254

Mustard 198

Parks, Mr. 98

Paul, Saint 148

Peel's flimsy Dresses 152

Pigeons 181

Pigs, keeping 139

Pitt's false Money 152

Plat, English Straw 208

Porter, how to make 71

Potatoes 77

Rabbits 184

Salting Mutton and Beef 157

Stanhope, Lord 144

Swedish Turnips 207

Turkeys 171

Walter's and Stoddart's Paragraphs 152

Walter Scott's Poems 152

Want, the Parent of Crime 18

Wakefield, Mr. Edward 78, 99

Wilberforce's Potatoe-Diet 152

Winchelsea, Lord. 144

Woodhouse, Miss 213

Yeast 203

COBBETT'S POOR MAN'S FRIEND;

A DEFENCE OF THE RIGHTS OF THOSE WHO DO THE WORK, AND FIGHT THE BATTLES.

COBBETT'S POOR MAN'S FRIEND.

NUMBER I.

TO THE WORKING CLASSES OF PRESTON.

_Burghclere, Hampshire, 22d August, 1826._

MY EXCELLENT FRIENDS,

1. Amongst all the new, the strange, the unnatural, the monstrous things that mark the present times, or, rather, that have grown out of the present system of governing this country, there is, in my opinion, hardly any thing more monstrous, or even so monstrous, as the language that is now become fashionable, relative to the condition and the treatment of that part of the community which are usually denominated the POOR; by which word I mean to designate the persons who, from age, infirmity, helplessness, or from want of the means of gaining anything by labour, become destitute of a sufficiency of food or of raiment, and are in danger of perishing if they be not relieved. Such are the persons that we mean when we talk of THE POOR; and, I repeat, that amongst all the monstrous things of these monstrous days, nothing is, in my opinion, so monstrous as the language which we now constantly hear relative to the condition and treatment of this part of the community.

2. Nothing can be more common than to read, in the newspapers, descriptions the most horrible of the sufferings of _the Poor_, in various parts of England, but particularly in the North. It is related of them, that they eat horse-flesh, grains, and have been detected in eating out of pig-troughs. In short, they are represented as being far worse fed and worse lodged than the greater part of the pigs. These statements of the _newspapers_ may be false, or, at least, only partially true; but, at a public meeting of rate-payers, at Manchester, on the 17th of August, Mr. BAXTER, the Chairman, said, that some of the POOR had been _starved to death_, and that _tens of thousands were upon the point of starving_; and, at the same meeting, Mr. POTTER gave a detail, which showed that Mr. BAXTER'S general description was true. Other accounts, very nearly official, and, at any rate, being of unquestionable authenticity, concur so fully with the statements made at the Manchester Meeting, that it is impossible not to believe, that a great number of thousands of persons are now on the point of perishing for want of food, and _that many have actually perished from that cause_; and that this has taken place, and is taking place, IN ENGLAND.

3. There is, then, no doubt of the existence of the disgraceful and horrid facts; but that which is as horrid as are the facts themselves, and even more horrid than those facts, is the cool and _unresentful_ language and manner in which the facts are usually spoken of. Those who write about the misery and starvation in Lancashire and Yorkshire, never appear to think _that any body is to blame_, even when the poor die with hunger. The Ministers ascribe the calamity to "_over-trading_;" the cotton and cloth and other master-manufacturers ascribe it to "_a want of paper-money_," or to the _Corn-Bill_; others ascribe the calamity to the _taxes_. These last are right; but what have these things to do with the treatment of the poor? What have these things to do with the horrid facts relative to the condition and starvation of English people? It is very true, that the enormous taxes which we pay on account of loans made to carry on the late unjust wars, on account of a great standing army in time of peace, on account of pensions, sinecures and grants, and on account of _a Church_, which, besides, swallows up so large a part of the produce of the land and the labour; it is very true, that these enormous taxes, co-operating with the paper-money and its innumerable monopolies; it is very true, that _these enormous taxes_, thus associated, have produced the ruin in trade, manufactures and commerce, and have, of course, produced the _low wages_ and the _want of employment_; this is very true; but it is not less true, that, be wages or employment as they may, the poor are not to perish with hunger, or with cold, while the rest of the community have food and raiment more than the latter want for their own sustenance. The LAW OF ENGLAND says, that there shall be no person to suffer from want of food and raiment. It has placed _officers_ in every parish to see that no person suffer from this sort of want; and lest these officers should not do their duty, _it commands all the magistrates_ to hear the complaints of the poor, and to compel the officers to do their duty. The LAW OF ENGLAND has provided ample means of relief for the poor; for, it has authorized the officers, or overseers, to get from the rich inhabitants of the parish as much money as _is wanted_ for the purpose, without any limit as to amount; and, in order that the overseers may have no excuse of inability to make people pay, the law has armed them with powers of a nature the most efficacious and the most efficient and most prompt in their operation. In short, the language of the LAW, to the overseer, is this: "Take care that no person suffer from hunger, or from cold; and that you may be sure not to fail of the means of obeying this my command, I give you, as far as shall be necessary for this purpose, full power over all the lands, all the houses, all the goods, and all the cattle, in your parish." To the Justices of the Peace the LAW says: "Lest the overseer should neglect his duty; lest, in spite of my command to him, any one should suffer from hunger or cold, I command you to be ready to hear the complaint of every sufferer from such neglect; I command you to summon the offending overseer, and to compel him to do his duty."