More Pot-Pourri From A Surrey Garden | by C. W. Earle

Recipes, morals and domestic reflections of Maria Theresa Earle

Title	More Pot-Pourri From A Surrey Garden
Author	C. W. Earle
Publisher	Smith, Elder, & Co
Year	1899
Copyright	1899, Smith, Elder, & Co
Amazon	More pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

More Pot-Pourri From A Surrey Garden

By Mrs C. W. Earle

Second Impression, London Smith, Elder, & Co., 15 Waterloo Place.

Landscape Architecture 'Reading good Books of Morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best Receipt (best, I say, to work and best to take) is the Admonition of a Friend' Bacon.

To The Readers Of Pot-Pourri From A Surrey Garden'

I Dedicate This Book More Pot-Pourri.

September: Reasons for writing another 'Pot-Pourri' - Advice of friends - Criticisms grave and gay - Return home after three months abroad - Disappointment with dry garden - Kingfisher - Sedum spectabile and ins...

September 1st, 1898: It is now a year and a half since I finished my first book, and the public have been almost as appreciative and generous in their praise of it as my nieces were. Kind letters of all sorts have poured ...

September 1st. Part 2: A third difficulty was the slavish admirer, who in all soils and even with different climates said: 'I have strictly carried out your instructions, and utter failure has been the result.' I wish once ...

September 1st. Part 3: The cooking receipts caused panic in some minds and indignation in others. One poor bachelor told his housekeeper to try the receipt in 'Pot-Pourri' for making a soup. She happened to hit upon the Fre...

September 1st. Part 4: It seems satisfactory that a great number of the newspaper critics gave me credit for common-sense. Some few passages in 'sons and Daughters' raised opposition, but, I am bound to confess, much less t...

September 1st. Part 5: I continue my quotations: 'You put the question of unselfishness in parents or children as being a difficult one, but I have always felt that to help each person to be as they ought to be, in the bes...

September 1st. Part 6: This letter seemed to me so touching that I sent it to a friend of mine much interested in the subject. She returned it with the following remarks, which express in strong terms very much what I feel ...

September 3rd: A few days ago I returned home after being abroad and away from my garden for over three months. I left towards the end of May, when all was fresh and green, bursting with bud and life, and full of th...

September 5th: The dryness continues, and we wait in vain for rain. The weather makes us doubly appreciate the small square of cool water just in front of the dining-room window, and the pleasure it seems to bring t...

September 7th: The old-fashioned Zauschneria Californica, when well grown, is a very pretty plant with its soft gray leaves and scarlet flowers. I have had it for years, and it has stood any amount of moving about i...

September 10th: All the Funkias are worth growing, but all might be left out of a small garden except Funkia sieboldi. That, anyhow, must be grown out of doors, as it is a beautiful plant, gives no trouble, flowers e...

September 11th: What a week of excitement this has been, even for those without near relations in that far away Nile Valley! Never in all my life do I.remember what might be called the aggressive, grasping, ruling sp...

September 13th: Last year, about this time, I drove to Mr. Barr's at Long Ditton, and there I saw, planted out in an open bed, Tigridias, both white and red; and they looked splendid. I have never seen them grown out...

September 15th: For those who care to have Sweet-peas early in the year, it is well to sow them now in the drills or holes, so as to earth them up a little after they come through the soil. Cassia corymbosa is a yel...

September 25th: I saw a Suffolk garden this September where I learnt more in an hour than one would do in most places in a week. It was a beautiful, stately, flat garden and on a very large scale, with tall trees and...

Bread Sauce: It is very important that the bread should be grated from a tin loaf, and allowed to dry in a paper bag for some time before using it. It is absolutely impossible to make good bread sauce with new bre...

Vegetable Marrow: Peel a young vegetable marrow, cut it across in slices the thickness of a finger, and put them in a tin in a moderate oven with a little piece of butter on each. Bake for nearly an hour. Prepare some ...

Cucumbers Preserved In Salt (In A Barrel Or Stone Jar): Pick the outdoor cucumbers when about three inches long and one inch thick. Brush them in a large tub of cold water till quite clean. Spread them on a table to dry. Meanwhile boil up a large quantity ...

A Purée Of Vegetables: A pretty dish can be made with a purée of any kind of green vegetable surrounded by macaroni cut into small pieces, boiled plain with a little onion in the water, drained, and warmed up in a little st...

Grouse Salad: Select fresh salad material. Place this in a shallow dish on which has been constructed a border of hard-boiled eggs, set off with pieces of anchovies and sliced beetroot. ...

Sauce: Two tablespoonfuls of eschalots minced small, seven teaspoonfuls of chopped tarragon and chervil, five dessertspoonfuls of pounded sugar, the yolks of two eggs, five saltspoonfuls of pepper and salt m...

Pickled Damsons: Six pounds of damsons, six pounds of sugar, two quarts of vinegar, quarter of an ounce of cinnamon (stick), quarter of an ounce of cloves, one onion (about as large as a nutmeg), half table-spoonful o...

Purslane: The purslane after being picked and washed is put on a gentle fire to melt, without adding any water. When quite soft add some salt (a very little) to taste. If too watery, pour it off; then add butte...

Blackberry Jelly: Boil the blackberries. Strain them and stiffen with isinglass. This keeps splendidly, and is not too sweet. ...

October: Gardening - Echeverias - Ignorance about bulbs - Gossamer time and insects - The East Coast - A new rockery - Oxalis floribunda as a vegetable - Previous 'Pot-Pourris ' - Cooking receipts, various - J...

October 5th: The other day I was going round the garden, giving away plants, when I came to a bed where there were several fine Echeverias. They had been planted out to grow naturally into better plants. I offered...

October 10th: It is extraordinary how vague are people's ideas about plants, bulbs, etc.; and it is not till one is asked questions that one realises how much most people have to learn. I was asked the other day by...

October 15th: I suppose there are still some few people who plant trees for their children or grandchildren, although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and woods to be made in a day, and always to be plant...

October 16th: The beautiful gossamer time has come again. Most mothers now cultivate in their children a love of flowers, but it is astonishing how rarely a love of insects is taught. I do not mean a mawkish fear o...

October 20th: I have been very busy here hollowing out new rockeries and digging deep holes, eight to twelve feet deep, and throwing up the sandy earth on either side, so making slopes and mounds of earth. Small na...

October 23rd: I have found that Crocus speciosus does admirably in this very light soil, and comes up year after year, but is very much better not disturbed, when it decidedly increases. Young plants of variegated ...

October 25th: We have improved on the cultivation of Watercress in a dry garden by sowing it in a wide trench with the sides supported by two old boards, and close to a tap so that it can be easily watered. In Octo...

October 28th: We are benefiting now by the extraordinarily dry autumn and no early frost. The number of flowers in the garden is quite surprising. I picked this morning a large bunch of Nemesia. The Lavenders are f...

'Two Chickens For Eight Persons: Abandon the boiled fowl fashion; order a pair of fowls to be sent without being trussed, and let the heads and necks be sent with them. Cut up one of the fowls into pieces - the leg and thigh into two...

Chervil Soup: Pick, wash, and chop fine a very large handful of chervil. Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg with two tablespoonfuls of good flour. Stir smooth. Do not let it colour at all; then add the cherv...

To Dress Fresh-Water Fish: Bone the fish and lay it flat in a fireproof dish, with small pieces of butter underneath the fish. Chop half an onion and three or four washed anchovies, brown them in a little butter in a small copp...

Endive (In The German Way): Gut up the endive quite coarsely, wash it in lots of cold water, and throw it very wet into an earthenware pot in which a large piece of butter has been dissolved; no salt nor anything else. Put the l...

Canard à La Rouennaise: Take the fillets of two ducks. Put them into a buttered sauté-pan and poach for five minutes in a good oven. When done cut them out with a cutlet-cutter and spread on one side of each fillet some live...

Purée Of Carrots: Get some nice red carrots, slice them thin. Add an onion also sliced, a little celery, and a turnip. Braise all together in some weak stock, or water, until quite tender. Pass the whole through a tamm...

Poulet à La Marengo: Have some nice young chickens, cut them up neatly, and put them into a sauté-pan with a little salad oil, one onion, a small piece of parsley and thyme; season with pepper and salt, cover the sauté-pa...

Chestnuts Au Jus: Remove the outer skin and throw the chestnuts into boiling water, to enable you to remove the inner skin as well; then lay them in cold water while the following mixture is prepared: Stir two tablespo...

Celeriac Salad: A most excellent autumn salad is celeriac well boiled, cut in slices like beetroot, mixed with a light mayonnaise sauce half oil and half cream, surrounded by a wreath of what they call in Germany 'ga...

Fried (German) Pudding: To make the batter put two pints of milk to boil with a tiny pinch of salt and two ounces of butter. When boiling, stir in very smoothly eight ounces of finest Hungarian flour. (Use no other flour tha...

Gâteau Savarin: Ingredients: a little less than one pint of milk, six ounces of butter, ten eggs, two ounces of pounded sugar, one pound of good Hungarian flour, sifted grated peel of two lemons, two ounces of good G...

Trip To Germany: I had occasion at the end of this month last year (1897) to go to Germany to the neighbourhood of Frankfort. The journey, about twenty-five hours from London, is wonderfully easy. My friends said: 'Wh...

Trip To Germany. Part 2: To return to my time in Germany. The weather grew cold and foggy, and my expeditions from Cronberg into Frankfort were fewer than I could have wished, and many sights I did not see at all. Among the ...

Trip To Germany. Part 3: This is the exact description of the picture as it now is. Later on, in the letters in February of the following year, Goethe again alludes to the picture: 'The great portrait of myself which Tischbei...

Trip To Germany. Part 4: Thirdly, I wished that the German rational outdoor treatment of consumptive patients, when once they have caught tuberculosis, or are so constituted that they are likely to catch it, should be underst...

Vous Et Moi: Vos yeux sereins et purs ont voulu me sourire, Votre main comme une aile a caressé ma main, Mais je ne sais trouver, hélas! rien à vous dire, Car nous ne marchons pas dans le même chemin. Vous êtes ...

November: Present of 'The Botanist' - Echeveria and Euphorbia splendens -Cowper on greenhouses - Cultivation of greenhouse plants - Bookseller at Frankfort - Dr. Wallace on Lilies - Receipts - Winter in the cou...

November 1st: One of those most pleasant echoes of my first book came to me to-day. I received a letter, addressed to the care of my publisher, from a lady who was so pleased with my commendation of her father's wo...

November 3rd: A lady writes strongly recommending a Tea-rose called 'Ma Capucine.' 'such lovely red-scarlet buds from June to December,' she says. This I have now ordered. I have moved my white 'Lamarque Rose,' but...

November 7th: I am always being asked about greenhouse plants, and how to get variety both for picking or for ornamenting a small greenhouse next a room. It has been rather the fashion of late to say: 'Oh! I don't ...

November 8th: There is a famous seller of old books in Frankfort named Baer. He lives in the Rossmarkt, and some of my best old flower-books I have had from him. I brought home this time one of those books that del...

November 10th: I find several of the Japanese Maples so well worth growing and quite hardy here. They make very little growth, and want dry, sunny, protected places, where they suffer sometimes from drought, but rec...

November 13th: I gathered to-day a small but bright, well-grown Oriental Poppy; and several of the Delphiniums, cut down in summer, have flowered beautifully a second time. One cannot provide for or be sure of these...

November 18th: Two days later than I have ever before remained down here! It is such beautiful weather. In these mild days the singing of birds comes slightly as a surprise, so different from the silence of August a...

November 20th: Most people who have gardens wish to grow Lilies, and yet very few are really successful with them. By far the finest I have seen in this part of the world were grown in an Azalea bed, in more than ha...

November 27th: My principal flower-table in summer is in a cool hall away from the sun. In winter, now that I live here all the year round, I have it in the sitting-room, close to a large south window. The sun in su...

Pheasant Stuffed With Woodcocks: The French say: 'To the uninitiated this bird is as a sealed book; eaten after it has been killed but three days, it is insipid and bad - neither so delicate as a pullet, nor so odoriferous as quail. ...

German Way Of Warming Up Potatoes: Boil them, let them get cold, cut them in thin slices into a fireproof dish, add a little butter and milk, grate some Parmesan cheese on the top, and bake in the oven. ...

Boiled Beef: Take six to eight pounds of good fat top-side or silver-side, beat it very hard on all sides with a heavy wooden oak-log to break the fibre. Put it into a deep earthenware pot or copper stewpan, with ...

How To Dress Cod: Take some slices of a small cod, and bake them in the oven in a little butter, with a squeeze of lemon-juice, exactly as you would do salmon. Serve with Tartare Sauce, as in 'Dainty Dishes '; only, i...

November 21st: This is the first time in my life that the short days have drawn in shorter and shorter and that I have found myself alone, having to make up my mind that being alone is my future, that my time is at ...

November 30th: A long, gloomy, lonely day. I thought this evening I would look through a large box I have upstairs full of old letters and papers left to me, and which I have always intended to sort at my leisure. T...

November 30th. Part 2: They met for the first time by chance on a summer's afternoon for a little over an hour, and so completely was it love at first sight on his side that he told my mother afterwards he would gladly have...

November 30th. Part 3: Lines written near Tintern Abbey (I know nothing more beautiful than this), the Cumberland Beggar, and a little poem - I think he calls it the Yew Tree or the Yew Tree Seat (for I have not the...

November 30th. Part 4: 'The expansive benevolence of his moral sentiments powerfully influenced his political opinions, and his deep sympathy with the poor not only rendered him inexorably severe to the vices of the rich, b...

December: Lonely evenings and more papers - Figs from France - Hornbeams and Weeping Hornbeams - Wire netting round small fruit-trees - Damsons - Roman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus - Effect of coloured g...

December 1st: I have been turning out more old letters, and among other papers with other memories and connected with other times I found this fragment of what was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a lon...

December 1st. Continued: 'The front part of the house was modern; it stood on a platform raised above the large formal garden before it. The boundary of the garden was a terrace-walk looking down on the river and the town. Th...

December 5th: The weather is wonderfully mild. I have a bunch of Tea-roses flowering in the room that were picked out of doors yesterday. Have seasons changed, or have the roses? I used to think Owen Meredith's all...

December 10th: I have again been away. At last it is quite winter, and everything is at rest outside. But if all the outdoor Chrysanthemums, or even the hardiest indoor ones, had been moved in October or November in...

December 11th: The Hornbeam - one of the old indigenous trees of England, and among the very best for firewood - is, judging from what I notice, very little planted now and rarely named in catalogues. And yet for ma...

December 13th: We have just been digging up and preparing a good-sized oblong piece of ground in the best and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and moving into it gooseberries and currants - red, white, and black...

December 14th: I have a large field in which we have generally grown the coarser kind of vegetables - Potatoes, Cabbages, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc., and such things that do best in a very sunny open place. Finding ...

December 15th: I am told some people have tried and approved of my suggestion of arranging greenhouse Chrysanthemums in groups of colour instead of dotting them about all mixed, one injuring the effect of the other....

December 17th: We have been more successful this year with the forcing of bulbs - Koman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus - than ever before, and I think it is a good deal owing to having carefully obeyed the inst...

December 18th: We have never been very successful here with the growing of Mushrooms. We have no Mushroom house, and have to try what can be done in various sheds and outhouses. I am told the most essential point to...

December 19th: The weather has been so astonishing the last few days one cannot realise it is the week, not of the shortest days, but of the shortest afternoons of the whole year. This sentence brought about a fearf...

December 20th: Another beautiful afternoon. Such clear yellow skies! To me the top twigs of Holly bushes against a primrose sky recall, oh! so many winter days in the past; long walks through bare woods and rustling...

December 21st: The perennial and ever-recurrent aspect of the London streets at this time of year always reminds me of the old happy Christmas holidays and of long walks with three young gentlemen lately returned ho...

December 22nd: After all the fine mild weather I have been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with hard, cold, moonlight nights. So to-day I thought of my little birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble,...

December 23rd: I have been out for a walk long after dark - or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon was shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times of year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight...

December 24th: It is so curious after a full life to be alone on Christmas Eve. But of course it was my own choice, and not necessary. I could have gone away, but I love these winter afternoons and the long evenings...

Lentil Toast: Four to six ounces of lentils, one ounce of butter, water, and slices of buttered toast. Look over and thoroughly rinse the lentils, and put them into a small saucepan with enough water to well cover ...

Green And White Haricot Beans: Soak in cold water for twelve or even twenty-four hours, then put them into boiling water with a little salt and two minced shallots. Cook till tender, but not mashed. They will take from two to two a...

It Is Worth While To Know That With All Hard Vegetables - Peas, Beans, Lentils, Etc: if they have not been soaked the day before, the way to boil them slowly is to add every now and then a tablespoonful of cold water. The same thing applies to dried fruit. ...

To Roast A Fine Large Volaille (Chicken Or Capon Or Young Turkey): Take some very fat bacon or a good tablespoonful of good grease (clarified fat of beef or pork kidney, half and half). Dissolve it in a very deep copper stewpan and let it get hot, but not very hot. P...

Ailerons De Dinde Aux Navets: Take the wing-bones and a portion of the legs of a roast turkey, and divide them into reasonable-sized pieces. Take some cold stock which has been already well flavoured with vegetables, and add a lit...

January 5th: After a white frost in the morning we have had a day which, except for its shortness, we should be satisfied with and think beautiful in early spring. These mild, sunny winter days do great harm in pr...

January 6th. Trip to Ireland: Fate caused me to go to Ireland about this time last year. I dreaded the long night journey and the arrival on the gray winter morning. But were the steamers far less splendid sea-boats than they are,...

Trip to Ireland. Part 2: One of the most beautiful colour-effects I saw in Ireland was a small lake planted with great clumps of Dog-wood, with its crimson branches beside the bright yellow of the Golden Willow. A great deal...

Trip to Ireland. Part 3: I am very ignorant of Irish affairs in general, but I listened with extreme interest to all that I could hear of the co-operative movement now being carried out by so many farmers in Ireland. I have s...

January 6th: I always order all the kitchen-garden seeds during January. My method is this - the gardener marks Sutton's list, and then brings it to me to alter or add to it any out-of-the-way vegetable. It is mos...

January 8th: I have read once or twice in the newspapers that butterflies have been seen from time to time this mild winter, and now this morning I have caught sight of one of these Press butterflies, a beautiful ...

January 9th: The Iberis that ornaments French cottage windows and that I called 'Gibraltarica' in the first book is not that at all, but I. sempervirens. I have one in the greenhouse that was cut back all the summ...

January 12th: The first little Aconites are out to-day! This is early Going through January without cold is rather despairing. I find that even in this dry soil the Aconites do much better under evergreens and at t...

Snowdrop-Time: 'It's rather dark in the earth to-day,' Said one little bulb to his brother; 'But I thought that I felt a sunbeam ray - We must strive and grow till we find the way!' And they nestled close to each ...

January 13th: A tall greenhouse grass called Cyperus laxus I find easy to grow. It is very pretty picked in winter and stuck into a bottle behind some short pieces of bright-coloured flowers. It looks refined, and ...

January 14th: In the January number of a charming little periodical called 'The Sun-children's Budget,' intended to teach young children botany easily and amusingly, there was an account and an illustration of a ra...

January 16th: Last January someone sent me a cutting out of 'The Scotsman'; it was called 'Floral Notes from the West Coast of Ross-shire.' The writer begins by showing himself extremely proud, as is only natural, ...

January 20th: It is a constant disappointment to me that I cannot get the Tussilago fragrans called Winter Heliotrope, with its delicious fragrant spikes of flowers, to bloom here. It is quite hardy, and a weed sup...

January 27th: I have on my flower table a shrubby Begonia in a pot with small, pointed, spotty leaves and hanging white flowers. They are easily reared from seed, and I do think they grow so beautifully and can be ...

January 28th: There is nothing like a date and a detailed account of the weather for accentuating a garden fact. We have had lately several days of frost, and we had to-day for luncheon so excellent a green vegetab...

Parsnips: Everybody grows parsnips so far as I can make out, and hardly anyone ever eats them, except now and then with boiled pork and with salt cod on Good Friday. They are very good in England, as our mild w...

Mutton Cutlets à La Russe: Braise the cutlets. The sauce is made as follows: One stick of horse-radish scraped, four shallots, one bay-leaf, a little thyme, a little raw ham chopped, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, one desser...

Open Apple Tart: For this it is necessary to have a small round iron plate, flat with a very narrow rim, as used abroad. In the country you can have them made, and in London you can buy them at the good shops. They mu...

February: Mistresses and servants -Difficulty of getting servants - Girls instead of boys - Registry Offices - The employments that do not take up characters - Early rising - Baron Humboldt - Coverings for lard...

February. Part 2: After leaving school, village as well as town, girls in a great number of cases are kept at home for a few years by their mothers. This gives them a love of freedom and amusement which singularly unfi...

February. Part 3: Servants stick very closely to what they consider their own duty, but I have never found servants object to anything if told of it beforehand. They do not like unexpected duties sprung upon them, and ...

February. Part 4: Nothing is of more importance than to help servants with their money affairs. They are very ignorant and very improvident, though often very generous. The extravagant servant will listen to no reason ...

Sympathy: There should be no despair for you While nightly stars are burning, While evening pours its silent dew, And sunshine gilds the morning. There should be no despair, though tears May flow down like ...

February 2nd: I have been reading lately two fascinating books on natural history by George D. Leslie the painter - one is called 'Letters to Marco' and the other 'Riverside Letters' - descriptions of his own home ...

February 9th: Where people suffer much from the birds eating out buds, as I do, I strongly recommend picking some of the branches of Prunus pissardi when in bud, and sticking them into Japanese wedges or into ordin...

February 10th: On this day last year I went to one of the Drill Hall Horticultural Shows, and was especially delighted with Amygdalus davidiana; it is one of the earliest of the flowering shrubs. I immediately bough...

February 20th: I returned home to-day after staying some little time in London. Apart from other reasons, it is worth going away for the joy of returning. While in London I again went to the Drill Hall Show, on the ...

February 22nd: I brought back with me from Ireland last year several plants of the Iris stylosa. The white one has flowered, but not the blue ones, though these were put in two situations - some in good rich soil, a...

February 23rd: A treat has come for all of us amateur gardeners this month in the publication of a long looked-for gardening book by Miss Jekyll, charmingly illustrated from photographs of her own. But, good as are ...

February 26th: I have been to-day planting large quantities of the roots of the Tropæolum speciosum in various parts of the garden. These were given to me by a kind neighbour. He says the great secret (and he is p v...

February 27th: The last few days have been very cold, but I have some most beautiful branches of Almond in full flower in the house. They were picked, as I have explained, whilst in bud, and put to expand in the gre...

Poulet à La Valencienne: Cut a good fowl into pieces. Wipe it dry, but do not put it into water. Take a saucepan, put in a wineglassful of olive oil, and add two cloves of garlic. Be careful that it does not burn; for if it d...

Chasse: Ingredients: one onion, six tomatoes, three potatoes, a slice of ham, some grated cheese, red pepper, very little allspice. Fry the sliced onion lightly in some lard and butter mixed. Add the tomatoes...

Water Souehet: Take six flounders, fillet four, put the fillets into a saucepan. The carcasses and the others put into a stewpan with some stock, a bit of parsley and a little carrot, which boil for an hour. Strain,...

For Washing White Paint: Shred common yellow household soap, and boil it down in a saucepan with sufficient whitening to make it into a thick paste. Put it in a jar, and use. a little on a rag when required. It will clean the...

Furniture Polish: To clean, polish, and take marks out of furniture, 'sanitas Furniture Polish' is excellent and not expensive; but the following is an old receipt and very good: Equal quantities of methylated spirit, ...

For Polishing New Brown Boots And Shoes: I am sure many people will agree with me as to the extreme ugliness of new brown shoes; yet we all must have them new sometimes. An excellent way of correcting this ugly newness is to rub the leather ...

To Remove Fruit Stains: Soak the stain in a glass of water in which you have put ten to twelve drops of sulphuric acid. Then wash with clear water. ...

To Prevent Lamp-Wicks From Smoking: Steep the wicks in very strong vinegar; then let them dry completely before they are used. A series of penny books published as the 'Domestic Science Series' is full of useful information. The only o...

'To Destroy Blackbeetles: Not long ago the kitchens and bakeries of the Fir Vale Union Workhouse at Sheffield swarmed with blackbeetles, to such an extent that the Government Inspector feared the buildings would have to be pul...

March: Confessions about diet - Cures for rheumatism - Effects of tea-drinking - Sparing animal life a bad reason for vegetarianism - The Berlin foot-race - Mrs. Crow in Edinburgh - Bagehot on luxury - A wor...

March. Part 2: Although it is rare to find a doctor who will recommend strict dieting in chronic cases, I think it is becoming equally rare for a doctor to make any objection if the patient himself proposes it. He w...

March. Part 3: I see even restaurants now advertise suppers which are not indigestible! An interesting pandering to the growing faith that good health comes far before good feeding. I was asked the other day to giv...

March. Part 4: One of the great advantages of the non-sentimental over the sentimental vegetarian is that in case dislike of foods occurs, as it very commonly does, and with it a decided depression of the nervous sy...

March. Part 5: I have noticed before the fact of the extraordinary economy brought about by reduction in food, wine, etc.; but this is not necessarily an argument in favour of a simple diet. The money people have mu...

March. Part 6: The child is wrapped in the bath towel and dried. The mackintosh and towel are then removed, and the really difficult process of dressing a very young baby is safely and easily performed on the pillow...

March. Part 7: 'But some allege another objection. It is maintained that cooked milk is less nutritious than raw milk. I admit that there is an element of truth in this. Milk is a fluid having a biological character...

March. Part 8: Is there anything more pathetic in three lines than these - by Blake - or more terribly true? Think of all the half-castes all over the world, not to mention our own cities! The Angel that presided o...

March. Part 9: In a letter on some remark about children in my first book a most kind and able woman wrote to me as follows: 'The only point on which I do not quite agree with you is where you say you cannot judge o...

March. Part 10: 'sometimes their utterances betray character, as of the little boy who, when the tiger's growls behind the sofa had become too realistic for human endurance, burst forth with Mother! mother! don't gr...

March 3rd: This is the first year I have forced Spiræa confusa, and it makes a lovely pot-plant. We left it out in the cold till the middle of January. In forcing all hardy things, that is the great secret: send...

March 8th: The lion-like character of the weather is softening, and all the little spring things begin to come through. Each day makes a difference, but the delightful feeling of new life is already everywhere. ...

March 9th: Odontoglossum Rossii major is a charming little Orchid to hang up in a shallow pan in a greenhouse when in flower. I am getting to like Orchids more and more now that, instead of thinking of them in t...

March 14th: My garden is now full of the old wild sweet Violet (Viola odorata) of our youth - before even the 'Czars' came in, much less the giant new kinds. I have an immense affection for this Violet, with its ...

March 16th: As the seasons come round, the changes often recall to my mind certain verses in 'Bethia Hard-acre's' volume. Such tender loving versions of some of Nature's facts are there, and I go out to verify th...

March 20th: Of all the many catalogues I receive, none, I think, are produced with anything like the attractive intelligence of the one sent out by Messrs. Ware, of Tottenham. This year one is tempted to say, fro...

March 28th: Towards the end of this month, or quite the beginning of next, it is most important to erect shelters under walls or trees, where the sides can be protected from wind and the top covered up on cold ni...

March 30th: At this time last year I wrote in my notebook that the cold and tempestuous weather, which had lasted the whole of March, moderated a little, and so I drove to the lovely wild garden in this neighbour...

Turbot à La Portugese: Cut into Julienne strips equal quantities of carrots, onions, turnips, and celery. Fry lightly in butter till a good colour. Add fresh tomatoes, peeled and with the seeds taken out. Cut them in slices...

April: Newspapers on cremation - More about Suffolk - Maund on flowers that close - Asparagus growing on the seacoast - Peacock feathers for firescreens - Dining-room tables - Petroleum tubs in gardens - Neg...

April 1st: This book is the last bit of work of the kind I shall ever do, and I am anxious to state, as I think of them, any views I may happen to have on various matters. I am deeply interested in watching the...

April 2nd: I have been lately to some of my Suffolk friends, in whose gardens I always learn so much. In a bowl of mixed flowers in my room I quickly detected a flower I did not know, a pale lavender double-Dais...

April 4th: Returned home to-day. It is incredible the difference a little warm rain makes. The whole garden looks so changed from when I went away four or five days ago! I have in the entrance drive a large Bal...

April 5th: Years ago I had the great pleasure of going to D. G. Rossetti's studio. He was working at the small replica of his beautiful big picture now at Liverpool - Dante's dream - from the 'Vita Nuova.' In th...

April 8th: This year gardening knowledge is given to the public cheaper than ever. There is a new penny handbook on gardening to be got at any railway station (Ward, Lock & Co.). It is quite good, giving all the...

April 10th: This is a time when I always find it a little difficult to keep the conservatory next the drawing-room gay. The large Crinum is going off, and the Azaleas are rather a bad metallic colour, which kills...

April 10th. Continued: I cannot understand anybody living in the country and not taking a special interest in birds - from the skylark, the smallest bird that soars, to the water wag-tail, the smallest bird that walks. The ...

April 20th: We have walked this evening down to the old mill by the river Mole. I have, not unnaturally, a great affection for a watermill, as I passed all my childhood so close to its thumping mysteries, and my ...

April 26th: Last year at this time I was able to go and hear at the Drill Hall, Westminster, Mr. Burbidge's exceedingly interesting address on 'Fragrant Leaves and Sweet-smelling Flowers.' This lecture has since ...

April 28th: Some years ago I was anxious to grow some Florist Auriculas, but I must frankly own we were never very successful. They took too much frame-room and wanted too much care; but for anyone who likes to g...

April 28th. Continued: Sometimes it is a help to put a little wet Sphagnum moss on the top of the pot under the piece of glass, or the pot may be covered with paper. The great thing to aim at with all seeds, whether large o...

For Preserving Eggs: Put some fresh eggs in a large basin or jar and pour lime-water over them. Two days after, take out the eggs and look through them carefully. Put away those which are at all cracked. Those which are q...

May: The 'French Sugar Pea' - The 'Westminster Gazette' on Tulips - The legend of the Crown Imperial - Article on 'sacred Trees and Flowers' - Peeling of Poppies - Cooking receipts - Books on Florence - Mr...

May 1st: Gorse thoroughly peeled and wedged (see first volume) lasts for weeks in water, and the warmth of the room makes the flower come out so well it is almost a different-looking plant. In these light soi...

To Cook Spaghetti (Small Italian Macaroni): Put some bacon-fat, or any pieces of fat, in a saucepan with onions, carrots, herbs, etc., all chopped up, and a little sugar. Fry them slightly. Pour off the fat. Cut up some tomatoes, add a little s...

Italian Way Of Dressing A Cabbage With A Hard Heart: Plunge the cabbage into boiling water. Take out the heart, cut it into ribbons. Mix with it bacon, chopped meat or game, onion, garlic, parsley, herbs, and above all some Grayère and Parmesan cheese -...

Another Risotto à La Milanaise: Italian rice is the best of all, though rather difficult to get. It is different from either Carolina or Patna. Failing it, boil half a pound of best Carolina rice. When it is about half cooked, drain...

Asparagus Salad: Thin boiled asparagus cut up into short lengths (pointes d'asperges) and mixed with oil and lemon-juice makes a nice salad. It is much improved by the addition of an apple ('New Zealand') peeled and c...

May 22nd: When I made up my mind last year to go to Florence I thought I would try and collect a few appropriate books to enlighten my ignorance and refresh my memory. I asked my friends what I should take, mer...

May 22nd. Part 2: I have four little daintily printed volumes published in 1834 - an early work of the well-known authoress Mrs. Jameson, who has written so much on Italian art. These books are not without interest to ...

May 22nd. Part 3: Vernon Lee's 'studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy' I have not read; but if they are half as interesting as this 'Life,' I have something to look forward to. The pictures of even a portion of so...

May 22nd. Part 4: French book by A. Geffroy, called 'Études Italiennes,' published in 1898, I thought worth reading, as it gives another historical view of the Renaissance; Art being only indirectly alluded to. The cha...

May 22nd. Part 5: Railway travelling is always such a joy to me. I never know which I like best - looking out of the window, or feeling that I can read in peace without the disturbances which are perpetually occurring ...

May 22nd. Part 6: One of the drawbacks of the facility of modern travel is that it enables people who have a short holiday - say, of three weeks - to rush through Italy from place to place. Disappointed with the climat...

June: What I saw from my window at Arcetri - Fireflies - Cypresses - Youthful memories in the 'Cascine' - Deodar in cloister of San Marco - Fête at Santa Margharita - Villas - Gardens - Want of colour in Tu...

June 1st: I alluded in May to a book called 'Earth-work out of Tuscany.' The introductory chapter contains the following passage, which comes home to me most strongly as I begin to write a few notes about my vi...

June 2nd: The weather is getting finer and warmer, and I am more and more delighted with my large, empty house and with the views all round. A more perfect spot could not be found even here. The actual town I c...

June 5th: To-day being warm, I went down to Florence; and dropping my companion - who had to call on a sick friend - I went on alone to the 'Cascine,' the well-known public park, which I had not seen for over f...

June 6th: When I was young in Florence a great mystery hung over the convent of San Marco, as women were not allowed to visit it, and we young ones thought of it principally in connection with its perfumery sho...

June 9th: This being the Festival of Corpus Christi, we went in the afternoon to the little church close by of Santa Margharita. Ouida describes, much better than I can do, 'the little, brown, square church wit...

June 9th. Part 2: All my early time at Florence was spent in driving about, seeing villas, wandering through the poderes, resting and drawing. For the amateur sketcher, what a mental struggle it is! - whether to give t...

June 9th. Part 3: My dear young friend a little misses the spirit of what I mean when she thinks the system of the garden she describes can be brought to England. Where there is frost and damp, such things get soon spo...

June 17th: My time was half over in Florence before I went to the picture galleries at all - not because I did not wish to go, but there was so much else to see and enjoy and admire. It is almost useless to spea...

June 17th. Continued: The head of Rembrandt in his youth, painted by himself, in the Pitti (not either of those in the Uffizi) is perhaps the most beautiful of his many self-painted portraits. None, certainly, in the Rembr...

June 19th: Sad news has come from England to-day of the death of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. What a loss The following very simple little poem by Byron - not much known, I think - is not modern in feeling, but fits ...

June 24th: This is the great Florentine 'Festa,' of which I had often heard and never seen. We were too idle to go down to the ceremonies at the cathedral in the morning, but in the afternoon there were Vespers ...

June 26th: I was faithful to my tastes, and though I had little time I went to the Botanical Garden in the town. It had nothing in it very remarkable; all the greenhouse plants were out in the open, and many of ...

June 27th: Just before I left I went to see the Riccardi Palace in the Via Cavour. The chapel I thought, as I suppose everyone does, one of the most interesting gems in Florence; it is so wonderfully fresh in co...

July: A night journey - Dawn in the train - Passing Chambéri - A water-cure near Geneva - Amiel and his 'Journal Intime' - The New Museum at Geneva - M. Correvon's garden - An afternoon at Bâle - Boecklin a...

July 1st: I left Florence on one of the last days of June, with oh! such a sad heart and a feeling I should never see it again. I am so conscious, as I said before, of the wisdom of spending the rest of my life...

July 1st. Part 2: I saw at that time in the museum a curious example of how in certain stages of civilisation the same customs prevail. They have there a large collection of curiosities taken from the remains of Lake v...

July 1st. Part 3: During my stay I was not able to see any of these houses, as I had wished, and only once did I stand in the town on the ever wonderful bridge where the Rhone, as blue as melted sapphires, tears throug...

July 8th: I carried out my wish and remained a night at Bâle, resisting the greater convenience of the station hotel for the old, famous, and handsomely rebuilt post-house of 'The Three Kings,' with its balconi...

July 12th: After Bâle I came back once more to Cronberg. Nothing is so interesting, next to one's own garden, as the gardens one knows well, belonging to one's friends, especially when they have very different s...

Mixture For Killing Carnation Disease: (1) Two pounds of vitriol (copper); (2) four pounds of lime, fresh slaked; (3) twenty-seven gallons of water; (4) two pounds of sugar. (1) (2) and (3) should be mixed together till no longer blue, but...

Bordeaux Mixture: Dissolve three-quarters of a pound of carbonate of copper in a little warm water; place it in a vessel that will hold six gallons of water. Slake half a pound of freshly burnt lime and mix it with the...

Timbale Napolitaine: To be served either in a silver casserole or in an open French high pie-crust, shaped like a flower-pot, and filled while baking with dry peas to keep it in shape. Boil a small quantity of medium-size...

Poulet à L'Indienne: Boil a large fowl in thin chicken or veal stock with two or three onions. When done, take these out, strain the stock (which ought to look quite pale and clear), cut the fowl in pieces, cover with lea...

Croûtes Of Ham And Beans: Take four ounces of lean ham and grate or chop very fine. Put it into a stewpan with a little cayenne pepper and a spoonful of sherry; then dish it upon small fried croûtes of bread. Dish round these ...

Lentils: Put a breakfastcup of Egyptian lentils into a saucepan, cover with about an inch and a half of water, boil very slowly for an hour. Heat half a tumbler of the best olive oil in a small saucepan. Cut u...

A Chocolate Pudding: Take five ounces of fresh butter; four ounces of chocolate, grated; four ounces of pounded sugar; one ounce of flour. Mix these in a small pan with a cup and a half of milk. Boil till quite thick, and...

Norwegian Fruit Jelly: Take two pounds of red currants and two pounds of raspberries (raw) rubbed through a cloth to extract the juice. Measure the juice in a good clean wine-bottle and pour it out. Put in the rest of the j...

Cherries And Semolina: Boil four pounds of good cherries in a quart of water till quite soft, then pass through a hair sieve. Put the juice back on the fire with a piece of vanilla and half a pound of lump sugar. Let it boi...

August: A Horticultural Show in August - The old Chelsea Physic Garden - Towns out of season - Flat-hunting in London - Overcrowding flats - Marble better than tiles - Curtains and blinds - A long note on gir...

August 9th: For the first time in my life I went to a Horticultural Society Show at the Drill Hall, Westminster, in August. The interest centred chiefly in the new hardy Water Lilies which everyone with small pon...

August 14th: Towns are never so pleasant as when out of season. Florence in June, and London in August, how immensely emptiness increases their charm! Flat-hunting in London is more bewildering and difficult even...

August 29th: Several of my young friends complained that the chapter headed 'Daughters' in my first book, though it sympathised with the woes of childhood, was addressed rather to mothers than to daughters. They s...

August 29th. Part 2: To my mind this letter is an absolute gem as regards the understanding of child-nature. There is no mention of anything that could possibly make the little being of ten feel her youth or the writer's ...

August 29th. Part 3: A lecture on 'Happiness,' given by Miss Lucy Soulsby in 1898 (published by Longmans, Green & Co.), is an excellent example of the teaching to which I refer, and would, I think, be helpful to many a gi...

August 29th. Part 4: Whether girls realise it or not, certainly an immense number of them associate marriage with the very healthy desire of having children of their own. With a little further cultivation they will come t...

Three Ages of Woman: I Love, in thy youth, a stranger knelt to thee, With cheeks all red and golden locks all curled And cried, 'sweet child, if thou wilt worship me, Thou shalt possess the kingdoms of the world.' But ...

Three Ages of Woman. Part 2: 'Do two human beings, especially of the opposite sex, ever fully understand one another? Have any two ever done so, since the world began? History and personal observation alike answer in the negative...

Three Ages of Woman. Part 3: One of the virtues that I think is over-praised at all ages, in women especially, is constancy. Constancy is splendid and much to be admired where two people are constant; but where it is one-sided, a...

Three Ages of Woman. Part 4: One of the best, noblest, and most useful old maids I have ever known once said to me: 'Why was I not warned, why did no one remind me that to most women the chances do not come often, and that if we ...

Three Ages of Woman. Part 5: I hear many people condemn the girl who 'marries for money'; and Marie Corelli vituperates against the women who 'sell themselves,' as she calls it. This seems to me unfair. Marriage and even love do ...

Three Ages of Woman. Part 6: 'I quite agree with you that it is very disagreeable to grow old, and I have always thought that if I had been Providence I would have made life begin with dotage and decrepitude, and go on freshening...

Reviews: The Spectator 'space fails to show the excellence in every department of Mrs. Earle's practical advice; but no woman who loves her house, her garden, and her children should fail to read this book.' ...

Reviews. Part 2: The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) By R. Barry O'Brien, Author of 'Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,' etc. Third Impression. With a Portrait, a view of Avondale, and a Facsimile Let...

Reviews. Part 3: Collections And Recollections. By; One who has kept a Diary.' With a Frontispiece. New and Cheaper Edition. Large crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 'One of the most entertaining books that we have ever looked throu...

Reviews. Part 4: The Purchasers of the First Edition will, on application to Smith, Elder, & Co., receive gratis a copy of the Supplement. 'One of the most remarkable contributions to physical and electrical knowledge...

Reviews. Part 5: The Money-Spinner, and other Character Notes. By H. Seton Merriman, Author of 'The Sowers,' 'With Edged Tools,' etc., and S. G. Tallentyre. With 12 Full-page Illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Second E...

Reviews. Part 6: 11. Balaustion's Adventure: Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society: and Fifine At The Fair. 12. Red Cotton Nightcap Country: And The Inn Album. 13. Aristophanes' Apology, including a Transc...

Reviews. Part 7: 13. Ballads And Miscellanies. With 35 Full-page Illustrations by the Author, George Cruikshank and John Leech, 35 Woodcuts, 3 Portraits of Thackeray's Ancestors, an Engraving of the Author from a Draw...

Headaches Begone! A Systemic Approach To Healing Your Headaches

Don't Let Your Bike Seat Ruin Your Sex Life Book

More Pot-Pourri From A Surrey Garden | by C. W. Earle

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