Mr. Lawrence on the Culture of Cabbage, Coffee, S(C, 



1821. 



the scale of intellectual attainmeut, so, 

 by this, the middle ranks of society 

 may advance still beyond them, and 

 thus will the whole mass of society be 

 moving forward in general knowledge, 

 and denionstratitlg the possibility of 

 the " perfectibility of the human spe- 

 cies." To the philosopher this march 

 of mind tov\ ards perfection, must ever 

 be a subject of high interest and gratu- 

 lation ; nor will he be backward in 

 giving that applause to those whose 

 zeal and disinterestedness have been 

 instrumental in promoting it, which 

 their laudable endeavours so richly de- 

 serve. 



Some of the most distinguished dig- 

 nitaries of the churdi have sanctioned 

 rhis undertaking, and some gentlemen' 

 alive to the important consequences 

 resulting from universal education, 

 have also interested themselves in this 

 l)lan, some of whom, I have no doubt, 

 will shortly give to the world their opi- 

 nions upon it. 



I could easily enlarge on the merits 

 and advantages of such an institution 

 as this, did I not fear (hat I have al- 

 ready trespassed too far upon your va- 

 luable pages ; I cannot, however, con- 

 clude without expressing my grateful 

 acknowledgements to the venerable 

 founder, for the benefits I feel I have 

 received from the plan myself; and it 

 is this circumstance, added to that of 

 the desire I had of giving greater pub- 

 licity to the plan (now in its infancy) 

 which has induced me to detail to you 

 these particulars relating thereto, which 

 I have had the honour of stating above. 

 J. P. Bevan. 



BrMol, 2lst March, 1821. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 

 SIR, 



I HAVE, at various periods, attended 

 to the recommendation of bore cole 

 or Scotch kail, as lately repeated by 

 your correspondent, Mr. Middleton, 

 (Feb. No. 3.50). The character he gives 

 of it, as a winter and early spring food 

 for cattle, I know, from experience, to 

 be coiTect ; and that it resists the frost 

 when all our other articles are destroy- 

 ed, or reduced to 'half their quantity. 

 It has, however, one defect which, so 

 far as my information extends, has 

 ever proved decisive, as a bar to its 

 culture in England,— the smallness of 

 the quantity which can be raised. I 

 have repeatedly made the experiment, 



• I do not feel myself sufficiently autho- 

 rieed to mention their names. 



503 



but with the utmost attention, about 

 thirty years since, in Hants, when 

 carrots and the large winter cabbage 

 were my chief dependence. These 

 last, although from seed of the highest 

 character that I could procure, always 

 failed me in a long and severe frost, 

 when they were most wanted. That 

 disappointment induced me to try a 

 quarter of an acre of kail, which in- 

 deed remained sound and good through- 

 out, but the quantity pioduced was so 

 small as scarcely to repay the trouble 

 of cutting and carrying to the yards. 

 In the severe vvinter of 1788, 1 fed my 

 cows with cabbages, which remained 

 sound to the very end of that long frost. 

 They were of great weight, and chop- 

 ped in pieces with bill-hooks. The 

 seed came from Hamburgh, and never 

 before or since, have I seen cabbages 

 decidedly port-worthy. I have heard, 

 that in some parts of Germany, they 

 hare a method of preserving winter 

 cabbages for cattle by piling and stack- 

 ing them like turnips. It would be a 

 lesson wortli the learning. 



^bovo usque ad mala — from cabbage 

 to coflFee. I lately saw, in some one of 

 our periodicals, the lament of a studious 

 brother on the degeneration of modern 

 coffee. Wits jump. Wit or dullness, 

 which you will, is attracted by its like. 

 I feelingly recognized my own case. I 

 have not, for many years, had the sa- 

 tisfaction to taste a cup of fine coffee, 

 such as I could obtain daily, and with 

 the utmost facility, in the year of 

 our Lord 1773, either at the Chap- 

 ter or Mount Coffee-house. I will 

 freely own that the laugh goes against 

 me among my friends, and in my 

 family, where I am often assailed 

 with the quotation from Gil Bias, on 

 the peaches of Adam's days. A num- 

 ber of ancient friends, hoMever, agree 

 with me, that coffee is not now to be 

 procured in London, equal in spirit and 

 richness of flavour, with the commo- 

 dity which used to be imported directly 

 from Mocha, or from the Levant, pie- 

 viously to transplanting the berry to 

 our West India colonies. Had Dr. 

 Johnson, to whom, by the bye, I missed 

 an introduction by a laughable acci- 

 dent, lived to witness this sad change, 

 it miglit have furnished the subject 

 matter of a grandiloquent and regretful 

 essay. It is said, by tlie dealers, that 

 the best of that wliich is now called 

 Mocha coffee, is imported from some 

 parts of the West Indies, and that the 

 real Mocha is an inferior article. Pro- 

 bably 



