in the afternoon, and place it by the fire, or on the top of the oven, where it remains until nine in the evening, when three quarters of a stone (a gallon and a half) more of flour is kneaded into it, and it is left to rise until the morning, when the remaining half gallon of flour will fit it for the oven. It should be put into large tins and allowed to rise to their tops before it is set into the oven. We divide it into ten loaves, which are baked for two hours. We consider that the rice renders the bread lighter, and prevents the crust of it from becoming hard, and it materially increases its weight. The four gallons of flour, two pounds of rice, and sixteen pints of water, produce forty-two pounds of excellent bread.

"To improve the yeast, and insure its being good, I would recommend that three or four well boiled potatoes should be smoothly mashed and mixed with as much hot water as will bring them to the consistence of batter, and that a small plateful of warm flour and the yeast should be gradually added and well beaten to them. This done, the mixture must be placed before the fire, and in two hours, or less, the whole bowl will be in a state of fermentation. Then is the time to lay the bread with it. It is a little additional trouble, but is a certain improvement also. Servants, however, will not often take all this trouble; and mistresses cannot always attend to such matters themselves."

Two pounds of rice soaked in three quarts of water, and afterwards swollen in it for two hours in a moderately hot oven; to be cooled down a little, then worked into a stone (two gallons) of flour; two small handfuls of salt; a quarter of a pint of yeast of home-brewed beer (or three quarters of a pint of bakers' yeast), and five quarts of warm water to be added to them, and well mixed into a lithe dough. To stand near the fire, or on the top of the stove oven, from four o'clock in the afternoon until nine in the evening; a gallon and a half more of flour worked into it, left until the morning; the remaining half gallon of flour used in kneading and making it ready for the oven. dough is divided into ten loaves, put into large square tins, left until it has risen to their tops, put immediately into a well heated oven, and baked for two hours. The product of this receipt, forty-two pounds of bread. Note.—"With the addition of about twelve pounds of brown bread, this," says our correspondent, "is our average weekly consumption for a family of ten or eleven persons."

This

SMALL BREAKFAST LOAVES OR ROLLS.

(Cold made.)

As bread made in the usual way, when prepared over-night for early baking on the morrow, is liable to ferment too much in very sultry weather, I recommend the following method, which I have many times had tried with entire success, as very convenient, and as producing at the same time bread of excellent quality. Mix with two pounds of fine wheaten flour a saltspoonful of salt, and put into a basin half as much finely powdered sugar, with a teaspoonful only of solid yeast, which has been procured at least one day before, and stirred up with plenty of spring water, as already directed in another part of this volume. Mix these well with nearly three quarters of a pint of new milk, and proceed to make the flour into a firm and smooth dough: add, in doing this, a little more milk if required. Flour a thick cloth lightly, roll the bread closely in it, turn the ends under, lay it into a pan, and throw another cloth, once or twice folded, on it, Place it on a table away from a thorough draught of air, and leave it until the morning. Before lighting the fire, knead it down, should it appear very light, as it ought to be, and either leave it until the oven is nearly hot enough to bake it, or make it up at once into small loaves

or rolls, and let them remain upon a tin until it is ready for them. Our bread made in this way has been excellent, both in colour and in flavour. Baked in a brick oven it would probably be better still. We had it made about ten o'clock in the evening, and baked between eight and nine the next morning in an iron oven, moderately heated. The rolls, which were not small, remained in it three quarters of an hour. They were perfectly light, and tasted almost like cake.

Fine wheaten flour, two pounds; one saltspoonful of salt, and half as much pounded sugar; solid brewers' yeast, one teaspoonful; new milk (or equal parts of milk and water) three quarters of a pint; a little in addition, if required, to make up the paste quite firmly. To remain all night; kneaded down in the morning, and moulded into rolls or small loaves to prove about one hour. Baked from twenty to thirty minutes if small, longer if large, in iron stove-oven.

Observation. By solid brewers', or beer yeast, is meant at all times here, yeast which has beer washed or purified by having been mixed wit! plenty of water and then allowed to subside unti the water could be poured clear from it.

BREAD EXPERIENCES.

For works of a practical nature, our own every-day experience,—even though small,—is of more positive utility than a large amount of information derived merely from hearsay, or from books; because the successful working of any process is often more or less affected by many trifling circumstances which escape observation at first, and which are rendered apparent only by repeated trials. For this reason I give, familiarly and in detail, in what I shall call my bread experiences, the result of my own close observation of the effects produced by various influences on the receipts which I have myself had carried into practice for daily domestic use. In following these, or any others contained in the present volume, all due allowance must be made for the difference of temperature in various parts of England; for in the South,—where these have all been tested with full success,—the natural warmth of the atmosphere is sufficient in midsummer to excite and to maintain the fermentation of bread dough to the proper degree; and the cold of winter seldom approaches in rigour that of our northerly, or wild moorland districts; but whenever and wherever it is severe, all precaution