The figure on the title page exhibits a convenient culinary oven for families who bake their own bread. It is usually erected on one side of the kitchen fire-place, and heated by a flue that passes from the fire-grate under the bottom of the oven. Although this is in many respects a convenient and neat way of heating the oven, yet the manner of managing the fire renders it only economical in families where a large fire is always kept up in the kitchen-grate. In small families it is far more economical to heat the oven by means of a separate fire-place built underneath it. A fire-place six inches wide, nine inches long, and six inches deep, is sufficient to heat an oven eighteen inches wide, twenty-four inches long, and from twelve to fifteen inches high, which is a convenient size for the baking of bread. The grate should be placed at least twelve inches below the bottom of the oven when the fuel employed is pit-coal; and, in order to prevent the fire from operating with too much violence upon any part of the oven, the brick-work should be sloped outwards and upwards on every side, from the top of the burning fuel, to the ends and sides of the bottom of the oven, that the whole may be exposed to the direct rays of the fire. If the fire-place be built in this manner, and properly managed, it is almost incredible how small a quantity of fuel will answer for heating the oven, and keeping it hot. In this small fire-place there is always a very strong draft of air passing into it, and this circumstance, which is unavoidable, renders it necessary to keep the fire-place door constantly closed, and to leave but a small opening, for the passage of the air, through the ash-pit. If these precautions are neglected, the fuel will be consumed very rapidly, the bottom of the oven will be burnt, and the oven get chilled as soon as the fire-place ceases to be filled with burning fuel. In an oven of this description, I have baked two loaves, each weighing five pounds, and fifteen rolls weighing two pounds, by means of half a peck (ten pounds) of coal. The figures on the plate facing the titlepage[See Note] exhibit an oven to be heated with pit-coal for baking bread, now generally employed in this metropolis. The oven from which this design has been made, is eight feet wide, and seven deep. The fire-place, called by the bakers, the furnace, for heating the oven, is placed at the side, and enters the oven diagonally; it is furnished with a grate, ash holes, and iron door, similar to a common fire-place for heating a boiler, but having a partition to separate it from the oven, and to allow the fire to enter into the oven; it, therefore, forms a canal, by which the flame is directed into the oven. Over the fire-place or furnace is erected, and lets into the brick-work, a boiler furnished with a pipe, to supply warm water as occasion may require.