Preface

Introduction

PART 1
Of the several Sorts of Wheat usually sown in England for making Bread.
  Of the Nature and Uses of good and bad Yeast or Barm, as it relates
  to baking of Bread.
  Of making common Wheaten-Bread for a private Family in Hertfordshire.
  To make Bread with a Mixture of Wheat and Barley Meal, so as to make
  it answer the greatest Advantage of a Family.
  Of the several Uses of Barley-Meal, and Fat, in making Pye-Crust,
  Pancakes, Puddings, &c.
  How commodiously Pancakes answer the Farmers, the Yeomens, and Gentlemens
  Interest.
  Of making Puddings with Wheat-Flower, in Harvest, and at other Times in
  the Year.
  Of Apple-Pyes, and Apple-Pasties, for Harvest and other Times.
  Of Victualling Harvest-men in Hertfordshire.

PART 2-A
Of the Nature and Uses of Pork in Harvest and at other Times of the Year.
  The Benefts of saving the Fat of boiled, roasted, or baked Meats.
  Of saving the best Fat of a Porker or Bacon Hog.
  Of making Sausages.
  Of making Black and White Hogs Puddings.
PART 2-B
  Of Chitterlins, their Make and Use.
  Of Bacon in general.
  Of the Feeding of Boars, and making Brawn of them.
  The Management of Sows and their Pigs. 

PART 3
Of Cheap, Approved, and Experienced MEDICINES and REMEDIES for Divers 
Diseases incident to Human Bodies.
Of Poultry and their Eggs.
The DAIRY.

PART 4
Of Thefts and Robberies, with Precautions to prevent them.
Diseases and Medicines.
Advertisement.

PART 5
Of the Butter and Cheese Dairy.

PART 6
Of Calves.
Various RECEITS.
Of Brewing Malt Liquors.




PREFACE

TO THE
Country Family's Proftable Director.

   THE great losses that have accrued to country families, by a wrong 
management of their household affairs, has partly induced me to send into 
the world the following treatise. Woeful experience has shewn this to be 
true in innumerable instances: The art therefore of saving the penny, and 
making money go the farthest, I have here endeavoured to make known, by 
publishing great numbers of serviceable matters, as they have been really 
practised in the most provident country families, and some of them in my 
own. The preservation of wheat, barley, and oat meals, meats, roots, 
fruits, herbs, &c. from the damage of insects, and if infected how to be 
cured; the making of many sorts of bread, cakes, pies, puddings, tarts; 
the cooking of many dishes of meat, soups, sauces, gruels, furmity, barley-
broth, white-pot, and rice-milk; the best method of curing bacon, brawn, 
pickled pork, hams, tongues, hung-beef, sausages, by the latest and newest 
ways, and many other kitchen viands; brewing malt liquors, distilling, 
pickling, making cordials, teas, coffee, chocolate, natural and artifcial, 
verjuice, vinegars; the management of sows and pigs, cows, and fowls of 
several sorts; a butter and cheese dairy after an uncommon manner, much 
better that what is commonly practised; the present way of victualling 
harvest-men, and maintaining farmers servants the rest of the year; the 
subtil ways, whereby servants have robbed their masters, laid open, that 
others may prevent the like; a receit thought to be the best that ever was 
published for curing the cows of the murrain distemper, with an account of 
the famous effects of a quicksilver water, which although as innocent to 
take as small beer or spring water, yet will cure the pox, King's evil, 
leprosy, scald-head, itch, scurvy, and mange in beasts; so that all 
persons, of what sex or age soever, ought to drink of this water, with an 
account how a man in my neighbourhood was thereby cured of an old 
ulcerated King's-evil in his throat, and another elsewhere of a rivetted 
pox, when he was so weak as not to be able to go through a salivation, 
have been twice pox'd but cured before; the history of two noblemen, who 
were excellent œconomists; how several men, women, and children, have been 
poisoned, and some cured by eating poisonous roots, herbs, and insects; 
with many receits of plain, cheap, experienced medicines, and the cures 
they have made in country families, with many other most serviceable 
matters, by which poor families, and those that live at some distance from 
a town, may become their own physician and surgeon, and probably many 
lives thereby saved, as well as chargeable bills prevented: These and many 
other most serviceable things I humbly offer to the publick, hoping they 
will be candidly received, as my endeavours are truly designed for my 
country's welfare, who am (with my best wishes for their success) their 
sincerely devoted servant,

William Ellis,

Author of The Practical Farmer, The Chiltern and Vale Farmer, The Modern 
Husbandman, The London and Country Brewer, The Supplement to Mr. Trowell's 
Book of Husbandry and Gardening, and The Shepherd's Sure Guide.




AN INTRODUCTION TO
The Country Housewife.

TO write a serviceable book of country houswifery, requires an author who 
lives amongst its practice; for without such an opportunity, it is not to 
be supposed it can be done to much purpose, because of the many branches 
of action depending on the same, both in the house and out-houses, garden, 
orchard, and feld. And although that part of it, of securing (by the care 
and vigilance of our country housewife and her servants) a gentleman's, a 
yeoman's, and a farmer's property from the ravage of pilfering persons, 
has escaped the notice of almost all authors, yet I think it a matter of 
that consequence as deserves more than ordinary regard: For to what 
purpose is it for persons to study, labour, and be at a great expence to 
get crops of corn, hay, and fruit, to breed and fatten cattle, and 
endeavour by a hundred ways to promote their interest, and at the same 
time suffer themselves to be pilfer'd and cheated at home. I am therefore 
led to enlarge upon that instructive proverbial sentence, Happy is he who 
by other mens harms learns to beware, by giving my reader an account of 
several impositions that have really happened to gentlemen, yeomen, and 
farmers, by servants, pilfering neighbours, and others.

  A captain of a man of war in Queen Anne's time, having acquired an 
estate of about 14000L. laid part of it out in purchasing houses and 
lands; one purchase whereof he made in Buckinghamshire, in buying a large 
farm of 300 acres of land, which he kept in his own hands, and a number of 
servants accordingly: Now this gentleman being a batchelor, he confded in 
his chief servant-maid to manage his houshold affairs; and as he kept a 
considerable number of cows, and made large quantities of butter for a 
London market, he ordered this his maid to make cheese for his servants of 
all skim mik,[sic: milk] and this she did when she could not well help it, 
but when she had an opportunity she threw into the skim milk, new milk or 
cream; but although she did this contrary to her master's order, yet in 
the main I think the captain lost nothing by it, for when the cheese was 
made with all skim milk, the servants gave much of it away to dogs, and 
some they put into the hog-tub, and otherwise wasted it.

   Another piece of bad management is of a yeoman's wife, who by her 
imprudence occasioned her husband much damage: The farm of about seventy 
pounds a year being his own, he did his part with much care and labour; 
but his wife was so indolent as to suffer a thievish neighbour now and 
then to harangue her itching ears with a gossip's story in defaming of 
another's reputation, and while her back was turned, and nobody present, 
they would catch up something or other; or if she went but up stairs, or 
out of the house, they would take a piece of pickled pork out of the pot, 
or cut off a slice of bacon, if in their reach, and the same by her 
cheese, bread, &c. Besides which, this yeoman's wife, thus blind to her 
husband's interest, kept a maid-servant, who was both a drunkard and 
thief, as well as possess'd of other faults, insomuch that she would carry 
out bread, cheese, and other provisions, and give them away to a 
neighbouring gin-seller, where she now and then got intoxicated, when to 
colour her drunkenness, she would hold her hand to her cheek, and complain 
of an excessive ft of the tooth-ach, in order for a pretext to lie down on 
the bed, and recover her senses: Thus she went on for some time, till at 
last her master saw through the imposition, and had her turn'd away: 
However, these and some other pieces of bad œconomy brought the yeoman's 
farm under a heavy mortgage, and so it remains at this day.

   A lady now living, who kept seven or eight maid-servants, refused to 
hire any in her own neighbourhood, but had them from distant parts, 
because she thereby thought her goods the better secured from 
imbezzlement, as well knowing that there are many thefts committed by 
servants through the enticements of wicked parents or neighbours; many 
instances of which I could send into the world, but I hope these few hints 
will suffce to the intelligent: Supposing then, that a vigilant regard is 
duly observed by our country housewife, in securing her household and 
other goods from waste and the rapine of domestic and other thieves, I 
proceed now to farther advise her.

   First to lay her money out to the best advantage in the buying of 
provisions not of her own produce, always remembering she cannot well lay 
out her money worse than buying her sugar, plumbs, candles, cheese, cloth, 
&c. at petty chandlers shops. I have known a pound of treacle sold at such 
a shop in the country at the rate of 4d. per pound, when in London I have 
bought it for about fve farthings, taking half a hundred weight together; 
for this is what I am seldom without, as it saves sugar in pies, lessens 
the consumption of malt, and is of great service in curing colds in man or 
beast. Much also of the same bad housewifery may persons be guilty of, to 
a great loss, in buying tea, coffee, spice, and many other things, at such 
shops, and especially where the chalk is made use of, for then many buyers 
dare hardly fnd fault. Thus there are many parcels of whey butter or 
second butter sold for prime butter, bad running tallow candles sold for 
good ones, nasty dripping fat (which is often bought by the necessitous or 
ill housewife) for pure fat, West-India coffee for right Turkey coffee, 
though it is cheaper by one shilling or more in a pound. Oatmeal and salt 
are commonly sold at these petty shops by a wooden measure, from half a 
pint to several other quantities, and thus retail'd, to the prejudice of 
the poor buyer, who hereby comes off with scanty measure.

   The next thing I have to advise our country housewife to, is to keep 
one or more pair of scales by her, in readiness to weigh the goods she 
buys. A person of my acquaintance paid for half a pound of hops at a 
chandler's shop in the country, and when at home (on weighing the same) 
found a full ounce wanting, upon which he upbraided the seller, who for 
excuse said their wooden scale was foul by weighing ßour in it, which 
caused the mistake. Again, where any shopkeeper asks extravagantly more 
than the commodity is worth, I would not deal with such a one; and it is 
for this very reason that I have known some miss nearer shops, to go three 
miles farther in the country for buying their linen-cloth, because the 
shopkeeper was at a word in asking a reasonable price, and therefore a 
fool or an infant may be safely sent to such a market. And the advantage 
of this way of dealing is manifest in the character given by a taylor, who 
being ask'd where cloth for a coat might be bought at the lowest price, 
answer'd, at such a Quaker's shop, for that he will not ask above two 
pence in fve shillings more than he will take. Some of our churchmen 
having since taken this hint, and to prevent the Quakers monopolizing of 
custom, have fell into the same way of dealing.

   It is also very ill housewifery to buy bacon or pickled pork at shops 
(as is done by thousands) where there is a conveniency to prevent it, by 
feeding swine at home. Thus to keep the most serviceable victuals of all 
others at home, is to command in a great degree the butcher's shop; for if 
servants can't live upon a piece of bacon or pickled pork, and a pudding 
or apple dumplins for dinners and suppers, let them fast I say: It is what 
I observe for most part of the year, or else I think I should not get much 
by farming.

   The brewing of beer at home, where conveniency will allow it, and 
keeping it to a right age, is certainly good housewifery. For to buy it 
abroad, and thereby pay excise, is extravagant management indeed; or to 
drink new beer, is not acting the saving part, because it quenches not 
drought like older, neither is it so wholsome.

   The baking of bread at home, where it can be conveniently done, for a 
large family, will certainly pay much better than to buy it of bakers; for 
as home-baked bread may be made closer and heartier than theirs, it will 
last the longer in the stomach, and thus go farther than sale bread. But 
this is not all the inconvenience attending the buying of goods at petty 
shops; for where the shopkeeper is of the gossiping sort, they have a 
cow's tongue (as we call it in the country) a smooth side and a rough 
side: Such persons will get all the intelligence they can of your affairs, 
and if they are prejudiced against you, they will make an ill use of it, 
to your disadvantage; which is what I have known done to the woeful 
experience of several. Therefore take care, not to give your children or 
servants an opportunity of being corrupted by buying things at such a 
shop. If any shopkeeper should slander or backbite me unjustly, they may 
be assured (if I sent farther for my goods) I would not deal with them: 
And if all persons would observe to do the same, we should prevent that 
infnite number of inconveniencies which have happened for want of such 
precautions.

   The keeping of servants at home must redound to their masters and 
mistresses proft, for according to their management they may be made 
either serviceable or unserviceable. I never knew a farmer thrive that let 
his servants stay long, or lie out at nights, to go to common dancing or 
drinking bouts, &c. which are the bane of youth; nor who let them lie too 
long in bed, or stand idle for want of appointing them work in due time. 
Remember that the eye of the master or mistress forwards business, and to 
rise at fve is the way to thrive.

   The burning of wood comes next under my notice, and with good reason, 
for by burning green wood instead of dry wood there is near a double waste 
made. I have known an indiscreet family, that used to lay a whole bound 
fve-foot long faggot on at once, and thus a long fre devour'd as much wood 
again as was necessary. The same yeoman, who has about twenty inclosed 
felds besides a wood, for want of providing a stock of wood in the felling 
season, has been forced to sell a fruit-bearing large standard cherry-tree 
for fewel. Bad husbandry with a witness!

   The keeping of salves and other remedies in the house, so as to have 
them always in readiness, is of such importance in gentlemen's, yeomen's, 
and farmer's families, that none should be without them, by reason of the 
many accidents that a country family is more liable to than most others: 
For here are horses, cows, hogs and dogs, besides the many cutting and 
pointed instruments of husbandry that must be unavoidably made use of. 
These and other remedies being ready at hand, may probably save the 
expence of large doctors bills, and perhaps lives.

   The same in respect of preventing and curing sickness, which is of such 
consequence in a country family, that none that can afford it ought to be 
without brandy, cordial waters, or strong beer or ale, and other hearty 
liquors, oils, verjuice, and a hundred others of such kind of necessaries, 
for commanding their uses at any time; for in many country places, some of 
these can't be had for love nor money, nor a doctor be procured without 
sending several miles for one. This piece of good housewifery in many of 
the abler sort of good women is happily experienced, not only by their own 
families, but also by many of their poor neighbours, who are unable to 
provide such cordial remedies: And it is certainly one of the best of 
charities, for women of ability to distill cordial waters at home, to keep 
balsams by them, and to furnish their closet with such remedies as may 
relieve the necessitous poor people, who perhaps might lose their lives if 
not thus timely assisted with such charitable means. Instances of which 
sort of benevolence are well known to us at Gaddesden, by the noble 
actions of two gentlewomen now living near us; the one for giving an 
expensive liquor to penurious persons, and thereby curing many of their 
agues; the other for distributing of cordial waters to the sick, visiting 
them, and giving cloaths to some, according to her ability: Most worthy of 
the example and imitation of all those whose conveniency enables them to 
do the like. But for a farther description of a right country housewife, I 
shall subjoin the following account, as published by a doctor of divinity 
amongst his works, in dispraise and praise of women, viz.

   "What (says he) is more shameful than to see a woman in idleness, and 
with what pretext can she cover her sloth? If she has nothing to do for 
herself, has she nothing to do for the poor? Let her read in the last 
chapter of Proverbs the occupations of a compleat woman. She was without 
doubt a person of quality, since Solomon who gives her description, 
represents her husband in the rank of senators and princes of the earth: 
But did she do as the dames of our days, who pass all the morning in 
sleeping and dressing, the rest of the day to receive and pay visits, and 
all the night at play, at ball, at comedy, at feasts, and all other 
diversions that they can invent; who are provoked they can enjoy no more, 
and who regard labour as a thing unworthy of their rank, and proper only 
for low conditions; who employ all their industry and all their 
application to invent new modes, to search new pleasures, to overcome the 
deformity of nature by artifcial beauties, to consume their substance in 
foolish expences, rather than conserve it by wise œconomy; who leave to 
servants the care of their houses and the conduct of their affairs, who 
have no concern on them of bringing up their children in piety, nor to 
keep their servants in their duty; who take no account of what passes in 
their family, and who are nevertheless curious of knowing all that happens 
in that of their neighbours, to make it a subject of entertainment and 
matter of diversion in company!

   "This was not the life of that generous woman who was the model of her 
sex; she made no such bad use of her time; and had not such an ill opinion 
of labour; they saw her always in exercise and in action; she arose before 
the sun, to give her maidens work, and to teach them herself; she work'd 
on linen and woollen, and judged not that application unworthy of her 
study or the nobleness of her birth; she knew all the secrets of œconomy 
and government; there was nothing better managed than her house, nor 
nothing better regulated than her person; she had a very great care in the 
education of her children, and of the fdelity of her servants; as her 
estate was justly acquired, it was very usefully employed; she made a wise 
distribution of it in favour of those who had need, and she had no poor 
about her that escaped her knowledge and her charity; she comforted one 
and assisted another, she made one agree with the other, and composed all 
the differences which were bred between them; her husband, who had a 
perfect confdence in her, reposed himself intirely on her care of his 
domestick affairs, whilst he was employed in the most important 
negotiations of the state.

   "You will perhaps say, that this woman is no other than in the idea of 
the wiseman, and that there are none of this sort in the world; but you 
will fnd a great number before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, who will 
condemn the lazy idle life that you lead, by the example of an acting and 
laborious one that they led: If there be any guilty of sloth, pretend not 
to justify yours by theirs."