We proceed to ROOTS and VEGETABLES—­and the best cook cannot alter the first quality, they must be good, or the cook will be disappointed.

Potatoes, take rank for universal use, profit and easy acquirement.  The smooth skin, known by the name of How’s Potato, is the most mealy and richest flavor’d; the yellow rusticoat next best; the red, and red rusticoat are tolerable; and the yellow Spanish have their value—­those cultivated from imported seed on sandy or dry loomy lands, are best for table use; tho’ the red or either will produce more in rich, loomy, highly manured garden grounds; new lands and a sandy soil, afford the richest flavor’d; and most mealy Potato much depends on the ground on which they grow—­more on the species of Potatoes planted—­and still more from foreign seeds—­and each may be known by attention to connoisseurs; for a good potato comes up in many branches of cookery, as herein after prescribed.—­All potatoes should be dug before the rainy seasons in the fall, well dryed in the sun, kept from frost and dampness during the winter, in the spring removed from the cellar to a dry loft, and spread thin, and frequently stirred and dryed, or they will grow and be thereby injured for cookery.

A roast Potato is brought on with roast Beef, a Steake, a Chop, or Fricassee; good boiled with a boiled dish; make an excellent stuffing for a turkey, water or wild fowl; make a good pie, and a good starch for many uses.  All potatoes run out, or depreciate in America; a fresh importation of the Spanish might restore them to table use.

It would swell this treatise too much to say every thing that is useful, to prepare a good table, but I may be pardoned by observing, that the Irish have preserved a genuine mealy rich Potato, for a century, which takes rank of any known in any other kingdom; and I have heard that they renew their seed by planting and cultivating the Seed Ball, which grows on the tine.  The manner of their managing it to keep up the excellency of that root, would better suit a treatise on agriculture and gardening than this—­and be inserted in a book which would be read by the farmer, instead of his amiable daughter.  If no one treats on the subject, it may appear in the next edition.

Onions—­The Madeira white is best in market, esteemed softer flavored, and not so fiery, but the high red, round hard onions are the best; if you consult cheapness, the largest are best; if you consult taste and softness, the very smallest are the most delicate, and used at the first tables.  Onions grow in the richest, highest cultivated ground, and better and better year after year, on, the same ground.

Beets, grow on any ground, but best on loom, or light gravel grounds; the red is the richest and best approved; the white has a sickish sweetness, which is disliked by many.