A copper for heating water or cooking food, is a very necessary appendage to all stables. Hot water is frequently required for numerous operations, which are not performed if the water can not be easily procured. But this is not the principal use of a boiler. It is wanted so often for cooking food, that in town as well as country it ought to form a permanent appendage. [When hay and grain are cheap, it is no object to cut the one or cook the other.] The boiler is usually made of cast-iron, and placed in some corner of the yard. On large establishments it would be an advantage, a saving, to have the boiler of malleable iron. It is in almost constant use, and intrusted to so many different persons, most of them sufficiently careless, that it is generally broken once or twice a year. Mr. Mein has one of plate-iron, oval in form; and it is not injured by the worst of usage.

The boiler should be placed in a house which will afford convenience for keeping all the cooking implements, coals, coolers, and pails. There should be an iron ladle for mixing or measuring the food; a water-pipe, with the stopcock running into the boiler. The door should have a good lock upon it. The entrance should be wide enough to admit a wheel-barrow, or the cooler, which is just a long wooden trough, sometimes placed upon wheels. A part of the boiler-house may be allotted to roots intended for cooking.

When the food is steamed, there is still more need for shelter from the weather, convenience for carrying on the processes, and security from the intrusion of thievery and mischief.