LETTER XXXII.

Almost all the Vegetable Kingdom is applicable and convertible into Human Food.-Instances of this in the Use of its various Genera for that Purpose in the different Parts of the World.-The Impossibility Mankind perishing from Famine.

MY DEAR SON,

We have seen in our preceding letter that almost the whole of the animal knigdom, in all its orders and species, is applicable to human subsistence, and that each kind is found to be alike gratifying to the taste and nutritious to the life of those who are accustomed to it. The human body has been framed on the principle of deriving this pleasure and utility from animated nature; and this, in all its genera, has likewise been so formed as to be subservient to human benefit in this respect. The consequence of these arrangements is, that mankind can never be famished as long as any animals besides themselves are in existence on the earth; for man, being everywhere the master, no species can escape his search and power.

The vegetable compartment of nature is as universally applicable to human nutrition; almost all kinds of vegetation will nourish human life, and have been used for this purpose, and are found to be satisfying or pleasing to those who are in the habit of taking them. To be as brief as possible, I will only select some of the more particular kinds as sufficient evidences of the general applicability.

Acorns are still used in California.* Lupins were the common food of some of the sects of the Grecian philosophers, and especially of the Cynic school, which they carried about them in little bags.† Lupins and chestnuts are still used by the Sicilian peasantry when they cannot get corn.‡

* At San Francesco, "other Indians in the missions were grinding baked acorns to make into cakes, which constitute a large portion of their food."-Captain Beechey, vol. ii., p. 20.

In Lucian's "Runaway Slaves," philosophy represents the Cynic philosopher as saying, "a halfpenny, to buy a few lupins with, is all I want, and the first brook I come to supplies me with drink." They carried these in their wallets.

In 1835, a traveller in Sicily described "the great body of the peas

Lupin stalks are stated to be highly beneficial to the soil they are mixed with.* Acorns have now become the favourite substitute for coffee among the Prussians, and increasingly in Germany; and the blossoms of the linden-tree are found to make a palatable tea to the same distinguished nation, and to have beneficial medical effects.

The Greeks of the present day use thistles, and all sorts of weeds, as part of their food. Crocus roots are eaten at Aleppo; and the iris bulbs at the Cape of Good Hope.T The soft vascular matter of the birch-trees between the rind and the wood is also resorted to.** The general food of the Portuguese peasantry is stated to be chestnuts. †† In Terra del Fuego they live much on berries.‡‡ The Enare Lapland

antry as supporting itself on beans, lupins, and chestnuts, while the corn was perishing in the granaries and magazines of the rich proprietors."-Metrop., 1835, p. 409.

* In Tuscany, among the green things buried in the soil for the me-lioration of the land, lupins ought to be employed in preference, as they greatly augment the fertility of the fields in which they are sown.

"In Prussia, coffee is now very generally made from acorns. They are cut in very small pieces, roasted, ground, and prepared precisely as coffee. Eminent medical men recommend them both as a tonic and for nourishment. They are daily becoming of more general use in all Ger many."-Sketches of Germany, vol. i., p. 99.

The flavour is very agreeable; it does not irritate the nerves. I have cured myself frequently of a slight cold by drinking plentifully of. it. The German doctors recommend it as a beverage in almost every disease."-Ib.

Tietz, a recent traveller, mentions, in his "Reminiscences of Russia," that the vegetable diet of the Greeks includes thistles, and all sorts of weeds. Hence the proverb in those countries, "A Greek grows fat where an ass starves."

"At Aleppo and its neighbourhood, crocuses are cultivated in great variety." Dr. Russell mentions "that the root of one species are eaten by the inhabitants, and called mountain cucumbers. Their flavour is considered as something like that of a nut."—Welsh, Voy. Chanticl., vol. i., p. 274.

"The farmers make a dish of the roots or bulbs of the iris edulis. When simply boiled, they taste very much like a chestnut or waxy potato."-Ib.

**"The Hudson's Bay Companies' people had stripped the birch-trees of their rind to procure the soft pulpy vessels in contact with the wood, which are sweet, but very insufficient to satisfy a craving appetite."— Franklin's Journ., p. 183.

tt "Their general food consisted of roasted chestnuts, washed down with cold spring water. When they could procure a little dried fish or sardines, with black sour bread, they would consider it a point of luxury."-Capt. Conke's Mem. of the late War, p. 83.

Webst. Voy., vol. i., p. 183.

VOL. III.-E E

*

ers make soups of the fir bark, and likewise pound, grind, and work it into bread. In Barbary, the poorer Arabs live almost entirely on the wild fig while it is in season.‡ Gourds and pumpkins boiled, stewed, or baked in pies, occur in many places; and dates are a favourite food of the Arabs in Africa, and wherever these trees grow. That the mallow and the daffodil were part of the aliment of the ancient Greeks; that burs as well as thistles have been used as food, and that fernroots are a chief part of the 'subsistence of New Zealanders, and at various times have been ground and made into bread in Europe, was mentioned in a former letter. Also that the nettle and dandelion are both still eaten, and the root of the latter made into coffee. The sago, palm, cocoanut, and bread-fruit trees, and the bananas and their great produce, were also noticed. Some trees are used to make an infusion from, like our tea. The leaves of the Paraguay holly are so applied in South America, ** and in our back settle ments of Newfoundland the spruce-tree is found to yield a refreshing liquid of this sort.ft We read frequently of new vegetables, not used or known before, brought into cultivation for their nutritious qualities.‡‡ The yams we have long

In winter they must put up with dried fish, and with soups of fir bark and reindeer tallow. They peel off in summer the innermost bark of the fir, divide it in long strips, and hang it up to dry for winter stores. When used, these strips are minced in small pieces along with the reindeer tallow, and boiled together for several hours with water, till they form a thick broth."-Von Buch, Trav., 1806, p. 324.

†The Laplanders of Tryssil make their "barke brod" thus: "When the young and vigorous fir-trees are felled, the tree is stripped of its bark for its whole length; the outer part is peeled off, and the interior covering shaved off; nothing then remains but the innermost rind, which is extremely soft and white. This is hung up in the air to dry, then baked in an oven, afterward pounded and taken to the mill, where it is ground into a coarse meal. The meal is mixed up with threshed oat-ears and a few moss seeds; and a bread about an inch thick is formed of the composition."-Ib., p. 87.

known; but, perhaps, have not been generally aware that a human being could be supported by only half a one for his daily food.*

All these facts concur to show that it is as true of the vegetable as of the animal world, that all its classes are usable for human food, and are sufficient for human nutrition. For it is not what we deem solid food, nor the quantity of it, that is essential to health or strength. The laborious Hindoo Coolies who carry the heavy baggage are an instance of this, for they take but one moderate meal a day of rice and water.† Nor is scanty fair less pleasurable than the most costly and⚫ abundant, when the mind is not fretful about it, and when appetite invites.‡

But one of the most remarkable facts to show the universal applicability of all vegetable matter to human nutrition, is that, in the Quilimane country, in southeast Africa, GRASS is made an article of human food, and is cultivated for that purpose, and cooked into a palatable porridge. A still more extraordinary circumstance of the same bearing is, that the leaves of trees and herbs are both applicable and sufficient for the sustenance of a human being who has been accustomed to the use of them, and are capable of giving both strength and pleasurable vitality.

cremata, a simple tubercle of which affords a large quantity of wholesome food; the taste resembles both the common and sweet potato.”— Athenæum, 1836, p. 18.

* Mr. Lander was taken by the Eboes: "While in their hands, we have been kept on the regular slave allowance of half a yam a day.”— Vol. iii., p. 205.

"These human animals of burden began to sling the heavy baggage to their poles to carry it up through the mountain passes. The fatigue they endure is very great; yet they seldom take more than one meal a day, and of this very sparingly. It consists chiefly of boiled rice and a little curry. Their drink is water."-Officer's Narrative, in Frazer's Mag., 1835, p. 666.

Mr. Lander thus expresses his own feelings under such circumstances while in the hands of the Eboes: "We had suffered from hunger the whole day, without being able to obtain anything. Soon after we stopped for the night, our guards gave us each a piece of roasted yam. This roasted yam, washed down with a little water, was to us as joyful a meal as if we had been treated with the most sumptuous fare, and we laid ourselves down in the canoe to sleep in content."-Vol. iii., p. 164.

"The country around Marvoro is cultivated for some miles principally with GRASS, which, before it is quite ripe, is plucked, dried, and husked in a large wooden mortar, then ground between two rough stones. This meal is made into a porridge, and, in general, eaten with fish.”-Owen's Voy., vol. ii., p. 51.

"In the department of the Var, a man is now living who, having beerr at one period of his life reduced to great want, was obliged to eat RAW LEAVES of trees, herbs, &c., to satisfy his hunger. From being accustomed to it, he now prefers this diet, and adds only three or four ounces of bread and a little wine to his daily fare, with which he could easily dispense.

"He is remarkably strong and healthy, of a kind and gentle disposition, and is sufficiently intelligent. His sleep is quiet, but very light, for the most trifling noise, even at a distance, wakes him. His skin is remarkably insensible, and the cuts and scratches which cause great pain to others are scarcely felt by him. Besides this, he is not in the least affected by extreme cold."*

That foliage, after his being used to it, was preferred by this individual when other diet was in his power, is evidence that it can be pleasurable to the organs of taste; and that he was strong with it is also an indication that herbage would invigorate human bodies, as it gives power and energy to our cattle.

Yet still more extraordinary than this, and showing what vast latent powers of nutrition for man are residing in the vegetable kingdom for his use, in case all other food should ever become inadequate to sustain his multiplying populations, a crisis under the other provisions of nature hardly possible to occur, is the ascertained fact that wood may be converted into nourishing and palatable bread. We owe this discovery to the German Professor Autenrieth. Dr. Prout has thus described the preparation of it in the "Philosophical Transactions:"

"First, everything that was soluble in water was removed by frequent maceration and boiling. The wood was then reduced to a minute state of division; that is, not merely into fine fibres, but into actual powder; and, after being repeatedly subjected to the heat of an oven, was ground in the usual manner of corn. Wood, thus prepared, according to the author, acquires the smell and taste of corn flour.

"It is, however, never quite white, but always of a yellowish colour. It also agrees with corn four in this respect, that it does not ferment without the addition of leaven; and for this, some leaven of corn flour is found to answer best. With this, it makes a perfectly uniform and spongy bread; and when it is thoroughly baked and has much crust, it has a much better taste of bread than what, in times of scarcity, is prepared from the bran and husks of corn.

"Wood flour, also, boiled in water, forms a thick, tough, trembling jelly, like that of wheat starch, and is very nutritious."t

As this is a very important discovery in its bearing upon the future population of this world, and is alone sufficient to

* Athenæum, 1835, p. 627.

† Philos. Trans., 1827, part 2, p. 318.