Excerpt from An Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy, Comprising Such Subjects as Are Most Immediately Connected With Housekeeping: As, the Construction of Domestic Edifices, With the Modes of Warming, Ventilating, and Lighting Them; A Description of the Various Articles of Furniture; A General Account of the Animal and Vegetable Substances Used as Food It is vain to expect many valuable improvements from persons who have only what is termed mere practice to depend upon: by frequent ly repeating the same operations, they acquire a certain degree of skill, but being without principles to guide them, their attempts at improve ment too often prove abortive; and if some scientific acquirements be essential to the progress of the' domestic as well as the other arts, to whom should we look for the possession of these advantages? The answer is obvious - to those possessed of affluence and leisure, who have alone the means of attaining it sufficiently. It would be useless to pursue this subject farther; and thus much has been said to account for some peculiarities in the present work, where the editor has ad verted to this subject. The editor ventures to hope, that to many this suggested union of science with practice will not prove irksome; on the contrary, he is satisfied that much rational amusement may be derived from the ex periment. It may not be necessary for every one to brew or to bake, make wine, or light a fire; yet to go through each of these operations once, so as to comprehend the principles upon which success depends, may really be made an entertaining occupation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.