6 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



pursuing its natural course without interference from 

 the cumbrous aid of a government, or the opposing 

 prejudices of a people. When a nation has become 

 accustomed to the best food, instead of habitually 

 resorting to the lowest, which it can only do by its 

 steady but certain progress in industry and a taste for 

 comforts ; when the intercourse between all parts 

 of a country is certain and rapid ; when large 

 capitals may be safely and profitably employed in 

 storing corn in seasons of abundance to meet the 

 exigencies of a season of scarcity ; when such vege- 

 table productions of other lands, as will endure to be 

 naturalized, can be grown in plenty at every man's 

 door ; and, lastly, when foreign commerce places 

 the natural productions of every country within our 

 reach in exchange for our own natural productions, 

 then, and not till then, can a nation be said to be so 

 advanced in civilization, as to have secured, as far as 

 possible, a constant supply of the best vegetable food 

 that the earth can furnish, at a price accessible to the 

 great mass of consumers. 



The particular circumstances which advance or re- 

 tard this desirable end, will be (as far as may be done 

 without touching upon disputable points) brought 

 out in the following pages. The general subject will 

 embrace a history of the vegetable food of our 

 people, as dependent upon agriculture, gardening, 

 commerce ; and that history will be illustrated by 

 notices of the food of other great bodies of mankind. 

 The subject will necessarily involve a few details of 

 vegetable physiology, and of practical agriculture 

 and horticulture ; but it must be evident, that any 

 scientific description of the structure of plants, how- 

 ever interesting, would be as much out of place 

 here, as any minute accounts of farming and 

 gardening processes. Our desire is to excite atten- 

 tion to some of those ordinary circumstances in the 



