To have good, fresh vegetables is a happiness; but to know how to cook them is a fine art. The lack of knowledge in this behalf is lamentable.

All green vegetables should be dropped into water which has been salted and is just beginning to boil. Use a tablespoon of salt to 2 quarts water. If the water boils a long time before the vegetables are put in it loses its gases and the mineral ingredients are deposited on the sides and bottom of the kettle, so that the water is flat and tasteless. The vegetables will not look green or have a fine flavor.

Vegetables should not be overgrown to be at their best. To be properly enjoyed, vegetables should be eaten when quite young and before they have attained gigantic growth. Young and green vegetables should never be cooked in a tinned saucepan, as this will inevitably spoil the color; but if they are cooked uncovered, with plenty of boiling water, there should be no difficulty about this.

In salting the water, from one-half ounce to one ounce of salt should be allowed to the gallon of water, and in case of peas and green vegetables one-third this amount of sugar should be added, as this draws out the flavor.

In cooking cabbages, greens, etc., the more water there is the less will be the very disagreeable odor, inseparable in most people's minds with the cooking of greens, whilst another remedy for this is to put a piece of bread tied up in a muslin bag and boil it with the cabbage, removing it at the end of 15 minutes and burn it. When the cabbage is cooked unless the water is to be used as a foundation for vegetable soups, it should be poured away at once.

Then, again, all vegetables that have a bitter flavor, such as turnip tops, endive, cabbage or dandelion, should be first blanched. To do this, put the vegetables on in cold water, bring this absolutely to the boil, then pour off and cover the vegetables with fresh, absolutely boiling water. Or, if preferred, when half cooked the water may be strained off the vegetables.

All root vegetables when young merely require to be well scrubbed, and then rinsed in clean water.