LETTER mantic.69

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But the number of flowers which Nature in her general course, unstimulated by art, prepares and effuses from some trees, approaches the scarcely credible class of things." These surprising multiplications of the living principle in plants, mark its high origin; and from their baffling all human explication, prove how little its recondite, yet powerful, nature is understood.

In the Alimentary Plants, the great care for providing an ever-succeeding sufficiency of human subsistence is manifested in all regions. In some, the same tree which affords it, bears the produce of different seasons on its branches." This pheno

Fern, of one peculiar sort, were to germinate without obstacle, this species would in twenty years cover the whole globe. Bull. Univ. 1829, p. 438.

....

69 Man, improving on nature, produces Cabbages and Turnips of half a hundred weight, and Apples of one pound and a half.' Loud. 263. . . . . .Every vegetable product seems capable of an enlargement that would be incredible, if such things did not frequently occur. Thus we read of a Strawberry 7 inches rounda Lettuce weighing 4 pounds-an Apple 15 inches round, weighing 19 ounces, another 25 ounces-a bunch of Grapes weighing 15 pounds -a Mushroom above a yard round, and weighing nearly 2 pounds -a Pear of two pounds weight-a Black Currant 2 inches round -a Gooseberry 3 inches-a Melon, of superior flavour, weighing 18 pounds-a Cauliflower nearly 16 pounds. All these in the soil and climate of England. . . In 1824, a Pear-tree at Carluke in Scotland, thirteen years old, in the Spring protruded a number of young shoots, which in the same Summer bore fruit, some of this as large as that on the elder branches.

70 Thus a single spatha of the DATE, the chief food of North Africa and the Desert, contains 12,000 male flowers. The Alfonsia Amygdalama has 600,000 upon a single individual; while every bunch of the Seje Palm of the Oronoco, bears 8,000 fruits. Lindsey's Nat. Bot. p. 280.

71 The Bread Fruit tree in Tahiti produces three and sometimes four crops a year, and many hundreds of fruit at a time. The several varieties ripen at different seasons, so that there are but few months of the year in which ripe fruit is not to be found in the several parts of the island.' Ellis, Polyn. 1. p. 357. The Cocoa-nut there is

still

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menon is occasionally, tho imperfectly, manifested LETTER in our own country and on our common trees; thereby indicating the possibility of our imitating such extraordinary successions of produce by increasing skill and cultivation.72 But the fact has been, that Nature has always, under the smallest exertion of human thought and labour, produced so much more than society has wanted, in her vegetable food, that no art has been less studied, until lately, than that of Agriculture, and none so little improved. No stimulus has been great enough to urge mankind to

still more continual. Fruit in every stage, from its first formation to the full-grown nut, may be seen, at one time on the same tree, and frequently on the same branch. Ib. 368.

72 Thus in August 1829, two Apple trees at Cheltenham were
covered with blossom, tho bearing at the same time a fine crop of
fruit. In July 1821, a Pear-tree at Canterbury had a large quantity
of fruit, while the other parts of it were in full bloom.-In the
same year, a Pear-tree near Winchester blossomed in May, and
the fruit of that was fine and full. It bloomed again in the next
month, and the fruit reached the size of an egg. In July, new
blossoms appeared, which made fruit as big as a walnut. In August,
flowers again emerged, but the produce was not larger than peas.
These were nature's own exertions, which art might in time pro-
mote and make more effectual.-In the same year, an Apple-tree
blossomed three times, and with ripe fruit twice.-Strawberries
have had blossoms and good fruit twice in some seasons and places.
In September 1821, the Siberian Crab-tree before my window
had an unusual quantity of its full grown apples, and was then
also shooting out twenty fine white flowers, which were blossoming
in October, tho the leaves had nearly all fallen off. So in a friend's
garden near, an Apple-tree was full of fruit, and also of its second
blossoms. Many Pear and Apple trees reblossomed that year. Red
Strawberries in the same year produced in October a second
crop of ripe fruit in several places. They flowered fully in my own
garden, but the fruit did not swell; but they were picked that Christ-
mas from some other garden beds. At a Parsonage in Herts, at the
end of the same December, the following flowers were gathered:
A white Rose bud,
A large full-blown Campanula,
A Polyanthus in flower,

A full-blown red Rose,
A sprig of Hawthorn in flower, Purple Heath in flower, and Violets.
Roses were flowering in other gardens.

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74

LETTER watch, and try, and pursue it with the diligence and scrutinizing judgment which have so highly advanced the Mechanic arts, and effected such wonders in the Sciences."3 Even still many tribes chuse to be content with Nature's spontaneous produce, which is always scanty, as if to compel our industry to exert itself; altho the living principle implanted in Vegetation, is quite ready to answer any demands that may be made on its productive powers, by any augmentation of human population. It only requires that human art and industry should be increased in this branch of our necessities as much as they are in the less essential one of our luxuries; and then its supplies will never be inferior to the need. This has hitherto always occurred in some degree. Want has stimulated the mind to greater art, care, and industry, in these northern climates; and the superiority of their population, sustenance, and comforts, is visible to every observer. Enlarging numbers only magnify the effect; for mankind seem to thrive and civilize in proportion as they multiply; and, by

73 Thus the Otaheitians will not cultivate the valuable ARROWROOT, because it costs them some trouble. Tho capable of being procured in any quantity, it requires some labour to render it fit for food. On this account, it was not extensively used by them. It formed rather a variety in their dishes at public feastings, than an article of general consumption. Ellis, p. 361. Their YAM also, ' a most valuable root, is cultivated to no very great extent, from the labour and attention it requires, altho it is one of their best flavoured and most nutritive roots.' Ib. 360.

74 When the Tahitians (Otaheitians) were exhorted to adopt the comforts of Europeans, they answered, We should like these things very well, but we cannot have them without working; that we do not like, and therefore would rather do without them: the Bananas and Plantains ripen on the trees; the Pigs fatten on the fruits that fall beneath them. These are all we want. Why therefore should we work?' Ellis, Polyn. Res. vol. 1, p. 451.

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a recurrent action, to multiply again in proportion LETTER as they civilize and prosper.75

I have taken this rather copious view of the productiveness of Vegetable nature, and collected these facts and circumstances for your consideration, because until they occurred to me I found that I had not formed just notions on this important branch of the great system of our Creation; and the deficiency which had subsisted in my own mind and judgment may be removed from yours, by the recapitulation and recollections into which I have diverged. But it only is from an adequate adduction of particulars, that our general views can be either large or full. Nature is expanded before us every day; but we must minutely observe it, in order to comprehend it: for we have to ascend from the phenomena to the principle, and to infer the plan from its execution. It is thus we learn to know the productive laws of its original system, by a patient notice and accumulation of its ever-evolving effects.

But if human ingenuity has been hitherto dormant on the vital point of its bodily subsistence, it is now presenting us with indications that it will be indolent

75 This is satisfactorily illustrated in Mr. Sadler's publication. The Missionaries found that they could make no progress in civilizing the Tahitians but by causing wants to arise in their minds. Ellis says, 'the absence of all inducements to labour increased the difficulty. Their wants were few. Their desires were limited to the means of mere animal existence and enjoyment. These were supplied without much anxiety or effort-and possessing these, they were satisfied.'. . . . ' All classes were insensible to the gratification arising from mental improvement; to the enjoyments of social and domestic life; to the comforts of home; and to the refinements and conveniences which art and labour impart.'. . . . To increase these wants, or to make some of the comforts and decencies of society as desirable as the bare necessaries of life, seemed the best incitement to personal industry.' Pol. Res. 451, 2.

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LETTER and inattentive no longer. Experiments are beginning on the long-neglected art of multiplying human food--and even of obtaining it from other vegetable matter, besides the farinaceous grains and roots of nature. A German is stated to have found out the means of converting sawdust into an eatable food.7 A medical gentleman, near Manchester, is making bread from turnips, carrots, parsnips and beet ;" and a French miller has ground and worked straw and hay into nutritive bread," not inferior to that which the largest part of the Continental multitude subsist If it were not for this intimation, we might

on.79

76 Sawdust may be converted into substance like bread. It is less palatable than flour; yet makes a wholesome bread, digestible, and highly nutritive.' Dr. Prout's Account of Professor Autenricht's Experiments, in Phil. Trans. 1827, p. 381. Hersch. 65.

77 The public papers of March 1830, stated that Mr. Gouldson had discovered a mode of separating and preparing the farinaceous part of such bulbous roots as Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips, Beet, &c. and of converting it into a fine flour. After two years experiment, he has now obtained a patent. He declares that he really produces good and nutritious bread, equal, both in quality and colour, to the finest white wheaten bread. The quantity of farina to be obtained from the roots grown upon any given quantity of ground, compared to that produced from the ears of Wheat on the same space, is increased, he says, at least twenty times.

78 This last discovery is thus noticed in a highly respectable French periodical work devoted to the sciences. 'Chance led a miller in the Côte d'Or, to discover the means of converting STRAW into a farine of pretty good quality. Lately the Duc d'Angoulême, passing thro Dijon, tasted some small loaves made of it, and took some to show the King. It was M. Maitre, founder of the agricultural establishment of Viloffe, near Chatillon, who first discovered it. He has since found that not only the straw of corn and other grains may be made into flour; but that hay, and the stalks of Trefoil, Lucerne and Sainfoin, are also convertible. Flour from these last, he gives to his sheep and lambs. Bull. Univ. June 1830, p. 157.

79 The Moniteur in May 1830, mentioning that Wheat Straw, chopped and ground, yields a flour that was coarse, but agreeable and nutritious; added, that its bread was superior to the common bread used by the lower orders on the Continent.