s, when he begins the practice of agriculture, forms ideas of the
rights of property, and has his own, both defined and secured. The
forest, the stream, and the sea are now no longer his only resources for
food. He sows and he reaps, pastures and breeds cattle, lives on the
cultivated produce of his fields, and revels in the luxuries of the
dairy; raises flocks for clothing, and assumes, to all intents and
purposes, the habits of permanent life and the comfortable condition of
a farmer. This is the fourth stage of social progress, up to which the
useful or mechanical arts have been incidentally developing themselves,
when trade and commerce begin. Through these various phases, _only to
live_ has been the great object of mankind; but, by-and-by, comforts are
multiplied, and accumulating riches create new wants. The object, then,
is not only to _live_, but to live economically, agreeably, tastefully,
and well. Accordingly, the art of cookery commences; and although the
fruits of the earth, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and
the fish of the sea, are still the only food of mankind, yet these are
so prepared, improved, and dressed by skill and ingenuity, that they are
the means of immeasurably extending the boundaries of human enjoyments.
Everything that is edible, and passes under the hands of the cook, is
more or less changed, and assumes new forms. Hence the influence of that
functionary is immense upon the happiness of a household.

77. In order that the duties of the Cook may be properly performed, and
that he may be able to reproduce esteemed dishes with certainty, all
terms of indecision should be banished from his art. Accordingly, what
is known only to him, will, in these pages, be made known to others. In
them all those indecisive terms expressed by a bit of this, some of
that, a small piece of that, and a handful of the other, shall never be
made use of, but all quantities be precisely and explicitly stated. With
a desire, also, that all ignorance on this most essential part of the
culinary art should disappear, and that a uniform system of weights and
measures should be adopted, we give an account of the weights which
answer to certain measures.

A TABLE-SPOONFUL is frequently mentioned in a recipe, in the
prescriptions of medical men, and also in medical, chemical, and
gastronomical works. By it is generally meant and understood a measure
or bulk equal to that which would be produced by _half an