gathering, and then placing them in earthen jars, and covering them with layers of dry sand of about an inch in thickness. Each jar should be well filled, closed with cement, and placed in the fruit-room or a cool place, but where it cannot be affected by frost. When fruit has been frost-bitten, it should be put into cold water, which will recover it, if it be suffered to remain in it a sufficient time. Walnuts and filberts may be preserved in jars with the covers cemented to keep out the air. MRS. L. You mentioned roots. How are these to be kept for the winter's supply? MRS. B.- Onions and bulbs should be laid loosely on the shelves of the fruit-cellar; potatoes should be buried in a pit sunk at the bottom of the cellar, and covered over with dry sand; and turnips and carrots laid in the divisions at the bottom of the cellar, and covered with sand. Cabbages, endive, lettuces, and similar plants, also, may be preserved throughout the winter, in a state fit for use, if they be taken out of the ground with their main roots entire, in perfectly dry weather, at the end of the season, and partially immersed in dry sand. If these and the potatoes be not put into the fruit-cellar, which might be inconvenient, they should be kept in a close dry cellar, of an ice-cold temperature. * I must now ask you one question. Have you provided yourself with a cookery-book? * Much information on the subject of gathering and preserving vegetables and fruit will be found in Loudon's Encyclopædia of Gardening. MRS. L. Certainly. I have purchased Mrs. Rundle's and the Cook's Oracle. How could I go on for one day without them? Yet my study of these important books is not always satisfactory, nor are the effects produced from them at all equal to my expectations. Sometimes a dish far too rich is the result; and at other times I have to complain of defects completely opposite, and yet my cook informs me that the receipts are strictly followed. MRS. B. Your experience will in time rectify this inconvenience; and you will find, that, by taking the medium of most receipts, you will avoid it. Good and well-flavoured dishes must be formed of good materials, and in sufficient quantity: but it is not necessary to have this principle carried to an extreme; and, as it is not well always to follow these receipt-books implicitly, I recommend you to form one for yourself, of such receipts as you have found it expedient to modify, and which may be done advantageously, as your own experience shall prove to you. I like to have a book of this kind at hand, in which I can insert any useful hints I may occasionally gather in conversing with others, or by my own observations. The various concerns of the day would soon make me forget them, if I did not thus record them in my little book. Besides receipts and directions in household affairs, such a book may contain many useful hints and remarks respecting that part of the management of an illness which does not belong to the province of the medical attendant: such as modes to prevent infection; receipts for various pleasant beverages; methods of making and applying fomentations; and remarks upon many other things, which at the first view may appear trivial, but which become important when they enable any one to add to the comfort or to alleviate the pains of an invalid. But it is time to separate; and I must now, for the present, say farewell. N 266 CONVERSATION VI. HEALTH AND DISEASE. MANAGEMENT OF EVERY BRANCH OF THE FAMILY, IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THE FORMER. PERSONAL SICKNESS. SICKNESS OF HUSBAND OF CHILDREN OF SERVANTS. PRECAUTIONS IN CONTAGIONS. ME MANAGEMENT OF A CHILD IN THE MONTH. MRS. B. The best means of preserving health (as far as human means can prevail), is the subject to which I wish now to draw your attention. It has been truly said, that none can appreciate the blessing of health until they have experienced its loss; and then only do they sincerely acknowledge that no other good, such as rank, power, beauty, or wealth, can stand in competition with it. Yet, not even this conviction has strength sufficient to prevent the almost constant sacrifice of health to some lesser good. Thus we see many rapidly expending their strength in the pursuit of riches, or in the attainment of rank and power; and when acquired, and they find themselves at the point they desired to attain, they discover also, that the power of en joyment has not accompanied these blessings; thus, faltering limbs receive no vigour from a bed of down, and thus the choicest viands want the relish which unimpaired digestion alone can bestow. How many would gladly resign the product of all their toils and cares, could they exchange it for a portion of that health and vigour with which they set out in life! Health is the gift of God; yet how willing we are to barter it, and what exertions do we daily make to drive it from us, and to substitute in its place the flimsy gifts this world can give us! Whatever God has bestowed upon us it is our duty to employ worthily. Gratitude to Him, and our own interest, both demand it. Overstrained exertions and application may bring wealth into a family, but, if it bring disease also, what happiness or real good can accompany it? It is rarely that a diseased body does not also cause a mind to be distempered in some degree or other, especially when the disease is produced by the sacrifice of a great for a comparatively trifling good. Selfishness, unreasonable expectations and desires, disappointed hopes, having their origin from this source, have embittered the happiness of many a domestic circle, and have had an injurious effect upon the character of every one of its members. According to the disposition of each, some defect has been engendered: dissimulation in one, and ill-humour and discontent in others. A father thus abandoning himself to the pursuit of wealth or distinction, and giving up the only enjoyment which could render his acquisitions valuable to himself, introduces evils in his family for which nothing can compensate. A mother, too, |