324 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



England is immense, as is quite evident from the great popula 

 tion which is fed. 



KINDS OF BREAD. MAIZE, OR INDIAN CORN. In Scotland, 

 ;i considerable portion of the bread is made of oatmeal. In 

 Ireland, a large portion of the poorer classes live upon potatoes ; 

 and many scarcely taste bread from one year s end to another. 

 In some parts of the country, meal from pease, and barley meal, 

 are mixed with a portion of wheat meal, and used for bread. 

 But the vast majority of the people use wheat bread exclusively. 

 There is very little or no rye consumed for bread. Indeed, I 

 have not known it used in a single instance. The poor are ex 

 tremely tenacious of the kind of bread which they eat ; and I have 

 seen, in more instances than a few, where the farmer was under an 

 obligation to supply his laborers with wheat at a certain rate, and 

 was using wheat of an inferior quality for his own table, and 

 sending the best to market, the laborer insisted upon that of the 

 best quality, though he might have had an inferior quality at less 

 than the stipulated price. I certainly do not deny their right to 

 do this ; and I begrudge the poor none of their small round of 

 comforts and luxuries. I wish they whose toil, under the 

 blessing of Heaven, produces the bread, may never want an 

 ample supply, and that of the finest kind. As a general rule, 

 likewise, I &quot;believe it sound economy to use the best of every 

 thing. But I refer to this fact, as showing to a degree, in my 

 opinion, the hopelessness of introducing our Indian corn as bread 

 for the English poor a scheme which many persons have advo 

 cated on both sides of the water, as reciprocally advantageous to 

 both countries. They will not eat it. If the rich should adopt 

 it as a luxury, (and, if they understood its proper use, they would 

 with reason deem it so,) their example or estimation of it might 

 have its usual effect : but to commend it to the exclusive use of 

 the poorer classes as a cheap kind of bread, acknowledged 

 inferior, though it were as sweet as the ancient manna, would be 

 met with that pride of resentment, which any thing short of 

 absolute starvation would scarcely be able to overcome. With 

 Arthur Young, I deem Indian corn, or maize, as among the best 

 and most useful crops ever yielded by the earth. Nothing 

 within my knowledge is grown at so little comparative expense. 



