No. 4.] NUTRITION. 69 



ciirrie of veal with rice, stuffed fore-quarter of lamb roasted, 

 bread aud raisin i)udding, apples or pears, tea or coffee. To 

 that five-course dinner I added a hunter's lunch as it mioht 

 be cooked in camp under a half Ijarrel, which consisted of 

 the following articles : four partridges, two grouse, baked 

 apples and soda biscuit. I also cooked a very fine leg of 

 Kentucky mutton in perfect manner under this sea-weed 

 oven, and I also added various other examples of fancy 

 dishes improvised for the occasion. The result was a con- 

 viction of mind such as is said to have been reported through 

 a spiritual medium by an unbeliever who had gone from this 

 earthly scene, and who sent back a message to his wife in 

 the following terms: " Dear wife, I am convinced. Send 

 me my thinnest clothes." It is because, according to my 

 observation, the domestic kitchen, fitted with the infernal 

 agency of the iron stove filled with hard coal under full 

 blast, corresponds to the place in which this old gentleman 

 wanted his thinnest clothes, that I have undertaken to sub- 

 stitute my methods for those which are now commonly 

 practised. 



I cautioned my friends not to consume the whole of the 

 five-course dinner, but only to taste it, becoming assured that 

 it would have sufficed had there been nothing else, so that they 

 might test the finer examples or rather the examples of more 

 expensive but no better food which followed. They were 

 convinced. Their incredulity was wholly removed, as yours 

 may perhaps be when we serve the contents of these various 

 kinds of apparatus. 



You will observe that I mentioned lentil soup. We have 

 in one of these examples of food a type almost unknown in 

 this country, and yet in respect to protein the most potent 

 and the cheapest food in the world. It is in common use 

 throughout the East and in the southern part of Europe. 

 The lentil might be grown to any extent on waste lands in 

 this country of very poor quality, serving not only for the 

 nutrition of mankind Imt for animals, for fowls and for the 

 nutrition of the soil ; because it is one of the leguminous 

 plants of the renovating order, which through bacteria draw 

 their supplies of nitrogen from the unlimited sources of the 

 atmosphere. When you have tasted a good lentil soup, you 



