into the other. The new hive containing the bees must be placed on the stand of the apiary, to receive the absent bees as they return from the fields.
BEET ROOT. This cooling and wholesome vegetable is good boiled, and sliced with a small quantity of onion, or stewed with whole onions in the following manner. Boil the beet tender with the skin on, slice it into a stewpan with a little broth and a spoonful of vinegar. Simmer it till the gravy is tinged with the colour; then put it into a small dish, and make a round of button onions, first boiled tender. Take off the skin just before serving, and let them be quite hot and clear. Or roast three large onions, and peel off the outer skins till they look clear; and serve round them the stewed beet root. The root must not be broken before it is dressed, or it will lose its colour, and look ill. – To preserve beet-root for winter use, they should not be cleared from the earth, but kept in layers of dry sand.
BEETLES. When these insects become troublesome in the house, put some small lumps of quick lime into the chinks or holes of the wall from whence they issue, or scatter it on the ground. Or at night, lay a spoonful of treacle on a piece of wood, and float it in a pan of water: beetles are so fond of syrup, that they will be drowned in attempting to get at it. The common black beetle may also be extirpated by placing a hedgehog in the room, during the summer nights; or by laying a bundle of pea straw near their holes, and afterwards burning it when the beetles have crept into it.
BENTON CAKES. Mix a paste of flour, a little bit of butter, and milk. Roll it as thin as possible, and bake on a backstone over the fire, or on a hot hearth. Another sort of Benton tea-cakes are made like biscuits, by rubbing into a pound of flour six ounces of butter, and three large spoonfuls of yeast. Work up the paste with a sufficient quantity of new milk, make it into biscuits, and prick them with a clean fork. Or melt six or seven ounces of butter, with a sufficient quantity of new milk warmed to make seven pounds of flour into a stiff paste. Roll it thin, and make it into biscuits.
BENTON SAUCE. Grate some horse-radish, or scrape it very fine. Add to it a little made mustard, some pounded white sugar, and four large spoonfuls of vinegar. Serve it up in a saucer: this is good with hot or cold roast beef.
BILLS OF FARE, or list of various articles in season in different months.
January. —Poultry. Game, pheasants, partridges, hares, rabbits, woodcocks, snipes, turkeys, capons, pullets, fowls, chickens, tame pigeons. —Fish. Carp, tench, perch, eels, lampreys, crayfish, cod, soles, flounders, plaice, turbot, skate, thornback, sturgeon, smelts, whitings, crabs, lobsters, prawns, oysters. —Vegetables. Cabbage, savoys, coleworts, sprouts, brocoli, leeks, onions, beet, sorrel, chervil, endive, spinach, celery, garlic, potatoes, parsnips, turnips, shalots, lettuces, cresses, mustard, rape, salsify, herbs dry and green. —Fruit. Apples, pears, nuts, walnuts, medlars, grapes.
February, March. – Meat, fowls and game, as in January, with the addition of ducklings and chickens. —Fish. As the last two months, except that cod is not thought so good, from February to July. —Vegetables. The same as the former months, with the addition of kidney beans. —Fruit. Apples, pears, forced strawberries.
April, May, June. —Meat. Beef, mutton, veal, lamb, venison in June. —Poultry. Pullets, fowls, chickens, ducklings, pigeons, rabbits, leverets. —Fish. Carp, tench, soles, smelts, eels, trout, turbot, lobsters, chub, salmon, herrings, crayfish, mackarel, crabs, prawns, shrimps. —Vegetables. As before, and in May, early potatoes, peas, radishes, kidney beans, carrots, turnips, early cabbages, cauliflowers, asparagus, artichokes, all sorts of forced sallads. —Fruit. In June, strawberries, cherries, melons, green apricots, gooseberries and currants for tarts. In July, cherries, strawberries, pears, melons, gooseberries, currants, apricots, grapes, nectarines, peaches; but most of these are forced.
July, August, September. – Meat as before. —Poultry. Pullets, fowls, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, green geese, leverets, turkey poults, plovers, wheatears, and geese in September. —Fish. Cod, haddock, flounders, plaice, skate, thornback, mullets, pike, carp, eels, shellfish, except oysters; mackarel the first two months, but are not good in August. —Vegetables. Beans, peas, French beans, and various others. —Fruit. In July, strawberries, gooseberries, pineapples, plums, cherries, apricots, raspberries, melons, currants, damsons. In August and September, peaches, plums, filberts, figs, mulberries, cherries, apples, pears, nectarines, grapes, pines, melons, strawberries, medlars, quinces, morella cherries, damsons, and various plums.
October. – Meat as before, and doe-venison. —Poultry. Game, pheasants, fowls, partridges, larks, hares, dotterels, wild ducks, teal, snipes, widgeon, grouse. —Fish. Dories, smelts, pike, perch, holibets, brills, carp, salmon trout, barbel, gudgeons, tench, shellfish. —Vegetables. As in January, French beans, runners, windsor beans. —Fruit. Peaches, pears, figs, bullace, grapes, apples, medlars, damsons, filberts, nuts, walnuts, quinces, services.
November. —Meat. Beef, mutton, veal, pork, house lamb, doe venison, poultry and game. Fish as the last month. —Vegetables. Carrots, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, skirrets, onions, leeks, shalots, cabbage, savoys, colewort, spinach, cardoons, cresses, endive, celery, lettuces, salad, herbs. —Fruit. Pears, apples, nuts, walnuts, bullace, chesnuts, medlars, grapes.
December. —Meat. Beef, mutton, veal, house lamb, pork and venison. —Poultry. Game, turkeys, geese, pullets, pigeons, capons, fowls, chickens, rabbits, hares, snipes, woodcocks, larks, pheasants, partridges, sea-fowls, guinea-fowls, wild ducks, teal, widgeon, dotterels, dunbirds, grouse. —Fish. Turbot, cod, holibets, soles, gurnets, sturgeon, carp, gudgeons, codlings, eels, dories, shellfish. —Vegetables. As in the last month; asparagus forced. —Fruit. As the last, except bullace.
BIRCH WINE. The season for obtaining the liquor from birch trees, is in the latter end of February or the beginning of March, before the leaves shoot out, and as the sap begins to rise. If the time be delayed, the juice will grow too thick to be drawn out. It should be as thin and clear as possible. The method of procuring the juice is by boring holes in the trunk of the tree, and fixing in facets made of elder; but care should be taken not to tap it in too many places at once, for fear of injuring the tree. If the tree is large, it may be bored in five or six places at once, and bottles are to be placed under the apertures to receive the sap. When four or five gallons have been extracted from different trees, cork the bottles very close, and wax them till the wine is to be made, which should be as soon as possible after the sap has been obtained. Boil the sap, and put four pounds of loaf sugar to every gallon, also the rind of a lemon cut thin; then boil it again for nearly an hour, skimming it well all the time. Into a cask that will contain it, put a lighted brimstone match, stop it up till the match is burnt out, and then pour the liquor into it as quickly as possible. When nearly cold, work it with a toast spread with yeast, and let it stand five or six days, stirring it two or three times a-day. Put the bung lightly in till it has done working; then close it down, and let it stand two or three months. The wine may then be bottled, and will be fit for use in about a week. It makes a rich and salutary cordial, and its virtues are much relied on in consumptive and scorbutic cases.
BISCUIT CAKE. One pound of flour, five eggs well beaten and strained, eight ounces of sugar, a little rose or orange flower water. Beat the whole thoroughly, and bake it one hour.
BISCUITS. To make hard biscuits, warm two ounces of butter in as much skimmed milk as will make a pound of flour into a very stiff paste. Beat it with a rolling pin, and work it very smooth. Roll it thin, and cut it into round biscuits. Prick them full of holes with a fork, and about six minutes will bake them. – For plain and very crisp biscuits, make a pound of flour, the yolk of an egg, and some milk, into a very stiff paste. Beat it well, and knead it quite smooth; roll the paste very thin, and cut it into biscuits. Bake them in a slow oven till quite dry and crisp. – To preserve biscuits for a long time sweet and good, no other art is necessary than packing them up in casks well caulked, and carefully lined with tin, so as to exclude
