this and in equally absurd
ways, it is no wonder that we see so little performed by numerous
individuals as they do perform during the course of their lives.

158. _Very fat parts of Beef_ may be salted and smoked in a like manner.
Not the _lean_; for that is a great waste, and is, in short, good for
nothing. Poor fellows on board of ships are compelled to eat it, but it is
a very bad thing.

No. VII.

BEES, FOWLS, &C. &C.

159. I now proceed to treat of objects of less importance than the
foregoing, but still such as may be worthy of great attention. If all of
them cannot be expected to come within the scope of a labourer's family,
some of them must, and others may: and it is always of great consequence,
that children be brought up to set a just value upon all useful things,
and especially upon all _living things_; to know the _utility_ of them:
for, without this, they never, when grown up, are worthy of being
entrusted with the _care_ of them. One of the greatest, and, perhaps, the
very commonest, fault of servants, is their inadequate care of animals
committed to their charge. It is a well-known saying that "the _master's
eye_ makes the horse fat," and the remissness to which this alludes, is
generally owing to the servant not having been brought up to feel _an
interest_ in the well-being of animals.

BEES.

160. It is not my intention to enter into a history of this insect about
which so much has been written, especially by the French naturalists. It
is the _useful_ that I shall treat of, and that is done in not many words.
The best _hives_ are those made of clean unblighted _rye-straw_. Boards
are too cold in England. A swarm should always be put into a _new_ hive,
and the sticks should be _new_ that are put into the hive for the bees to
work on; for, if the hive be old, it is not so _wholesome_, and a thousand
to one but it contain the embryos of _moths_ and other insects injurious
to bees. Over the hive itself there should be a cap of thatch, made also
of clean rye straw; and it should not only be _new_ when first put on the
hive; but a new one should be made to supply the place of the former one
every three or four months; for when the straw begins to get rotten, as it
soon does, insects breed in it, its smell is bad, and its effect on the
bees is dangerous.

161. The hive should be placed on a bench, the legs of which mice and rats
cannot creep up. Tin round the legs is best. But even this wi