122 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



of perfection that our best and fattest meats are killed in 

 the winter; and no man need eat salted flesh unless he 

 prefers it, that has money to buy fresh. 



One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the 

 quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the 

 commonalty at all seasons as well as in lent ; which our 

 poor now would hardly be persuaded to touch. 



The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of 

 sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a 

 matter of neatness comparatively modern ; but must prove 

 a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At this very 

 time woollen, instead of linen prevails among the poorer 

 Welch, who are subject to foul eruptions. 



The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found 

 among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that 

 miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley 

 or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening their 

 blood and correcting their juices ; for the inhabitants of 

 mountainous districts, to this day, are still liable to the itch 

 and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness and 

 poverty of diet. 



As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged 

 person of observation may perceive, within his own 

 memory, both in town and country, how vastly the con- 

 sumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities 

 now support multitudes in a comfortable state, while 

 gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has 

 his garden, which is half his support, as well as his delight ; 

 and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and 

 greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon ; and those 

 few that do not are despised for their sordid parsimony, 

 and looked upon as regardless of the welfare of their 

 dependents. Potatoes have prevailed in this little district 

 by means of premiums within these twenty years only ; 

 and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would 

 scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. 



Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of 

 cabbage, because they call the month of February sprout- 



