"make a confection; and of his works (qu. Bills?) there is no "end; and from him is peace all over the earth-(that is in the " scripture phrase, I presume, his patients are gathered to their "fathers, and are at rest.)

"He that sinneth before his maker, let him fall into the hand "of a physician."

Adieu: I leave you to study the science of cookery en chimiste. As for myself, if I cannot view it en philosophe, I will treat it at least en amateur. Moderate myself, I do not despise the bird'seye view of a well spread table, though I can heartily coincide with Horace.

Si ventri bene: si lateri est; pedibusque tuis, nil

Divitiæ poterunt regales addere majus.

Observe, however, that Horace does not say simply, si ventri, that is if you have plenty to eat; but, si ventri bene, that is plenty of food well cooked. In my next I hope to peep with good effect, into the kitchens of some of my friends who know how to live. EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS.

Mr. CURWEN, who ought to be known under the title of the Northern Patriot, has recently circulated the following letter on the important subject of the culture of Potatoes.

"Workington-Hall, April 9, 1809.

"SIR,-The improvement of our agriculture appears to me to be the most certain means of advancing the prosperity and happiness of the United Empire, and preserving to us the blessings we enjoy. I may be deemed visionary, but I cannot disguise my opinion, that Great Britain, under a system of good agriculture, would be capable of supporting thirty millions of inhabitants. Nothing can contribute more to this desirable object than the genera! culture and use of Potatoes.

"The population of Workington is estimated at eight thousand, the weekly sale of potatoes during ten months of the year, exceeds four thousand stone* per week; to supply this consumption requires nearly an hundred acres; I am inclined to believe five times the number of acres would not, in any other mode of

The common stone is 14lb. So that this is on a calculation of about 400 bushels to the acre, as a common crop and in England it is so. I insert the next article about BUTTER, because the value of turnip-culture seems perfect. ly unknown in this country. T. C.

cropping, produce an equal quantity of food. In corroboration of this opinion, let us suppose five hundred acres of wheat, yielding twenty-four Winchesters, per acre, of 60lbs. or six hundred thou sand pounds of bread, equal to supplying four thousand persons with half a pound of bread for three hundred days. The con sumption then would be half a pound of bread to four pounds of potatoes. The comfort derived from the use of potatoes by the working classes, affords a most powerful argument in favour of their general introduction-no food is more nutritious, none so universally palatable. The philanthropist and politician will equally promote their views, by extending the use and culture of the potatoe.

"For eight years past I have fed all my working horses upon steam potatoes, mixed with cut straw, and latterly I have with equal success given them to oxen. They would answer for milch cows, and fattening cattle, if they could be raised at less expence. My consumption for eight months in the year is a ton and a half per day, or about three hundred and sixty tons annually-the land used, in feeding with potatoes as a substitute for hay, is be tween a sixth and a seventh-fifty acres of potatoes will furnish above the quantity required, whilst three hundred and fifty acres of hay would most frequently fall short of supporting the samé number of working horses and oxen-the advantage of this system extends beyond the individual, and is felt both immediately and remotely by the mass of the community. In the first place, the ground heretofore indispensably requisite for the growth of hay, for horses is now applied to the purposes of a dairy, and in thẻ last year 507, 24 quarts of milk were sold, whereas in 1804, only 222,755. In years of scarcity, the food of horses can be applied to the use of man.

J. C. CURWEN.”

BUTTER.

SEVERAL specimens of Swedish turnip butter, from the dairy of Mr. Ives, of Catton, were exhibited at the principal inns in Norwich, on the 15th of April; and being placed on the dinner tables at each house, gentlemen had a fair opportunity afford ed them of pronouncing a decided opinion upon its quality.

It has afforded a convincing proof, that turnips of all descripVol. II

30

tions, do not universally, in a greater or less degree, injure the flavour of our milk and butter; to this assertion, the Swedish turnip is an exception, in a most decided point of view.

It appears, that the management of these cows is most simple and easy; they are fed on hay, good oat-straw, and Swedish turnips; but it ought to be observed, that a degree of care and neatness is necessary in preparing these turnips for them. In the first place, they are drawn about the end of February or beginning of March, laid in ridges or heaps of a load or two each, and left on the land for two or three weeks; they are then carted away to some convenient place, their tops and tails cut off clean, and piled on a heap, where they are kept as free from soil or dirt as possible. It is adviseable also, that the operation of topping and tailing be done in a yard apart from that where the cows are fed; for should they eat any of the tops, this excellence of flavour in the milk and butter will be deteriorated considerably. The mode of preparing these turnips deserves particular attention. The drawing them from the land at the time they are in their most compact state, then depriving them of the absorption, if it may be so called, of the new or vernal sap of the soil, a diminution of that important matter does not take place, as from an opposite course of management would be the result, to the no small injury of the following crop. In this state too, they keep much longer; and, moreover, which is of no less importance, the turnips are, in themselves, more nutritive, as would appear from the superior quality of the butter produced; for, by being thus exposed to the air, and detached from the soil, a considerable portion of aqueous moisture is carried off by natural evaporation, which would otherwise add to the quantity of our dairies, but not the quality, as we find to be the case in feeding cows with those which have been recently drawn. Month. Mag. June 1809.

TABLE.

From Professor Davy's Treatise on Agriculture, p. 131. Table of the quantities of soluble or nutritive matters afforded by 1000 parts of different vegetable substances.

All these substances were submitted to experiment green, and in their natural states. It is probable that the excellence of the different articles as food will be found to be in a great measure proportional to the quantities of soluble or nutritive matters they afford; but still these quantities cannot be regarded as absolutely denoting their value. Albuminous or glutinous matters have the characters of animal substances; sugar is more nourishing, and extractive matter less nourishing, than any other principles composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Certain combinations likewise of these substances may be more nutritive than others.

I have been informed by Sir Joseph Banks, that the Derbyshire miners in winter, prefer oat cakes to wheaten bread; finding that this kind of nourishment enables them to support their strength and perform their labour better. In summer, they say oat cake heats them, and they then consume the finest wheaten bread they can procure. Even the skin of the kernel of oats probably has a nourishing power, and is rendered partly soluble in the stomach with the starch and gluten. In most countries of Europe, except Britain, and in Arabia, horses are fed with barley mixed with chopped straw; and the chopped straw seems to act the same part as the husk of the oat. In the mill 14lbs. of good wheat yield on an average 13lbs. of flour; the same quantity of barley 12lbs. and of oats only 8lbs.

In the south of Europe, hard or thin-skinned wheat is in higher estimation, than soft or thick-skinned wheat: the reason of which is obvious, from the larger quantity of gluten and nutritive matter it contains. I have made an analysis of only one specimen of thin-skinned wheat, so that other specimens may possibly confain more nutritive matter than that in the table.

STEAM ENGINES.

SINCE concluding this article, a few pages back, new communications induce me to resume it.

I have already mentioned, that on a rail-way near Leeds in Yorkshire, in England, a waggon containing a steam-engine, drags after

This may be so thought Cullen, but I know of no experiments to prove this, T. C.