822 
¥ agree with a certain useful provincial 
writer, in his recommendation of such 
debilitating slops, to be given to the sick 
poor, to whom, in their sickness, good 
sound beer, when foreign wine cannot 
be procured, will he generally more be- 
neficial, But I yet entertain the bope 
of being able to make real wine, of pas- 
sable quality, in this country, the chief 
impediment to which is the scarcity of 
grapes, We are the most indolent of 
nations at the fruit culture; and of mare 
vellous stupidity in our choice of fruits: 
of apples, for example, one half of the 
varieties of which grow among us, are 
unfit even for pigs, and ought, like our 
bad plays, to be damned. 
Honey is another staple article of pe- 
riodical projection. Every seven, or 
half a score years, a fortune is to be 
made by the bee culture. A French 
curé, starving upon his living, but living 
sumptuously upon his bees, treated his 
diocesan with a dinner of I know not 
how many courses, to the absolute alarm 
of the good bishop, who ever after re- 
plied to those asking preferment of him 
—Keep bees. Lately we have been 
informed, Mr. M‘What-d’ye-call-him, 
has made so many hundred pounds 
weight of honey from his numerous 
hives, and sold it for so much money. 
And all this is passing well, to have a 
good stock of honey for home ccnsump- 
tion, and a comfortable surplus for mar- 
Ket, to be sold at a high price. But 
latet anguis in herba: there is a sting in 
the tail of this. In all probability, the 
confined use of honey in this country 
would not bear any very extensive 
growth, and were the constant recom- 
mendations of increased culture to be 
generally attended to, down would go 
the price Jike a jack-weiglt, or hke the 
stocks after the cheer-up of a Birming- 
ham victory, It ought to be recollected, 
that honey is sather a medicinal than a 
dietetic article, and that it would make 
@ most improper substitute for sugar, 
rendering tea still more debilitating. 
About twenty years since I was offered 
guantities of virgin honey, both in Es- 
sex and Hampshire, at two-pence far- 
thing per pound; the second species at 
Seven farthings; and the squeezings, at 
Ave farthings. L. 
Ss j 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, f ! 
‘¥ HAVE read a letter in your last 
“Number, signed Agricola, which, as 
having been occasioned by my former 
‘significant expression, 
Reply to Agricola on the Virtues of Stramonium. [Oct. 1, 
communication concerning Stramonium, 
and as being calculated to give the pub- 
lic a- very different impression with re- 
gard to its virtues from that which [ 
endeavoured to convey, I fee! myself in 
a certain degree cailed upon to reply to. 
Agricola seems to regard the smoking 
of stramonium as a species of ebriety, 
or as the use merely of one of those or- 
dinary opiates, that people are apt to 
have recourse to in order to relieve a pa- 
roxysm of pain, whether it originates- 
from a mental or a corporeal cause, by 
which they purchase a temporary sus- 
pension of misery at the expense of 
permanent injury. Stramonium, how- 
ever, used in ‘the manner explained in 
my first paper, produces effects essen- 
tially different from that of any intoxica- 
ting drug that I am acquainted with. 
Tt acts favourably upon the feelings of 
the mind, only inasmuch as it alleviates 
the pain of the body; neither is its first — 
and happy influence succeeded, as in 
the use of opiates or narcotics, by de- 
pression, lassitude, or stupor. 
So far from stramonium having In- 
duced that torpor or sluggishness, which 
the smoking of tobacco and hops occas 
sioned in Agricola’s friend, I am con- 
fident, that without the assistance of that 
invaluable remedy, I should not have 
been able to go through the exertions 
that my daily avocations call for, which, 
thank God, I am doing with an alacrity 
unknown to me for years past. 
As far as my experience has gone, and 
it is of some standing, it has not lost, by 
its frequently repeated use, one iota of 
its medicinal influence; and wherever it 
has been had recourse to, in a proper 
manner, within the sphere of my per= 
sonal knowledge, it has been equally 
successful. a , 
I am by no means disposed to detract 
fiom the value of Dr. Brees’s work, by 
the application of which, Agricola has 
been able in @ manner to regenerate his 
constitution; or, to make use of his own 
“to tum the 
habit of his body.” I should be es- 
‘tremely happy if sach anew birth should» 
take place in my crazy ard capricious 
fabric. In the mean time, I am, as F 
think I ought to be, humbly contented 
with having a never-failing antidote at 
hand. ate 46 
’ Towards counteracting the tendency. 
to spasmodic asthma (for destroying 1¢ 
where it is implanted in the habit, I con- 
sider as impossible;—I hare found no- 
thing that has, in any important devree; 
conduced 
‘ 
