could bake oat cakes properly, so special is the art required to preserve in the highest degree the peculiar aroma and sweetness in question. Doubtless some of our readers have experienced the provokingly seeking | smoke of "a baking day," which not only fills every corner and cranny of the kitchen, but also of the whole house, the moment the work commences. What is it? Chemistry as yet has returned no satisfactory answer, although the "missus can tell, long before it is time for her to get out of bed on the morning of such a day, whether the cook is making good or bad bread. All that we do know is this, that it is the smoke of oat-cakes when baking, and that it affects the eyes and nose dif. ferently when properly cooked from what it does when otherwise. When oatmeal is thrown into cold water a slight effervescence takes place, proving that a change is being effected owing to the presence of alkaline and acid substances. In mixing the water and meal hastily, in making and kneading the dough, this change is to a certain degree prevented; and we can readily suppose that when exposed to the influence of heat a certain change may take place between the oil, alkaline, acid, and other elements subject to the peculiar modus operandi comprised in the general details of kiln-drying and baking, but our limits will not allow us to enter upon so broad a field as such an hypothesis opens up before us. Suffice it to say at present, that the art of making oat cakes is a very nice one, requiring no small amount of handicraft to perform it properly.

We have just been speaking of "plain bread," but our readers will observe that there are also "buttered cakes,' ," "sugared cakes," "seed-cakes," "sponge-cakes," &c., in endless variety. Butter does not answer so well, -according to our taste at least-as suet, or the fat skimmed from broths and soups, or the dripping of roast meat. Any fat of this kind is melted in the water for making the dough, and incorporated with the meal while hot. The dough is then kneaded into cakes, as formerly, in the case of plain bread. Cakes made in this manner eat very short and nice, and we have sometimes thought more easily digested than plain. Sugar is seldom added, but when done is also melted in the hot or cold water for making the dough. Seeds are frequently used, especially carraways; and they are best to be mixed with the meal prior to making the dough. Soda-cakes are occasionally made, but eggs are seldom used in the making of oaten bread. A few potatoes are frequently mixed by thrifty cottagers' wives, when the bread assumes the name of potato-bread.

Cakes are either baked upon a gridiron over a clear fire, or toasted before it; sometimes they are turned upon the gridiron, but more frequently baked on the under-side only, and then toasted on the upper side before the fire. But the best cakes are those which are toasted on both sides before the fire, or over it on an open slate-bottomed gridiron, being the whitest and best flavoured. At the same time, it may be proper to mention that there is a peculiar method of kneading and turning on the gridiron, which produces a soft but very sweet cake, preferred by some. Cakes, of course, may also be baked in ovens.

Oat-cakes are eaten in the same manner as wheaten bread, only with milk they form a dessert-dish, as it were, on almost all occasions among the labouring classes, unless where tea and coffee are used. After his porridge and milk at breakfast, for instance, the labourer generally, if not always, uses less or more "' cakes and milk" also, and not unfrequently the same at dinner and supper.

Much has been said and written against and in favour of oat-cakes as food. In point of economy they have extremely little to recommend them in preference to wheaten bread. A stone of oatmeal when baked, for instance, goes into extremely little bulk, and has no great duration upon the table of a hard-working manless, we have often thought, than four quartern loaves. At the same time, both are generally to be found on the tables of farmers, and not unfrequently their labourers also, and the former often preferred. Upon the whole, however, leavened bread is gaining ground, more being now consumed than formerly. The more prudent and economical use of oatmeal is in puddings, gruel, and mixing in broths and potages.

Gruel made of oatmeal or groats is probably as much used in the south as the north; and its value is too well known to require special notice. There are probably as many modes of cooking it as there are provinces in the kingdom, owing to the numerous ingredients used for seasoning; besides which, we have several kinds, as water-gruel," "whey-gruel," "milk-gruel," "alegruel," "beef-tea-gruel," &c.

seen,

Besides gruels, oatmeal is often used largely in broths, or vegetable-soups, or rather potages. We have for instance, greens cut very small, and boiled for several hours along with a little oatmeal, and a small piece of mutton-suet, or even butter, so as to form a thick mess, which was eaten with cakes, pepper, &c. We have also seen thin hard-baked cakes broken down and used in making broth with beef or mutton, in the same manner as the Bedouin Arabs do with unleavened cakes of millet, lentil, barley, or wheaten flour, and which relished very nice, especially when a few vegetables from the garden were added. Where vegetables contain a large per-centage of those elements of food of which oatmeal is deficient, there cannot be a doubt as to the propriety of its being mixed along with them in potages, and the like; but of this more afterwards.

It has always occurred to us that for bread, gruels, and mixing with soups, &c., oatmeal should be differently manufactured; but here we have no experience. Were oats dried more slowly on the kiln, and ground fine like wheat, we think leavened loaves might be made, with the addition of a very little wheat flour; and our reason for so thinking is the above and other analyses. We wish some of our northern readers would try an experiment. In point of fact, we are here throwing a very responsible duty off our own shoulders upon those of millers and farmers.

As formerly stated, the most important mode of using oatmeal is in puddings, of which there is an endless variety, arising partly from the different modes of cooking, but principally from the long list of articles

mixed along with it. The whole of them, in the language of cooking wheaten flour, are essentially "batter puddings," as will be seen from the few examples we shall give for the sake of illustration. Their value depends upon their chemical analyses-but of this afterwards. They are divided into two classes, under various provincial generic terms-as "porridge," pottage," "porritch," "stirabout," "crowdy," &c.; and "brose," "hasty pudding," &c.

"Porridge."-When oatmeal is mixed in any boil. ing liquid, in quantity such as to bring it to the consistency of a pudding, or in any cold liquid, and then brought to the boil, and boiled for a short time, the mixture being properly seasoned with salt, it forms porridge. The difference between porridge and gruel thus lies chiefly in the quantity of oatmeal used to a given quantity of water; and in different provinces there is a considerable dissimilarity in the consistency of porridge itself, it being used "thick," as it is termed, in some, "little boiled;" and "thin" in others, "greatly boiled."

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"Brose."-When any boiling liquid is poured on oatmeal, with a sufficiency of salt to season it, and stirred together, the mixture is termed "brose." This may appear to some of our readers "cookery simple;" but it is no such thing, for much more art is required to make "brose" than porridge, arising from the greater difficulty of getting the gluten of the meal to coagulate properly, as we shall show under "Water Brose." "Water Porridge," or simply "Porridge," posed of water and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, and cooked in various ways, being sometimes mixed together cold, and allowed to stand from 12 to 24 hours prior to being boiled, sometimes the mixture is made immediately before boiling, and sometimes the oatmeal is added slowly to the water while boiling. Each of those modes has its advocates; but the last is the more common of the three, and may, without doubt, be admitted as the best for general use.

Before describing the modus operandi of making porridge, it will be necessary to notice, in the first place, the "porridge stick," with which the meal is stirred into the water. This instrument has different names in our provinces, and its size depends upon the quantity to be made; consequently, where porridge is the common or daily fare of labourers, in the kitchens of large farmers, various sizes are necessary, from twelve inches to three feet in length, and from an inch to an inch and a-half in diameter. Small ones should be flattened or made broad at one end, so as the better to mix the meal; and round at the other, for being held in the hand: but where the diameter exceeds an inch, flattening the lower end is unnecessary. Any sort of stick, however, will "stir the porridge," although the above is preferred; and the only difference between the "porridge stick" and "brose stick" is in the size, the latter requiring to be less, and rather sharper at the stirring end, in consequence of the peculiar action with which it is wrought by the cook.

The grand secret of making porridge lies in the coagulation of the gluten of the particles of meal sepa

rately as they enter the boiling water, so as to have the pudding equally and properly boiled. To accomplish this, the meal should be strewed in as slowly as possible, while the "porridge stick" should be kept going, so as to stir it into the boiling mixture as fast as it reaches its surface, thus preventing what is termed "knotting." If the meal is thrown faster in than its particles are incorporated separately, "knotting" is the result; and the interior of these knots is seldom properly boiled, and often not even coagulated at all, because the coagulation of the outside prevents it. If the boiling is kept up for a sufficient length of time, the whole will be coagulated, of course, and the knots even broken up and equally mixed in the mass; but this requires extra time, labour, and expense of fire-matters of the greatest importance in cottage cookery. Hence the theory of brown-dried and coarsely-ground meal, which we shall subsequently notice.

The proper manner of making porridge is this. The cook, strewing the meal in slowly with one hand, stirs it into the boiling water with the "porridge stick" in the other, taking care to keep up a brisk boil. In order to prevent knotting, and the ebullition from subsiding, the meal, by a rubbing action of the thumb upon the fingers, is showered into the water, as if from a sieve; or, where the quantity of pudding is small, analogous to a gardener sowing small seeds. The experienced cook knows well that if she allows the boiling to cease by putting in the meal too fast, she can never procure so well-flavoured a pudding; and the same result is experienced if knotting takes place. These are cardinal points in practice. When the first handful of meal is mixed, there is a disposition to "boil up;" and the cook's maxim is just to prevent it from doing so, and running over into the fire, by adding slowly the meal. After it acquires a certain thickness, the process of "boiling up" ceases-an indication that there is a sufficiency of meal added, and that if the porridge is now properly boiled, it will be thick enough for the generality of tastes. During the former process, the boiling up, or rather disposition to do so, is accompanied with a soft hissing and scarcely audible noise, with a bubbling appearance around the outsides; while the latter is characterised by a sputtering noise, easily heard at some distance, besides a spitting appearance, small drops of the porridge being thrown up sometimes when the fire is burning very briskly, so that any party without experience (for we are writing to such) will easily know the change which takes place, and consequently when enough meal has been added. Something will depend upon the coarseness of the meal, and the dispatch with which it has been added. If coarse, and mixed quickly, there being a brisk fire, it will be thick enough generally when properly boiled afterwards; but if the meal is fine, and added slowly, a little more may be required. The true index, however, of the quantity of meal to be added to a given quantity of water is the thickness of the pudding itself—a state not very easily defined so as to enable cooks to perform the work without a little experience. A given weight of meal to a given measure of water, although the formal rule in

cookery books, is yet of no use in practice, because boiling water soon diminishes in bulk, while fine meal requires more water than coarse, the latter requiring more boiling; so that we are involving our readers in some very nice questions connected with porridge making -questions no more than properly understood by experienced cooks themselves, at least of the north, for we have there heard it said that "between Maidenkirk and John o'Groat's few could make their master's supper, and some the bridegroom's porridge never." We speak encouragingly for the south, which may yet carry off the palm; but to our text-the thickness of the porridge, which should be such as to pour somewhat freely into a buttered mould, and jelly or thicken to the consistency of a common batter pudding when cooled to nearly blood heat, at which temperature it should be dished and eaten, as batter puddings generally are, or otherwise with cream or milk as a rice or bread pudding, which is preferable.

"When is a Potato boiled?" The same rule is applicable for determining when oatmeal is boiled as when potatoes. When each particle of meal is sufficiently done to the heart, the porridge is boiled-a rule so plain as to require no elucidation. The reduction of the rule to practice, however, is a different thing, especially to parties who have no experience; but a very little of this will suffice to inform any cook when an oatmenl pudding is of an equal consistency throughout, cutting clean and free from a watery and granulated appearance like a well-made batter pudding, only not so tough. It cuts and eats nicer, "in short," to those who like it.

Fine meal is more easily boiled than coarse, and produces a better pudding, but is more difficult to make; hence the reason why the latter is preferred, generally speaking. Why over the majority of provinces where porridge is used, "brose-meal" is preferred to "porridge-meal" itself for the making of porridge! Why, in short, common-sense cooking has been led astray so far, that many are not aware that there are two such kinds of meal, or any reason whatever for their being so-cooks who just think that what suits their own easy way is best for the family. The mistake may be pardoned, and the reason why fine meal is more easily boiled than coarse requires no further proof than large and small potatoes. There is, however, a limit to fineness; for when ground into flour like wheat, it is hardly possible to shower it into the boiling water so as to prevent knotting, owing to the particles adhering together; but the more finely and equally granulated it is, if it only runs through the fingers by the assistance of the thumb, as formerly mentioned, so much the better.

When the meal is soaked in water for a night, it not only swells, but acquires a certain degree of acidity; and if for a few days, porridge made of it has the peculiar acid taste of "flummery" (Irish) or "sowens" (Scotch). The degree of acidity acquired from one night's soaking is so little as scarcely to be perceptible, unless to those who have some experience in porridge. The pudding eats softer, and on that account may be relished better by some; but it loses the peculiar flavour which charac

terises well-made oatmeal porridge, as also, we believe, part of its nutritive value, while it requires much more labour and time to make it. Mixing the oatmeal in the water when cold also requires more labour of the cook, it being necessary to stir it not only before it comes to the boil, but longer afterwards 'ere it assumes the proper consistency of a pudding. When mixed cold, oatmeal ground to the finest flour is preferable, and, as will readily be perceived, requires less boiling, and hence less labour and fire, than granulated cooked in the same way, but is more expensive than finely granulated made in the common way, or mixed in the boiling water.

The Flummery of our oatmeal-consuming districts is a pudding made from the farina of the oat after it has undergone the process of souring, and differs widely from the flummery of some of our English cookery books. It is neither a cheap diet, nor yet a very nourishing one, and as we are endeavouring to produce cheap food for the hard-working man, shall postpone consideration of it for the present.

Oatmeal is sometimes mixed with barley-meal, peameal, bean-meal, and wheaten-meal; but less frequently than formerly, as it does not improve the pudding. Of late, rice has been strongly recommended; but whole rice, as proposed, does not make a good pudding. We have tried it in various ways, soaked and unsoaked; but it does not answer well, not mixing properly. Ricemeal, however, may be prudently mixed in small quantity, making a lighter pudding, and what we have no doubt would be relished better by families accustomed only to wheaten flour. The two meals should be well mixed prior to cooking; and, in proportion, according to the taste of parties. From experiments we have made, one-third rice-meal to two-thirds oatmeal may ultimately be approved of; but half-and-half to commence. Any country miller could grind rice, and the expense would be much less than that of the additional fire and time required to cook whole rice; so that by employing the miller we have a two-fold gain.

Porridge is generally eaten with skimmed milk; but sometimes table-beer, treacle, butter, or sauce made of butter or suet, water, and a little flour, boiled together to the consistency of gruel, when milk cannot be had. For several months during winter we have seen farmlabourers have nothing but beer. Burns alludes to this in very forcible terms, when he says—

"Yet humbly kind in time o' need,
The poor man's wine;

His wee drap parritch, or his bread,
Thou kitchen's fine."

Milk, however, with but very few exceptions, is preferred to beer. Those who prefer the latter are generally those with whose stomachs the former does not agree.

Milk porridge is made by substituting milk generally skimmed for water, and is eaten alone. It requires less meal, but more boiling. Whey porridge is when whey is substituted for water; and "ale porridge" when beer is substituted; sugar is occasionally used in each case.

Water-brose.-Put a handful of meal into a bowl, a little salt upon it; then pour boiling water on the salt

in quantity sufficient to make the mess of the consistency of a pudding, stir quickly with a brose-stick, pour a pint of new milk over it, and eat immediately. With single men in "bothies," this is a favourite dish, three times daily, every day of the year; and we have seen them make and eat it within five minutes! Mastication is not required, it is said (?). Indeed, to chew your brose is but another way of saying "Don't like 'em."

Brose-meal requires to be well dried; the oats parched on the kiln, as it were, and coarsely granulated, in order that the boiling-water may be got quickly mixed with it before it cools below a temperature sufficient to coagulate the outsides of the particles. The whole art of brose-making lies in getting the water mixed in this way with the meal in a boiling state; and the poor ploughman who cannot master this (as there are many who never can) is truly to be pitied; for in a "bothie"

there is but one choice.

Milk-brose is made by pouring boiling milk upon the meal. Less of the latter is required, and about twice the quantity of the former, than is of water in making "water-brose." The stirring of the boiling milk into the meal is also performed differently, less of it being required, owing to the larger quantity of liquid; and when the two are mixed, a little more hoiling milk is poured over them.

Beef or "mutton-brose" is when the liquid in which beef or mutton is boiled is poured on the meal, in the same manner as in milk-brose. The liquid in which turnips and cabbages are boiled makes "turnip-brose" and "cabbage-brose." In the north, a long list of vegetables go under the name of "kail." Hence the old song, the burden of which runs thus

butter is put into the brose; but the better plan is, a joint of beef or leg of mutton in the pot." The brose in such cases is first eaten; then follow the meat and cabbage; and it takes no great amount of chemistry to shew that porridge and milk for breakfast and supper, and "kail-brose for dinner," are capable of making strong men, the "stalwart" heroes of whom our northern bards have long sung.

Our cookery-books, as our readers are aware, contain various recipes for making oatmeal-puddings, English, French, and Dutch. One says:-" Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint of the best fine meal; let it soak all night; next day beat two eggs, and mix a little salt; butter a bason that will just hold it, cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a-half. Eat it with cold butter and salt."

Another class of puddings is made by mincing suet and onions very fine, and mixing them with oatmeal; adding pepper, salt, &c., to taste. This is sometimes done in a saucepan, and eaten immediately, with vegetables; but more frequently stuffed into the small intestines, cut into lengths of twelve inches or so, and then boiled in a large pot, the two ends being tied: each length forms a pudding. It is termed "whitepudding,' to distinguish it from black or "bloodpuddings;" and will keep for twelve months, requiring only to be heated on the gridiron before the fire, like a mutton-chop, when to be used. Few farm-houses in the north want a reserve of this kind, and many cottages have the same. The liquid in which puddings of this kind are boiled make "pudding brose," when mixed with oatmeal, rather a substantial dish, when puddings break in the boiling, as they sometimes do. So much for oatmeal puddings, the once homely fare W. B.

"If this indicated that our population, having to a great extent escaped from the lazy root' as their staple food, were again falling back upon it, the results would require to be pronounced unfavourable; but in truth, such of our population as are feeding on potatoes now, and fed upon everything else during the period 1847-49, are not falling back from wheat or barley, but are advancing from the Indian meal of the workhouse to potatoes of their own earning. The other fact to be taken into consideration, in looking at the slight decrease of cultivation during the last three years, is the increase in the quantity of stock, and especially in sheep, whose food is principally drawn from land left as natural pasture, Thus the

number of sheep increased by half a million, or one-fifth, in the period between 1847 and 1852, while the average of turnips, almost the only alternative to pasture in the fattening of sheep, very considerably decreased within the same period.

Leaving untouched, at least in the meanwhile, various inquiries suggested by the returns, we would at present only bring to mind another fact of importance, to a proper understanding of the figures at which we have been taking a glance -the fact that, after all, they refer only to what was sown or cultivated a whole year ago, when circumstances were very different from what they have since become. When the ground was prepared and the seed was sown for the crop of 1853, we were approaching, quite unknown to ourselves, a longer period of low prices; and the high prices which have ruled since last April came too late to have any effect on the agricultural operations of the by-gone year. But the high prices, it is notorious, have had a great effect in extending cultivation this year; and we cannot but think that somebody will be to blame if within a month or so we have not an authentic statement of our present position in that respect, especially as the war, deranging and diminishing our resources of foreign supply, will soon invest the whole subject with a great additional interest."

ON THE

SIR,-Various letters have appeared from time to time of late in print, from sporting gentlemen, to advocate the policy of breeding horses for the chase and the camp as profitable; and as I have not seen any reply to any one of them, I venture to trouble you with a few words.

I must premise that I am, and ever have been very partial to horses of every breed, so that I should be sorry to deter any one, who can afford it from breeding horses, and of the best kind; but from the great expense attending this, the heavy expense of rearing them, the many years that must pass before they are serviceable | -I except cart-horses-the great difficulty there is in selling them (arising from prejudice either against the owner or the animal, or against all horses in each particular district), I am quite persuaded there is nothing, next to racing and gambling, which a man of moderate means, who aims at profit, ought more cautiously to avoid than breeding and rearing horses.

When I lived in the western division of Suffolk, some few years ago, most of the gentry, who hunted, expected to get a good hunter for a moderate weight, who knew his work, was fresh on his legs, sound, young, and in good hunting condition, for about £30 or £40 at the outside; and the few who gave better prices never en couraged the breed of horses in the neighbourhood by buying of breeders near home, but bought of some noted London horse-dealer at a very extravagant price, and who, rather than the breeder, got the profit.

Here, on the borders of North Devon and Somerset, a horse is even less saleable at £30; and though young, fresh, sound, and in working condition, a would-beseller here might wait for six months or more for a

purchaser, and think himself fortunate when he found one, rather than sell at a beggarly price at a public auction and a distant town.

To be told for what sums a charger or hunter may be sold, in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire, to a smart cavalry officer or "fast" Melton-man, is no answer to my statement-how unprofitable it is to breed and rear horses generally. I might with equal propriety be told of the sums for which a Derby or St. Leger winner may sell, to some one whose book he does not suit, rather than of the thousands of thorough-bred horses (of the best blood in England) which sell for about £10 to run in a cab.

I will premise that no one need think himself a breeder of horses, who has fewer than two brood mares. And my calculation is that these two are to be kept only with the view of breeding hunters or chargers; that they do no work, be kept in good condition for the sake of the foals; that these last are not to be worked at three year-old to save their keep, but be sold at four years old, untried, fresh, sound, and in good condition (or a man may wait long before he sells, even at £40); that the mares, when bought in, are good, sound, fiveyears. old mares, half-bred, or three-fourths thoroughbred, and are put to good thorough-bred stallions; and that the breeder continues his fancy of breeding for five years, after which he gets tired perhaps, or begins to think of realizing his profits by a sale, or his executors do for him.

I need hardly add, to your intelligent readers, that if a horse is sold by the breeder, after it has established its reputation in the field, any fancy price which it may fetch is realized rather by the jockey than the breeder.