All vegetables are injured by lying exposed to sun and rain; but corn, peas, fresh beans, asparagus, and lettuce become perfectly worthless. They should be gathered while the dew is yet on them, brought to the house, and placed at once in a cool place where the sun will not strike upon them. It is better to leave corn in the husk, peas and beans in the pods, until it is time to prepare them for cooking. Then watch that they are not left long in water, if, indeed, you cannot avoid washing them entirely. Corn when taken from the husk needs no washing; simply remove all the silk. If there is a black or rusty spot on an ear of corn, reject it entirely; it shows the beginning of disease. It improves a mess of peas, adding greatly to their sweetness, to boil the _pods_, after shelling, about fifteen minutes in the water you are about to boil the peas in. For this purpose, you must pour cold water over the pods, to remove any dust or minute bugs that may be upon them; wash quickly, and then leave them to drain before shelling. The peas, of course, after this need no washing, neither do beans. Asparagus should be washed quickly, to remove all dust; but must on no account be left in the water a moment after it is clean. As soon as washed, put in a cullender to drain, and then over the stove to cook as soon as you can. All vegetables should be laid in the saucepan in which they are to be cooked, with sufficient salt to season sprinkled over them; then _boiling_ water poured on, and the whole brought to a boil immediately, else they become of a brownish color and look very uninviting. The salt, either put on them first or the water salted before they are put in, prevents the color changing. Then boil, or, what is better, _steam_ them for the proper time,--twenty minutes for asparagus, peas, and corn is long enough, never over thirty minutes; when so old as to need longer cooking, they are too old to use at all. Beans require longer time, unless very young; from three quarters of an hour to an hour will be necessary. Very few vegetables, comparatively, are as digestible raw as when cooked; those used for salads, such as celery, lettuce, cabbage, etc., are exceptions. Some which when raw are quite poisonous can, by skillful boiling, be transformed into our most nutritious and easily digested food; yet the attempt to cook them is too often made in such a careless and reckless way that, although whatever poison they contain when raw is dispelled, the mode of cooking makes them about as injurious to the health as the poison could have been,--half raw or overcooked till they are clammy or sodden, or cooked with salt and fat meat until their whole nature seems changed,--requiring a stomach like that of an ostrich to digest them. The _potato_, when raw, is not only unpalatable and injurious, but is supposed to be really poisonous, while proper cooking changes it to one of the most palatable and healthful of all vegetables.