who has the management of the oven should be instructed to
take care that the wood-ashes are not thrown into the dust-hole with
the ashes from the grates. They are always valuable in the country;
and, as I have mentioned, the wooden articles used in the dairy should
always be scrubbed with them. Should the water which is used in the
house be hard, and any washing done at home, they should be place in a
coarse cloth over a tub, and water poured over them several times to
make lye, which softens the water, and saves soap much more than soda,
and is likewise better for the linen.

The brick oven will often prove a source of great convenience,
independent of bread-making. It is just the size to bake hams or
roasting pigs, and will, when dinner-parties are given, frequently
prove much more useful to the cook than an extra fire.

The fagots are sold by the hundred, and the price is usually $6 25 for
that quantity.

CHAPTER XII.

OUR KITCHEN-GARDEN.

As I wish to make this little work a complete manual to the "farm of
four acres," I must insert a few remarks on the management of the
kitchen-garden. Ours consisted of an acre; and, large as our family
was, we did not require more than half of it to supply us with
vegetables, independent of potatoes.

We strongly advise any one who may have more garden than they may want
for vegetables, to plant the surplus with potatoes. Even if the
"disease" does affect part of the crop, the gain will still be great,
providing you keep animals to consume them; for they must indeed be
bad if the pigs will not thrive on them when boiled. Poultry,
likewise, will eat them in preference to any other food.

We had something more than half an acre planted one year when the
disease was very prevalent; the crop suffered from it to a
considerable extent, but the yield was so large that we stored
sufficient to supply the family from September till the end of April,
and had enough of those but slightly affected to fatten four pigs,
beside having a large bowlful boiled daily for the poultry. The worst
parts were always cut out before they were boiled, and neither pigs
nor poultry were allowed to touch them raw.

It is much the best plan to consume all the potatoes you may grow,
rather than save any of them for seed. It will be but a slight
additional expense to have fresh kinds sent from quite a different
locality, and they will thrive better, and not be so liable to the
disease.

They should