The learned in the art of boiling recommend different times for the completion of the process, some allowing fifteen minutes to each pound, others twenty. All the best authorities agree in this, that the longer the boiling the more perfect the operation.

When taken from the pot the meat must be wiped; some use a clean cloth, but the best way is to have a sponge previously dipped in warm water, and wrung dry; this is also more convenient. Be careful not to let the meat stand, but send it to table as quick as possible, or it will darken and become hard. Boiled meat, as well as roast, cannot be served too hot.

The operation of boiling is generally treated as a department that requires no art at all. Hence it is that a leg of mutton is called spoiled when boiled, which is to be traced to the bad management of the pot.

Hard water is improper to boil meat in, and where soft water is to be procured, should not be thought of; as a cook cannot do justice to her skill, if she is ever so attentive.

It is now an established fact among the best judges that the meat should be put in cold water, and not in hot, unless for a special purpose, as that renders it dark and hard; cooks should be careful how they manage the form of certain meat for the pot, by skewering or tying it, so as to make it equal in all parts; for where one part is thick, and the other thin, the latter would be overdone before the thicker parts are acted upon by the boiling water. All meats are best cooked by boiling gently, as fast boiling spoils the meat and does it no quicker. Salted meats should most particularly be slowly boiled - in fact it should scarcely simmer; it is indispensable that the water should cover the meat, consequently the dimensions of the pot should be suited to the bulk of the joint.

Large joints, as rumps and rounds of beef, should be boiled in a copper. It is less difficult to regulate the heat of a copper fire than that of a kitchen range. Meat, before boiling or roasting, should be washed, as all meat is improved in colour by soaking. For roasting,' it should be wiped before it is put in the oven or on the spit; it is impossible to boil properly without skimming the pot. The instant the pot boils, it should be skimmed and followed up as the scum rises.

It will be seen that the above remarks apply to those who have not been able to avail themselves of the many advantages the numerous improvements in cooking apparatus present.