It may be difficult for the first occupants of wild lands to save the great wealth of fuel, while hastening to open up their farms. But it seems to us that it would be wise to preserve larger tracts of woodland on any new farm or home-steads, as a provision for the future; remembering that any ten acres thoroughly cultivated will bring more abundant and better paying crops than thirty cleared but poorly cultivated; _poorly_, because the owner uses the time in cutting down the wood on the extra twenty acres which should have been given to the careful cultivation of the ten. When we have been at the West and South, at various times, it has been a source of continual regret to see that which our large towns and cities so greatly need recklessly given to the flames, knowing that the time cannot be far distant when these young towns will feel the need of this fuel as much as their elders. We cannot help thinking while we ride through the burning forests, that even a woman could manage so that the forests could be more largely preserved, and the trees which must fall be saved and made useful and profitable; while the comfort and prosperity of the possessor could be much increased by the economy, because the farm would be brought under more careful culture, and thus sooner return paying crops. But the thought of the well-beloved brick oven has led us into the wilderness, and away from our subject. We were noticing the great difference between the ancient and modern manner of cooking. Many of our readers remember and have often used the brick ovens, the large old-fashioned fireplace, the long crane, the pot-hooks and trammel on it, and the great pots and kettles suspended by them over the fierce fire,--the immense “roaster,” the “Dutch oven,” the Johnny-cake baked on the “Bannock-board” before the glowing bed of coals, while bright rows of apples were sputtering on the hearth. But all these names are to your children like words in an unknown tongue. They will never know the rich flavors gained only by this mode of cooking; neither will they endure the pains and penalties by which this knowledge was obtained. What would those tyrants of our households, the modern cooks, say if compelled to swelter over the blazing fire, or roast with the meats they are cooking upon the fiery coals on the hearth?