Cottage Economy, to Which is Added The Poor Man's FriendCobbett, William
General
Cottage Economy, to Which is Added The Poor Man's Friend
Cobbett, William
Agriculture; Home economics; Poor laws -- Great Britain
for people to bring them food and drink, and to fetch their garments to
and fro. Such a crowd resemble a nest of unfledged birds, absolutely
dependent for their very existence on the activity and success of the old
ones.
92. Yet, on men go, from year to year, in this state of wretched
dependence, even when they have all the means of living within themselves,
which is certainly the happiest state of life that any one can enjoy. It
may be asked, Where is the mill to be found? where is the wheat to be got?
The answer is, Where is there not a mill? where is there not a market?
They are every where, and the difficulty is to discover what can be the
particular attractions contained in that long and luminous manuscript, a
baker's half-yearly bill.
93. With regard to the mill, in speaking of families of any considerable
number of persons, the mill has, with me, been more than once a subject of
observation in print. I for a good while experienced the great
inconvenience and expense of sending my wheat and other grain to be ground
at a mill. This expense, in case of a considerable family, living at only
a mile from a mill, is something; but the inconveniency and uncertainty
are great. In my "Year's Residence in America," from Paragraphs 1031 and
onwards, I give an account of a horse-mill which I had in my farm yard;
and I showed, I think very clearly, that corn could be ground cheaper in
this way than by wind or water, and that it would answer well to grind for
sale in this way as well as for home use. Since my return to England I
have seen a mill, erected in consequence of what the owner had read in my
book. This mill belongs to a small farmer, who, when he cannot work on his
land with his horses, or in the season when he has little for them to do,
grinds wheat, sells the flour; and he takes in grists to grind, as other
millers do. This mill goes with three small horses; but what I would
recommend to gentlemen with considerable families, or to farmers, is a
mill such as I myself have at present.
94. With this mill, turned by a man and a stout boy, I can grind six
bushels of wheat in a day and dress the flour. The grinding of six bushels
of wheat at ninepence a bushel comes to four and sixpence, which pays the
man and the boy, supposing them (which is not and seldom can be the case)
to be hired for the express purpose out of the street. With the same mill
you grind meat for your pigs; and of this you will get eight or ten
bushels ground in a day. You have no trouble about sending to the mill;
you are sure to have your _own wheat_; for strange as it may seem, I used
sometimes to find that I sent white Essex wheat to the mill, and that it
brought me flour from very coarse red wheat. There is no accounting for
this, except by supposing that wind and water power has something in it to
change the very nature of the grain; as, when I came to grind by horses,
such as the wheat went into the hopper, so the flour came out into the
bin.
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