bannerbanner
The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families
The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

Полная версия

The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

текст

0

0
Язык: Английский
Год издания: 2017
Добавлена:
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля
На страницу:
14 из 17

COCK ROACHES. These insects, consisting of various species, penetrate into chests and drawers, and do considerable injury to linen, books, and other articles. They seldom appear till night, when they infest beds, and bite very severely, leaving an unpleasant smell. The best remedy is to fill an earthen dish with small beer, sweetened with coarse sugar, and set in the place infested. Lay a board against the pan, to form a kind of ladder, and the insects will ascend and fall into the liquor.

COCKLE KETCHUP. Open the cockles, scald them in their own liquor, and add a little water, if there be not enough; but it is better to have a sufficient quantity of cockles, than to dilute it with water. Strain the liquor through a cloth, and season it with savoury spices. If for brown sauce, add port, anchovies, and garlic: a bit of burnt sugar will heighten the colouring. If for white sauce, omit these, and put in a glass of sherry, some lemon juice and peel, mace, nutmeg, and white pepper.

COD FISH. In season from the beginning of December till the end of April. To be quite good, the fish should be thick at the neck, the flesh white and firm, the gills very red, and the eyes bright and fresh. When flabby, they are not good. The cod is generally boiled whole; but a large head and shoulders contain all that is relishing, the thinner parts being overdone and tasteless before the thick are ready. But the whole fish may often be purchased more reasonably; and the lower half, if sprinkled and hung up, will be in high perfection one or two days. Or it may be made salter, and served with egg sauce, potatoes, and parsnips. Small cod is usually very cheap. If boiled fresh, it is watery; but eats well if salted and hung up for a day, to give it firmness. Then it should be stuffed and boiled, or it is equally good broiled.

COD'S HEAD. The head and shoulders of the cod will eat much finer by having a little salt rubbed down the bone, and along the thick part, even if eaten the same day. Tie it up, put it on the fire in cold water sufficient to cover it, and throw a handful of salt into it. Great care must be taken to serve it up without the smallest speck of black, or scum. Garnish with plenty of double parsley, lemon, horse radish, and the milt, roe and liver, and fried smelts, if approved. If with smelts, no water must be suffered to hang about the fish, or the beauty and flavour of the smelts will be lost. Serve with plenty of oyster or shrimp sauce, anchovy and butter.

COD PIE. Take a piece of the middle of a small cod, and salt it well one night. Wash it the next day, season with pepper and salt, mixed with a very little nutmeg. Lay the meat in a dish, with the addition of a little good broth of any kind, and some bits of butter on it. Cover the dish with a crust, and bake it. When done, make a sauce of a spoonful of broth, a quarter of a pint of cream, a little flour and butter, and a dust of grated lemon and nutmeg. Give it one boil, and pour it into the pie. Oysters may be added, but parsley will do instead. Mackarel may be done in the same way, but must not be salted till they are used.

COD SOUNDS BOILED. Soak them in warm water half an hour, then scrape and clean them. If to be dressed white, boil them in milk and water. When tender, serve them up in a napkin, with egg sauce. The salt must not be much soaked out, unless for fricassee.

COD SOUNDS BROILED. Scald them in hot water, rub well with salt, pull off the dirty skin, and simmer them till tender. Then take them out, flour, and broil them. While this is doing, season a little brown gravy with pepper, salt, a tea-spoonful of soy, and a little mustard. Give it a boil with a little flour and butter, and pour it over the sounds.

COD SOUNDS RAGOUT. Having scalded, cleaned, and rubbed them well with salt, stew them in white gravy seasoned. Before they are served, add a little cream, butter and flour, gently boiling up. A bit of lemon peel, nutmeg, and the least pounded mace, will give it a good flavour.

COD SOUNDS LIKE CHICKENS. Carefully wash three large sounds, boil them in milk and water, but not too tender. When cold, put a forcemeat of chopped oysters, crumbs of bread, a bit of butter, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and the yolks of two eggs. Spread it thin over the sounds, roll up each in the form of a chicken, and skewer it. Then lard them as chickens, dust a little flour over, and roast them slowly in a tin oven. When done enough, pour over them a fine oyster sauce, and place them on the table as a side or corner dish.

CODLINS. This fruit may be kept for several months, if gathered of a middling size at midsummer, and treated in the following manner. Put them into an earthen pan, pour boiling water over them, and cover the pan with cabbage leaves. Keep them by the fire till ready to peel, but do not peel them; then pour off the water, and leave them cold. Place the codlins in a stone jar with a smallish mouth, and pour on the water that scalded them. Cover the pot with bladder wetted and tied very close, and then over it coarse paper tied again. The fruit is best kept in small jars, such as will be used at once when opened.

CODLIN CREAM. Pare and core twenty good codlins; beat them in a mortar with a pint of cream, and strain it into a dish. Put to it sugar, bread crumbs, and a glass of wine; and stir it well.

CODLIN TART. Scald the fruit, and take off the skin. Put a little of the liquor on the bottom of a dish, lay in the apples whole, and strew them over with Lisbon or fine sugar. When cold, put a paste round the edges, and over the fruit. Moisten the crust with the white of an egg, and strew some fine sugar over it; or cut the lid in quarters, without touching the paste on the edge of the dish. Remove the lid when cold, pour in a good custard, and sift it over with sugar. Another way is to line the bottom of a shallow dish with paste, lay in the scalded fruit, sweeten it, and lay little twists of paste over in bars.

COFFEE. Put two ounces of fresh-ground coffee, of the best quality, into a coffee pot, and pour eight coffee cups of boiling water on it. Let it boil six minutes, and return it; then put in two or three chips of isinglass, and pour on it one large spoonful of boiling water. Boil it five minutes more, and set the pot by the fire for ten minutes to keep it hot: the coffee will then be of a beautiful clearness. Fine cream should always be served with coffee, and either pounded sugar-candy, or fine Lisbon sugar. If for foreigners, or those who like it very strong, make only eight dishes from three ounces. If not fresh roasted, lay it before the fire until perfectly hot and dry; or put the smallest bit of fresh butter into a preserving pan, and when hot, throw the coffee into it, and toss it about until it be freshened, but let it be quite cold before it is ground. – But as coffee possesses a raw and astringent quality, which often disagrees with weak stomachs, and by being drank too warm is as frequently rendered unwholesome, the following is recommended as an improved method of preparing it. To an ounce of coffee, add a tea-spoonful of the best flour of mustard, to correct its acidity, and improve its fragrance; and in order to render it truly fine and wholesome, it should be made the evening before it is wanted. Let an ounce of fresh-ground coffee be put into a clean coffee pot well tinned, pour upon it a full pint of boiling water, set it on the fire, and after it has well boiled, let it stand by to settle. Next morning pour off the clear liquor, add to it a pint of new milk, warm it over the fire, and sweeten it to taste. Coffee made in this way, will be found particularly suitable to persons of a weak and delicate habit. – A substitute for foreign coffee may be prepared from the acorns of the oak, by shelling and dividing the kernels, drying and roasting them gradually in a close vessel, and keeping them constantly stirring. Grind it like other coffee, and either use it alone, or mix with it a small quantity of foreign coffee. The seeds of the flower de luce, or common waterflag, being roasted in the same manner as coffee, very much resembles it in colour and flavour. Coffee made of these seeds is extremely wholesome, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of boiling water.

COFFEE CAKES. Melt some fresh butter in a pint of thin cream, and work up with it four pounds of dried flour. Add a pound of sugar, a pint of yeast, and half an ounce of carraways. Stir them all together, set it before the fire to rise, roll the paste out thin, cut it into small cakes, and bake them on buttered paper.

COFFEE CREAM. Boil a calf's foot in water till reduced to a pint of jelly, clear of sediment and fat. Make a tea-cupful of strong fresh coffee, clear it perfectly bright with isinglass, and pour it to the jelly. Add a pint of very good cream, sweeten it with fine Lisbon sugar, boil it up once, and pour it into the dish. This article is much admired, but the jelly must not be stiff, and the coffee must be fresh.

COFFEE MILK. Boil a dessert-spoonful of ground coffee, in nearly a pint of milk, a quarter of an hour. Then put in a shaving or two of isinglass to clear it; let it boil a few minutes, and set it on the side of the fire to grow fine. This makes a very fine breakfast; it should be sweetened with real Lisbon sugar of a good quality.

COLD CAUDLE. Boil a quart of spring water; when cold, add the yolk of an egg, the juice of a small lemon, six spoonfuls of sweet wine, sugar to taste, and syrup of lemons one ounce.

COLD FISH. Soles, cod, whitings, or smelts may be cut into bits, and put into scallop shells, with cold oyster, lobster, or shrimp sauce. Having added some bread crumbs, they may be put into a Dutch oven, and browned like scalloped oysters.

COLD MEAT. If it be a little underdone, the best way to warm it up is to sprinkle over a little salt, and put it into a Dutch oven at some distance before a gentle fire, that it may warm gradually. Watch it carefully, and keep turning it till it is quite hot and brown, and serve it up with gravy. This is preferable to hashing, as it will retain more of its original flavour. Roast beef or mutton, of course, are best for this purpose.

COLD SALLAD. Boil an egg quite hard, put the yolk into a sallad dish, mash it with a spoonful of water, then add a little of the best sallad oil or melted butter, a tea-spoonful of ready-made mustard, and some vinegar. Cut the sallad small and mix it together, adding celery, radishes, or other sallad herbs with it. Onions may be served in a saucer, rather than mixed in the bowl. An anchovy may be washed, cut small, and mixed with it; also a bit of beet root, and the white of an egg. Celery may be prepared in the same way.

COLDS. For a bad cold take a large tea-cupful of linseed, two pennyworth of stick liquorice, and a quarter of a pound of sun raisins. Put them into two quarts of water, and let it simmer over a slow fire till reduced one half. Then add a quarter of a pound of sugar-candy pounded, a table-spoonful of rum, and the same of lemon juice or vinegar. The rum and lemon juice are better added when the mixture is taken, or they are apt to grow flat. Take half a pint just warm at bed time.

COLLARED BEEF. Choose the thin end of the flank of fine mellow beef, but not too fat: lay it into a dish with salt and saltpetre, turn and rub it every day for a week, and keep it cool. Then take out every bone and gristle, remove the skin of the inside part, and cover it thick with the following seasoning cut small; a large handful of parsley, the same of sage, some thyme, marjoram and pennyroyal, pepper, salt, and allspice. Roll the meat up as tight as possible, and bind it round with a cloth and tape; then boil it gently for seven or eight hours. Put the beef under a good weight while hot, without undoing it: the shape will then be oval. Part of a breast of veal rolled in with the beef, looks and eats very well.

COLLARED EEL. Bone a large eel, but do not skin it. Mix up pepper, salt, mace, allspice, and a clove or two, in the finest powder, and rub over the whole inside: roll it tight, and bind it with a coarse tape. Boil it in salt and water till done enough, then add vinegar, and when cold keep the collar in pickle. Serve it either whole or in slices. Chopped parsley, sage, a little thyme, knotted marjoram, and savoury, mixed with the spices, greatly improve the taste.

COLLARED MACKAREL. Do them the same as eels, omitting the herbs.

COLLARED MUTTON. Take out the bones and gristle of a breast of mutton, lay the meat flat, and rub it over with egg. Mix some grated bread, pounded cloves and mace, pepper, salt, and lemon peel, and strew over it. Two or three anchovies, washed and boned, may be added. Roll the meat up hard, bind it with tape and boil it; or if skewered, it may either be roasted or baked.

COLLARED PORK. Bone a breast of pork, and season it with thyme, parsley and sage. Roll it hard, tie it up in a cloth, and boil it. Press it well, take it out of the cloth when cold, and keep it in the liquor it was boiled in.

COLLARED PORK'S HEAD. Clean it well, take out the brains, rub it with a handful of salt, and two ounces of saltpetre. Let it lie a fortnight in brine, then wash it, and boil it till the bones will easily come out. Lay it in a dish, take off the skin carefully, take out the bones, and peel the tongue. Mix a handful of sage, a little thyme, and four shalots chopped fine. Put the meat to it, and chop it into pieces about an inch square. Put a thin cloth into an earthen pot, lay in the meat, cover the cloth over, and press it down. Set the pot in the liquor again, boil it nearly an hour longer, then take it out, place a weight on the cover within side, and let it remain all night. Take it out, strip off the cloth, and eat the collar with mustard and vinegar.

COLLARED SALMON. Split such part of the fish as may be sufficient to make a handsome roll, wash and wipe it; and having mixed salt, white pepper, pounded mace, and Jamaica pepper, in quantity to season it very high, rub it inside and out well. Then roll it tight and bandage it, put as much water and one third vinegar as will cover it, adding bay leaves, salt, and both sorts of pepper. Cover it close, and simmer till it is done enough. Drain and boil the liquor, put it on when cold, and serve with fennel. It is an elegant dish, and extremely good.

COLLARED VEAL. Bone the breast and beat it, rub it with egg, and strew over it a seasoning of pounded mace, nutmeg, pepper and salt, minced parsley, sweet marjoram, lemon peel, crumbs of bread, and an anchovy. Roll it up tight in a cloth, and boil it two hours and a half in salt and water. Hang it up, or press it: make a pickle for it of the liquor it was boiled in, and half the quantity of vinegar.

COLLEGE PUDDINGS. Grate the crumb of a two-penny loaf, shred eight ounces of suet, and mix with eight ounces of currants, one of citron mixed fine, one of orange, a handful of sugar, half a nutmeg, three eggs beaten, yolk and white separately. Mix and make into the size and shape of a goose-egg. Put half a pound of butter into a fryingpan; and when melted and quite hot, stew them gently in it over a stove; turn them two or three times, till they are of a fine light brown. Mix a glass of brandy with the batter, and serve with pudding sauce.

COLOURING FOR JELLIES. For a beautiful Red, take fifteen grains of cochineal in the finest powder, and a dram and a half of cream of tartar. Boil them in half a pint of water very slowly for half an hour, adding a bit of alum the size of a pea; or use beet root sliced, and some liquor poured over. For White, use cream; or almonds finely powdered, with a spoonful of water. For Yellow, yolks of eggs, or a little saffron steeped in the liquor and squeezed. For Green, spinach or beet leaves bruised and pressed, and the juice boiled to take off the rawness. Any of these will do to stain jellies, ices, or cakes.

COLOURING FOR SOUPS. Put four ounces of lump sugar, a gill of water, and half an ounce of fine butter into a small tosser, and set it over a gentle fire. Stir it with a wooden spoon, till of a light brown. Then add half a pint of water; let it boil and skim it well. When cold, bottle and cork it close. Add to either soup or gravy as much of this as will give it a proper colour.

COMMON CAKE. Mix three quarters of a pound of flour with half a pound of butter, four ounces of sugar, four eggs, half an ounce of carraways, and a glass of raisin wine. Beat it well, and bake it in a quick oven. – A better sort of common cake may be made of half a pound of butter, rubbed into two pounds of dried flour; then add three spoonfuls of yeast that is not bitter, and work it to a paste. Let it rise an hour and a half; then mix in the yolks and whites of four eggs beaten separately, a pound of Lisbon sugar, about a pint of milk to make it of a proper thickness, a glass of sweet wine, the rind of a lemon, and a tea-spoonful of powdered ginger. A pound of currants, or some carraways may be added, and let the whole be well beaten together.

COMMON PLANTS. The virtues of a great number of ordinary plants and weeds being but little understood, they are generally deemed useless; but they have properties nevertheless which might be rendered useful, if carefully and judiciously applied. The young shoots and leaves of chick-weed, for example, may be boiled and eaten like spinach, are equally wholesome, and can scarcely be distinguished from it. The juice expressed from the stem and leaves of goose-grass, taken to the amount of four ounces, night and morning for several weeks, is very efficacious in scorbutic complaints, and other cutaneous eruptions. The smell of garlic is an infallible remedy against the vapours, faintings, and other hysteric affections. The common poppy is an antidote to the stings of venomous insects, and a remedy for inflammation of the eyes: it also cures the pleurisy, and spitting of blood. Sage taken in any form tends to cleanse and enrich the blood: it makes a good cordial, and is highly useful in cases of nervous debility. It is often given in fevers with a view to promote perspiration, and with the addition of a little lemon juice it makes a grateful and cooling beverage.

COOL TANKARD. Put into a quart of mild ale a glass of white wine, one of brandy, one of capillaire, the juice of a lemon, and a little piece of the rind. Add a sprig of borage or balm, a bit of toasted bread, and nutmeg grated on the top.

COPPER. Many serious accidents have been occasioned by the use of copper in kitchen requisites. The eating of fruit especially that has been prepared in a copper stewpan, where some of the oxide was insensibly imbibed, has been known to produce death; or if coffee grounds are suffered to remain long in a copper coffee-pot, and afterwards mixed with fresh coffee, for the sake of economy, the effects will be highly injurious, if not fatal. The best antidote in such cases, when they unhappily occur, is to take immediately a large spoonful of powdered charcoal, mixed with honey, butter, or treacle; and within two hours afterwards, an emetic or a cathartic to expel the poison.

COPPERS. In domestic economy, the necessity of keeping copper vessels always clean, is generally acknowledged; but it may not perhaps be so generally known, that fat and oily substances, and vegetable acids, do not attack copper while hot; and therefore, that if no liquor were suffered to remain and grow cold in copper vessels, they might be used for every culinary purpose with perfect safety. The object is to clean and dry the vessels well before they turn cold.

COPYING LETTERS. Dissolve a little sugar in the ink, and write with it as usual. When a copy is required, moisten a piece of unsized paper lightly with a sponge, and apply it to the writing; then smooth the wet paper over with a warm iron, such as is used in a laundry, and the copy is immediately produced without the use of a machine.

COPYING PRINTS. Moisten a piece of paper with a solution of soap and alum, lay it on the print or picture, and pass it under a rolling press. Another method is to have a small frame in the form of a basin stand, enclosing a square of glass on the pot, on which the print is laid with the paper upon it; and then placing a candle under the glass, the print may be traced with a pencil, or pen and ink. Impressions may also be transferred by mixing a little vermillion with linseed oil so as to make it fluid; then with a pen dipped in it, trace every line of the print accurately. Turn the print with its face downwards on a sheet of white paper, wet the back of the print, lay another sheet upon it, and press it till the red lines are completely transferred.

CORKS. Economy in corks is very unwise: in order to save a mere trifle in the purchase, there is a danger of losing some valuable article which it is intended to preserve. None but velvet taper corks should be used for liquors that are to be kept for any length of time; and when a bottle of ketchup or of anchovy is opened, the cork should be thrown away, and a new one put in that will fit it very tight. If a cork is forced down even with the mouth of the bottle, it is too small, and should be drawn, that a larger one may be put in.

CORK CEMENT. Liquors and preserves, intended to be kept a long time, are often spoiled by the clumsy and ineffectual manner in which they are fastened down. Bottles therefore should be secured with the following cement, spread upon the cork after it is cut level with the top of the bottle. Melt in an earthen or iron pot half a pound of black rosin, half a pound of sealing wax, and a quarter of a pound of bees wax. When it froths up, and before all is melted and likely to boil over, stir it with a tallow candle, which will settle the froth till all is melted and fit for use.

CORNS. Apply to warts and corns, a piece of soft brown paper moistened with saliva, and a few dressings will remove them. A convenient plaster may also be made of an ounce of pitch, half an ounce of galbanum dissolved in vinegar, one scruple of ammoniac, and a dram and a half of diachylon mixed together.

COSTIVENESS. From whatever cause it may arise, frequent exercise in the open air, and abstinence from heating liquors, will be found very beneficial. To those who are afflicted with this complaint, it is particularly recommended that they should visit the customary retreat every morning at a stated hour, that nature may in this respect, by perseverance, acquire a habit of regularity. In obstinate cases, three drams of carbon may be taken two or three times a day, mixed with three ounces of lenitive electuary, and two drams of carbonate of soda, as circumstances may require. Half an ounce of Epsom salts, dissolved in a tumbler or two of cold water, and drank at intervals, will have a very salutary effect.

COTTENHAM CHEESE. Though this is so much noted for its superior flavour and delicacy, it does not appear to be owing to any particular management of the dairy, but rather to the fragrance of the herbage on which the cows feed in that part of the country.

COUGHS. The extract of malt will be found an excellent remedy for coughs or colds. Pour as much hot water over half a bushel of pale ground malt as will just cover it; the water must not be boiling. In forty-eight hours drain off the liquor entirely, but without squeezing the grains. Put the former into a large sweetmeat pan, or saucepan, that there may be room to boil as quick as possible, without boiling over. When it begins to thicken, stir it constantly, till it becomes as thick as treacle. Take a dessert-spoonful of it three times a day. – Another remedy for a bad cough may be prepared as follows. Mix together a pint of simple mint water, two table-spoonfuls of sallad oil, two tea-spoonfuls of hartshorns, sweetened with sugar, and take two large spoonfuls of the mixture two or three times a day.

COURT PLAISTER. Dissolve half an ounce of isinglass in an ounce of water, and boil it till the water is nearly all consumed; then add gradually a dram of Friar's balsam, and stir them well together. Dip a brush in the hot mixture, and spread it on a piece of clean silk.

COWS. In the management of cows intended for the dairy, a warm stable or cowhouse is of great importance. Cows kept at pasture will require from one to two acres of land each to keep them during the summer months; but if housed, the produce of one fourth part will be sufficient. Their dung, which would otherwise be wasted on the ground by the action of the sun and weather, is hereby easily preserved, and given to the soil where it is most wanted, and in the best condition. The treading on the grass and pasture, which diminishes its value, is prevented; the expence of division-fences is avoided, and the time and trouble of driving them about is all saved. They are also kept more cool, are less tormented by flies than if pastured, acquire good coats and full flesh, though they consume a much smaller quantity of food. They are in all respects more profitably kept in the house, than out of doors; but they must be regularly and gradually trained to it, or they will not thrive. Cows should always be kept clean, laid dry, and have plenty of good water to drink. They should never be suffered to drink at stagnant pools, or where there are frogs, spawn, or filth of any kind; or from common sewers or ponds that receive the drainings of stables, or such kind of places; all which are exceedingly improper. One of the most effectual means of rendering their milk sweet and wholesome, as well as increasing its quantity, is to let them drink freely of water in which the most fragrant kind of clover or lucern has been steeped: and if they are curried in the same manner as horses, they will not only receive pleasure from it, but give their milk more freely. In Holland, where the greatest attention is paid to all kinds of domestic animals, the haunches of dairy cows are washed morning and evening with warm water previous to milking, and after calving are clothed with sacking. The floors of their cowhouses are paved with brick, with a descent in the middle, where a gutter carries off the drain, and the place is kept perfectly clean with a broom and pails of water. The filthy state in which cows are confined in the vicinity of London, and other large cities, and the manner in which they are literally crammed, not with wholesome food, but with such things as are calculated to produce an abundance of milk, cannot be too severely reprobated as injurious to the public health. It is also notorious, that vessels of hot and cold water are always kept in these cowhouses for the accommodation of mercenary retailers, who purchase a quantity of milk at a low price, and then mix it with such a proportion of water as they think necessary to reduce it to a proper standard; when it is hawked about at an exorbitant price. The milk is not pure in its original state, and being afterwards adulterated, it is scarcely fit for any purpose in a family. The first object in the article of food, is wholesomeness; and grass growing spontaneously on good meadow-land is in general deemed most proper for cows intended to supply the dairy. The quantity of milk produced by those which feed on sainfoin is however nearly double to that of any other provender: it is also richer in quality, and will yield a larger quantity of cream: of course the butter will be better coloured and flavoured than any other. Turnips and carrots form an excellent article, and cannot be too strongly recommended, especially as a winter food; but they should be cleaned and cut; and parsnips, with the tops taken off will produce abundance of milk, of a superior quality; and cows will eat them freely though they are improper for horses. Of all vegetable productions, perhaps the cabbage is the most exuberant for this purpose, and ought by all means to be encouraged. The drum-headed cabbage, and the hardy variety of a deep green colour with purple veins, and of the same size with the drum-head, are particularly useful in the feeding of cows, and afford an increase of milk far superior to that produced by turnips. They are also excellent for the fattening of cattle, which they will do six weeks sooner than any other vegetables, though the cabbage plant is generally supposed to impart a disagreeable flavour to butter and cheese made from the milk of cows fed upon it, yet this may easily be prevented by putting a gallon of boiling water to six gallons of milk, when it is standing in the trays; or by dissolving an ounce of saltpetre in a quart of spring water, and mixing about a quarter of a pint of it with ten or twelve gallons of milk as it comes from the cow. By breaking off the loose leaves, and giving only the sound part to the cows, this disagreeable quality may also be avoided, as other cattle will eat the leaves without injury. When a cow has been milked for several years, and begins to grow old, the most advantageous way is to make her dry. To effect this, bruise six ounces of white rosin, and dissolve it in a quart of water. The cow having been housed, should then be bled and milked; and after the mixture has been administered, she should be turned into good grass. She is no longer to be milked, but fattened on rich vegetables. Cows intended for breeding, should be carefully selected from those which give plenty of milk. During three months previously to calving, if in the spring, they should be turned into sweet grass; or if it happen in the winter, they ought to be well fed with the best hay. The day and night after they have calved, they should be kept in the house, and lukewarm water only allowed for their drink. They may be turned out the next day, if the weather be warm, but regularly taken in for three or four successive nights; or if the weather be damp and cold, it is better to girt them round with sacking, or keep them wholly within. Cows thus housed should be kept in every night, till the morning cold is dissipated, and a draught of warm water given them previously to their going to the field. If the udder of a milking cow becomes hard and painful, it should be fomented with warm water and rubbed with a gentle hand. Or if the teats are sore, they should be soaked in warm water twice a day; and either be dressed with soft ointment, or done with spirits and water. If the former, great cleanliness is necessary: the milk at these times is best given to the pigs. Or if a cow be injured by a blow or wound, the part affected should be suppled several times a day with fresh butter; or a salve prepared of one ounce of Castile soap dissolved in a pint and a half of fresh milk over a slow fire, stirring it constantly, to form a complete mixture. But if the wound should turn to an obstinate ulcer, take Castile soap, gum ammoniac, gum galbanum, and extract of hemlock, each one ounce; form them into eight boluses, and administer one of them every morning and evening. To prevent cows from sucking their own milk, as some of them are apt to do, rub the teats frequently with strong rancid cheese, which will prove an effectual remedy.

На страницу:
14 из 17