Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten].

  • Edwin Lankester
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/518 page 9
    pared in their desolating effects to famines, become also fewer and fewer. Lastly, we discover that, though the great necessary of life, bread, may be dearer in one year than in another, the fluctuations in price are seldom extreme and never sudden. If we investigate the causes of these remarkable circumstances, which always attend a very advanced state of society, we shall find that they are not be ascribed to the vigilance of the soundest legislation, or to the provident foresight of the wisest ministers; but to the spirit of commerce, pursuing its natural course without interference from the cumbrous aid of a government, or the opposing prejudices of a people. When a nation has become accustomed to the best food, instead of habitually resorting to the lowest, which it can only do by its steady but certain progress in industry and a taste for comforts ; when the intercourse between all parts of a country is certain and rapid ; when large capitals may be safely and profitably em- ployed in storing corn in seasons of abundance to meet the exigencies of a season of scarcity; when such vege- table productions of other lands as will endure to be naturalized can be grown in plenty at every man’s door; and, lastly, when foreign commerce places the natural j)roductions of every country within our reach in ex- change for our own natural productions—then, and not till then, can a nation be said to be so advanced in civili- zation as to have sccui'od, as far as possible, a constant supply of the best vegetable food that the earth can furnish, at a price accessible to the great mass of con- sumers. 1 he particular circumstances which advance or retard this desirable end will bo (as far as may bo done, without touching upon disputable points) brought out in the fol- lowing ])agos. The general subject will embrace a history ot the vegetable food of our ])co])le, as de- pendent upon agriculture, gardening, commerce ; and tliat history will be illustrated by notices of the food of other great bodies of mankind. The subject will necessarily involve a few details of vegetable ])hvsiology, and of practical agricidturc and horticulture; but it
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3