1*0 9. hints respecting domestic economy. 183 



ported after the death of that great man, who certainly 

 would not have recommended any thing to his country, 

 which had not a probability of succeeding. 



ZizANiA aquatiet. 



I allude to the ^izania aquattca of Jamaica, a plant 

 which bears a grain like rice, equally eatable, and which 

 grows in wet places where nothing is produced but reeds. 

 Such sort of experiments which cost little or nothing, and 

 that do not require a productive soil, are certainly the 

 most valuable, in a country abounding already with most 

 of the useful plants of the known world. 



I am much of your solid opinion on all these subjects, 

 that we (hoald endeavour to do all the good we can in 

 morals and in physics, but ha%ard nothing from wild theory 

 in either the one or the other. By persisting in that wise 

 plan, though it is scarcely pofsible you can stem the tor- 

 rent of folly in many cases, in an island too much abound- 

 ing with good things, and blefsings of all kinds, to be so- 

 ber J yet you may have the good fortune to moderate its 

 course, which is doing a great deal ; for my own opini- 

 on, I really think from my knowledge of the continent as 

 well as our island, that if ever the beautiful simple alle- 

 gory of holy writ, was applicable to a country, it is to 

 Great Britain at present, ^ and they waxed fat and kicked.'' 



Vegetable soap. 

 A vegetable soap would certainly be as great a curiosi- 

 ty with you, as the vegetable silk you inquire after, anJ 

 such a one actually exists in the northern parts of Siberia, 

 known to the Rufsians by the name of iatarjkoi muiio or 

 Tartar's soap, from its being used as such by the Tartar> 

 about Krasnojarfk near Irkutzk, 



