The house taken and furnished, the duties of the housewife or - we prefer giving her the expressive name employed by our German cousins, - the House-mother - begin, and first, perhaps, in her list of many duties comes feeding the family. In order to do this judiciously and economically, she should know everything about the articles on which we feed, - their powers of sustaining life and health - the mode of using and preserving them, and their price. We give, therefore, a brief summary of the chief food used in English families, and some hints respecting the provisions for the larder found in the colonies. This book does not however pretend to be a cookery book ; for instructions in that art the reader is referred to Warne's "Model Cookery Books," which range from the first-class volume, price 7s. 6d., to the poor house-mother's guide at a penny.

The house-mother has duties separate from those of the cook. One of these is a knowledge of the nature and character of the food which the latter prepares. We offer her in the following pages some guidance in this direction ; and also we insert some few recipes which from their excellence, and their being chiefly original and not to be met with elsewhere, we think may be useful. They will be found at the end of the description of the article of food to which they refer.