probably the best use to which they can be applied.

What nature has done by means of grass for the sustenance of animals, is seen to perfection in the vast meadows, or savannahs, as they are called, which border the great rivers in the southern parts of America. These are covered with prodigious herds of wild oxen, the parents of which escaped from the Spanish colonists who first settled in the country, and multiplied in these luxuriant pastures, where the warmth and moisture of the climate afford a perpetual growth of herbage, both summer and winter. Along with them are numbers of buffaloes, and of deer of various species, the original inhabitants of the country. Here the grass grows to such a length as almost to conceal the tall animals which feed in it, and it is frequently fired by the hunters to force them from their retreats. A remarkable instance of the quick increase of the grazing animals in unstinted pasturage occurred a few years after the first settlement of New South Wales. A party sent to explore the interior of the country, discovered in a green sequestered valley a herd of near a hundred

cows and calves feeding, protected by a large and very ferocious bull. As no animals of this species are natives of that part of the world, they must have been the progeny of a pair of horned cattle belonging to the settlers, which had rambled away about seven years before. There are now multitudes of these cattle, wholly wild, which roam at large in many parts of the colony, and occupy the most inaccessible places, being totally distinct in their habits from the half-wild herds to which they or their parents originally belonged.

I think I may now close my account of such articles of food for man and animals as in our island are objects of agriculture. I might, indeed, take further notice of some products used in drink; as apples and pears, which afford cyder and perry, the common beverage in some counties; and hops, an ingredient in malt liquor, largely cultivated in various parts of the kingdom: but it does not come within my plan to enter into these particulars. For the same reason, I shall forbear to enumerate the products of the garden, and the several methods of culture

practised in it, both of which are so extremely various, that large books have been written of them alone. It is enough in general to observe, that the additions made to our diet by the art of gardening have tended to render it both more pleasant and more salubrious. The garden vegetables, whether eaten raw, as salads, or boiled as greens and roots, are the best correcters of strong and salt animal food, and effectually prevent that dreadful disease, the scurvy, which proves so destructive to seamen, and to those on shore who live on the same kind of provision. In reading accounts of long voyages you will be struck with the eager longings for fresh vegetables of any kind shown by the poor sailors. For their use, gardens are cultivated at all places where they touch in their course; and navigators have been attentive to sow gardenseeds plentifully on all the uninhabited shores and islands they have visited, that those whom chance should afterwards bring to the same spots might find necessary refreshments.

A garden is an appendage of civilised life: it decorates the palace and cheers the cottage. A very small piece of ground cultivated as a

garden will afford essential support to a poor family; and it is to be wished that no labourer's house in the country were unprovided with this benefit. By the help of cabbages, onions, kidney-beans, lettuces, and others, many a scanty meal might be improved; common fruits might be raised for home use or for sale, and the employment of a few leisure hours or holidays would be sufficient to add materially to the comfort of year.

the

But it is time to conclude my letter. Adieu !

LETTER VIII.

ON ANIMAL FOOD, AND THE MEANS OF
PROCURING IT.

As I

MY DEAR BOY,- Having thus long kept you, like an ancient Pythagorean or modern Brahmin, solely upon vegetable food, I now proceed to mend your diet by adding to it that large supply of human sustenance which is derived from the animal creation. am convinced that man has as good a right to kill beasts for his food, as they have to kill one another, I shall not attempt to spoil your appetite by interesting your compassion in favour of the victims, or dwelling upon the cruelty of a butcher's shop. You may find some very pretty lines to the purpose in the poet Thomson, who, however, could eat his beef-steak with as good a relish as any man. Treat animals kindly while they live, and never take away their lives wantonly