Although it is rather a departure from the plan I pursued in the First Part to speak in this lesson about potatoes, it is natural to me to do it, because, so far as my practical experience - which was once in-experience, remember - goes, it is almost as difficult to boil a potato properly as to bake good bread. In the first place, we have one of the highest chemical authorities on our side for saying that on both wholesome and economical grounds potatoes should always be boiled in their skins. They do not look quite so well if they have to be peeled afterwards, but not only is the actual material wasted by the process of peeling - especially where there are no pigs to eat the peelings - but a great deal of the starchy substance, which is exactly what makes the potato so nourishing, is wasted. In roasted or baked potatoes, which have been peeled before cooking, the loss in weight from the skin and the drying is actually a quarter of the whole. It is curious to learn that potatoes which come to us from the bog lands of Ireland are far less watery and produce more starch than those which are grown on the dry, light soils of Yorkshire. This innate dryness is one reason why the Irish potato contains so much more nourishment than an English one. The potato was first grown by Sir Walter Raleigh in his garden at Youghal, in Ireland, and it is not much more than a century since its cultivation became general in England. The first potatoes grown in England came from a ship wrecked on Formby Point, near Liverpool. The tubers were planted by chance on the soil close by, which closely resembled that of Ireland, and no part of their new home has ever suited them better. The potato, though, as we have seen, of a certain appreciable value as a flesh-former, is not to be depended upon entirely as a force-producer, for the proportion of water in 100 parts is 75'2. Next to water, its peculiarly nourishing starch is most largely represented, and stands at 15'5. From this starch also a pasta can be made which gives a fair macaroni, but of course the advantages of the wheaten paste would be absent.

In ordinary kitchens where a steamer is used, the process of boiling a potato is easy enough, and that dry mealiness dear to the heart of a good cook can be reckoned upon. But if only a saucepan be attainable, then, having well washed - nay, even scrubbed and brushed - your potatoes, put them into it with cold water; add a little salt when the water boils; at first it should only be allowed to boil slowly, but it may boil as fast as you like during the last five minutes. Some varieties of the potato can be cooked much sooner than others ; there is often the difference between them of twenty minutes and three-quarters of an hour. From time to time they must be tried with a fork, which should go in freely when they are sufficiently boiled. The potatoes being now cooked enough, pour off as much water as can possibly be got rid of. Sprinkle a little more salt, take off the lid of the saucepan and set it on again in such a manner that the steam can escape, but keep the saucepan for a few minutes on the oven to dry the potatoes thoroughly. The saucepan should be lightly shaken from time to time to prevent the potatoes sticking to the bottom. Then serve either in a wooden bowl, with a clean cloth or a napkin, or else in a dish with perforated holes in the cover so that the vapour can escape. If potatoes form the principal diet of a family, eggs should be added where practicable, and milk, or dripping, or any sort of fat, as the potato itself is very deficient in albumen and fat.

Next to the potato, the cabbage is the most widely cultivated of all vegetables, yet it is far inferior to the others in the nutriment contained in a given weight. In point of value the parsnip ranks next to the potato as a flesh-former, and possesses six per cent, of carbon. Parsnips are followed closely by carrots and onions, though the latter are principally used as a relish. But all vegetables are chiefly valuable for their anti-scorbutic properties, and as a flavouring for insipid food. Lentils are particularly nutritious, and the food sold under the name of "Reva-lenta Arabica" is only the meal of the lentil after being, freed from its indigestible outer skin. In peas we find a great deal of caseine; hence, in an analytical table they rank next to wheat as a flesh and force-producer, whereas we should find the other vegetables relegated under the head of "Non-nitrogenous substances," that is to say, substances which, taken by themselves without milk, butter, or fat of any kind, are absolutely incapable of producing either flesh or force. In Ireland it is the milk taken with the potato which makes it so nourishing. If potatoes were eaten quite alone, the consumer would need to eat an enormous quantity to keep himself in any sort of condition, and he would never be able to do any amount of real hard work in the open air.

It is quite certain that sufficient value is not attached in England to the importance of the cultivation of vegetables. If a few leeks or sweet herbs, a row of potatoes, or a dozen cabbages, were planted in many a tiny spot beside a cottage door, which spot at present is but a puddle or a down-trodden mass Or caked mud, the hungry mouths inside would stand a better chance of being filled. When a poor woman has to go with her pence in her hand and buy every onion or potato or sprig of thyme which she wants to improve the flavour of the family meal, the chances are she will look upon them - and very justly, too - as luxurious additions to the bill of fare, and do without them as much as possible. All over France the poorest peasant has her "flavourings" close to her hand; and it is difficult to over-estimate the boon which a few common vegetables and herbs are, when used to assist in converting a scrap of bacon, a bone, and a little pea-meal into a warm, comforting, nourishing mid-day meal.

Mr. Ruskin attaches great importance to the cultivation of the land - the making the best of every inch of our own native soil; but I fear he wants to try experiments, and grow all sorts of curious things in every conceivable part of the British Isles, whereas I only confine my ambition to those little shabby nooks and odds and ends of ground which lurk around stray cottages, whose occupants evidently prefer sitting in the tap-room of the "Chequers" to digging for an hour in a scrap of garden morning and evening. Perhaps, if, in time, we are able to show the working man how enormously his culinary comfort can be increased by a little vegetable flavouring, he may take to planting and cultivating even a square rood of ground, if that be all he can call his own. I say nothing of the gain to health, for that is so easily ascertained by his own or his neighbour's experience. The seeds of common vegetables are very easily procured - in fact, they can almost be had for the asking; and, at all events, one day's beer-money would go a long way towards keeping a family in onions for a year if laid out in seed. A little soup or stew thus flavoured without extra expense, would surely be a vast gain on the hunch of dry bread and mug of weak, cold coffee, which I have often seen a labourer eating for his dinner. Then there only remains the trouble to be considered; and a lazy man will have to make twice as much exertion in the long run to keep body and soul together.

I repeat: it is not actual money which is absolutely wanting in such cases. It is that the few pence are generally laid out in the most improvident way - in a way which becomes gross extravagance when it is contrasted with what the same pittance would produce if properly managed. I have no hope of this little book, or any other book, great or small, working a miraculous and thorough reform, and converting every cottage in the country into a smiling abode of peace and plenty. What I do aim at and look forward to is, first, to arouse attention to the subject in those whose social rank is above that of the hand-to-mouth working man ; and next, to induce rich people to take as much trouble and spend as much money in providing their servants and workmen with the opportunity of learning how to cook their food, as they now do in teaching them and their children to read and write.

Mr. Ruskin, in his "Fors Clavigera," insists very strongly that in his model farm, his land bought out of the proceeds of the "St. George's Fund," every girl shall be taught "at a proper age to cook all ordinary food exquisitely." But I would go a step beyond, and I would have every boy taught also. I don't know about the cooking exquisitely! I should be satisfied, at first, if every boy and girl could be taught to cook even a little. For a knowledge of cooking, at all events in its simplest form, appears to me to be every whit as necessary for a man, if he is to move about the world at all, as it is for a girl. If the man does not move about, and is fortunate enough to marry a girl trained and taught cooking either at Mr. Ruskin's model farm or at the National School of Cookery, then he may forget, or lay aside, his culinary lore as quickly as he pleases ! But if he emigrates, or enlists as a soldier, or does any of the hundred and one things which men are obliged to do in these busy days, the chances are that he will find ever so slight a knowledge of cooking a very great boon and blessing to him.

One thing is very puzzling to me, though I know not why it should be brought in apropos of vegetables. It is the staunch conservatism, where food or cooking is concerned, of the working classes of England. In politics they are very often to a man, nay, even to a woman, advanced Liberals, to say the least of it. They are much more ready to advocate and adopt sweeping changes in things of which, after all, they cannot know a great deal; but they distrust anyone who suggests that they could improve the matters which lie close around them, and with which they are at least familiar. "My ould grandmother did it that way, and she lived till ninety," is an unanswerable argument against making the scrap of meat into a pot-au-feu, and adding vegetables and meat to it, instead of frizzling and burning the same scanty portion of meat in a greasy frying-pan over a smoky fire. I feel persuaded, therefore, that the great reform in cooking and economic management of our food-material must begin in the classes above the working man. When he sees and learns by experience that an ounce of meat, properly dressed, will go further in actual nourishment and strength-imparting qualities than two ounces heated in his old barbarous method, he may perhaps be induced to consent to his "missis" or the "gals" being "learned" how to cook. My own private hope- and I would almost say expectation - is, that an increase in the artisan's or the working man's comfort at home, - such comfort as better cooked food and more of it must surely bring, - will lead to his wages finding their way oftener into the butcher's shop than the public-house. A well-fed man is very seldom a drunkard ; and it may be that in the spread and development of an attempt at culinary reform, two birds may, all unconsciously, be killed with one stone. In improving cottage comforts we may perhaps strike a great blow (with our frying-pans and soup-kettles !) at the shining glasses and quart pots of the gin-palace. God grant that it be so !