Nothing can be easier than to make a good soup if one only knows how and has the will to do it: and if one will, it is easy to know how. Considerations of econ-onry and healthfulness make it the duty of every housekeeper to thoroughly inform herself on the few essential points in soup-making. When these are learned it will be as simple as any other duty.

As soups are not made from nothing, a supply of materials should always be kept on hand, such as dried sweet herbs (which may be purchased at any city market for a trifle; twenty-five cents' worth will last a year or more); also whole, as well as ground spices; and, more particularly, fresh vegetables, - onions, carrots, and turnips. If we had access to the French market, we could buy the smallest amount whenever it might be desired; but as only a few marketmen in America will sell a single onion or a single carrot, it is well for those who cannot cultivate for themselves to purchase in large quantities. They may be kept in a cool place by covering with clean sand. Parsley may be grown in the house if you have a sunny window; and we can all have salt and pepper. Now, having these seasoning materials always at hand, you may easily find other material in the store-room, or from the day's supply of fresh meat, fish, etc., without buying expressly for soup; that is, if you, instead of the market-man, have the bones and trimmings.

Every pantry should have a "catch all." It is vastly more important there than in the sewing-room or on the toilet-table. The coal-hod, refuse pail, and sink catch all in many households. One or two large bowls - not tin, but deep earthen dishes, provided they are sweet and do not leak - will better answer the purpose. After breakfast or dinner, do not put away the remnants of steaks or roasts on the platters, but look them over and put by themselves any pieces that can be used again, either cold or in what are called made dishes. Then put all the bones, trimmings, fat, gristle, and everything, especially the platter gravy, which usually flavors the dish-water, into the "catch all." If you have just one bone from a steak or chop, if it be not burned it is worth saving, and in cool weather will keep till you have another. If there be a tablespoonful of any vegetables, a stalk of celery, an egg, baked apple, or a bit of macaroni, put them away neatly. You will find a use for them. If you have boiled a fresh tongue, a fowl, a leg of lamb, or a cup of rice, plan to make a soup also, and thus save the water. This economy may be carried to the extreme of saving the water in which cabbages, beans, or potatoes have been boiled, or of keeping a fire several hours in a hot day only to save a few cents' worth of bone, or of spoiling all the soup by adding a spoonful of turnip already sour; but as a rule we err in the opposite practice.

Soups are made from meat, fish, and vegetables, with water or milk; seasoned or flavored with any or every kind of vegetable, sweet herbs, spices, curry powder, catchups, aromatic sauces, and with some kinds of fruit. They are served thin and clear, or thickened with vegetables or cereals, and with or without meat.

Soups are classified and named in various ways, according to material, color, quality, etc. Soups with stock have meat as the basis. Soups without stock are made of fish, vegetables, and milk. They are sometimes called soup maigre. Soups are named from the principal ingredient, or an imitation of the same, as Potato, Onion, Beef, Mutton, Chicken, Gumbo, Macaroni, Okra, Ox-tail, Gib-let, Cock-a-leekie, Lobster, Mock Turtle, Mock Bisque, etc.; or from the color, as Clear, or Amber, Brown, and White; or from the consistency, as Thin soups and Purees; or from the quality, as simple Broths, Bouillon, and Consomme; or from the season of the year, as Julienne; or from the people who use them, as Scotch Broth, French Pot-au-feu, Indian Mullagatawney; or from the name of the makers, or in any way one's fancy and invention may suggest. But from the scores, yes, hundreds of receipts in the cook-books, which seem so bewildering to the beginner, a few simple rules may be deduced which will make the process of soup-making intelligible; and when once the foundation is laid, you may build and enlarge as you choose.

Do not be discouraged because you have not all the dozen or more ingredients mentioned in most receipts. You will find many of them may be omitted with a perfectly satisfactory result. Much depends upon what is omitted, though, as Potage a la Reine without chicken, or Julienne without vegetables, or Mullagatawney without curry powder, would disappoint those who think only of the name; but, called by any other name, you would find them very good soups.