96 Foreign Notices : — Russia. 



Dried blackberries, wild ; price 50 copecks per lb. : used for tarts and pud- 

 dings. 

 Dried black currants, wild (Facciniutn uliginosum) ; price 80 copecks per lb. : 



used for tarts and puddings. 

 Fish, a kind of minnow, dried in an oven, on straw ; price 23 copecks per lb. : 



used as a whet before dinner, and in soups and stews. 



The prices in the above list are for small quantities, except for the grits 

 [groats] which are bought for house use by the chetwerick, a measure which is 

 a little less than a bushel, as follows ; viz. : — Buckwheat, 4 rubles, 30 copecks ; 

 barley, 3 rubles, 30 copecks j oats, 4 rubles; millet, 7 i-ubles. You must 

 call to mind that we have been suffering next to famine last year; but in 

 former years the prices were nearly half less throughout ; and it is expected 

 will return to their former level. A copeck is the 11th part of a penny ; or, 

 for shortness' sake, 10 copecks are equal to i-^'^d. 10 lb. Russian make 91b. 

 English. 



[We subjoin the following extract from another letter of our correspondent 

 respecting these samples. It is interesting in various points of view, and par- 

 ticularly as showing his benevolent turn of mind.] 



The promised supply of samples, which will show you the extensive use of 

 grain in this counti'y, rendered unavoidable by our protracted winters, and by 

 the long fasts prescribed by the Greek religion ; these fasts being kept with 

 strictness by all classes of people, except by many in the better walks of 

 life, and by some of the common people who have mixed with foreigners, and 

 are resident in large towns. I sent you the two boxes with a heavy heart, as I 

 fear the peasants in England will not be tempted to use any of the grain ; and 

 as for the populace of the towns, I am sure they will not. The preparations of 

 buckwheat (a grain, I believe, you only use for birds) are, in my opinion, the 

 best of all ; and, as I wrote you, the Smolenskaia and manna grits form dishes 

 which may be used in the first families of the land, if such a meal as supper 

 exists any longer : at any I'ate, they are most excellent food for children. I 

 know little of my native land ; but, surely, the British hills, or hilly parts which 

 are uncultivated, must teem with wild berries : those of Scotland, I am pretty 

 certain, do; and the drying of the fruit would prove a source of profit to the 

 Highland women and children, besides mending the fare, not of the poor alone, 

 but even of the middling classes of society. 



The apples I sent you I also believe to be wild, as about six and seven 

 hundred miles to the southward and eastward apple trees abound, sown by 

 the hand of nature, in the woods. 



I was much amused by the crusade carrying on against the sparrows. In 

 ray garden, if they get out of my way, when I am half a dozen paces from them, 

 I am satisfied. A sieve cover, some sticks with floating feathers tied to them, 

 and some old nets, defend my peas ; but, as they are sown by line, my best 

 defence is a couple of laths, placed diagonally against one another, and as 

 much open at top as to admit light, but to exclude the body of a sparrow. I 

 calculate that, if these impudent fellows do me little harm, they must do me a 

 great deal of good, as they must eat to live. In my younger days, I recollect 

 hearing that in a district of Prussia the sparrows were nearly annihilated, 

 designedly, and that in consequence of it a race of worms or caterpillars in- 

 creased to such a degree, that the inhabitants, as the less evil of the two, 

 bought sparrows in distant parts to renew the breed. On looking over my 

 vade mecum-y your EncydopcBdia, I observe that, among the currants, you have 

 not got the green one. I have all the sorts you enumerate, and the green 

 besides ; but in ray soil it does not bear well. I got the variety from Finland. 

 As gardening is my only pastime, and, indeed, a passion, I shall be truly happy 

 to be useful to you, and raore especially in the cause of the labouring poor. 



To-day I had fish soup. The stock was small fish and perch, boned, 

 boiled in it. The blackberries make excellent soup. I am trying the dried 

 fruit in many ways, and can produce them at my own table. 



