Certain species of locust are eaten, either roast or boiled, in Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and China. A gentleman, on landing at one of the West Indian islands, asked his friend, who was a resident, to give him a dinner of delicacies: this consisted of cane rats and gooroos-the grubs just mentioned. Caterpillars are prized by the natives of different parts of South America and New Holland; and the inhabitants of the latter country, as well as of New Caledonia, devour a large kind of spider. Thus, almost everything that would be repulsive to us, has, in different times and places, constituted the food of man; but then we must remember, that the loathsomeness resides merely in the form, and that the same elements, in different proportions, enter into the composition of all animated beings.

Vegetable aliments consist of seeds or grains, fruits, roots, under-ground stems and tubers, and various other parts of plants. These I shall now consider, dwelling in detail only on the more important, and grouping together others, according to their properties as food.

Of all vegetable aliments, the cereal grains, to which collectively the term corn is applied, are the most important. The material into which these are made, is figuratively spoken of as "the staff of life," and in praying to God for physical sustenance, we ask Him to give us "our daily bread." The various heathen nations of antiquity, the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, worshipped those who were supposed to have introduced the cerealia, and with them the practice of agriculture. The period at which these grains were first cultivated by any people,

settlements and towns; and we find, in looking over the past history of the world, that where these cereal grains were in cultivation, there a greater or less degree of civilization, and of the social and intellectual progress which it implies, had been attained. "In the sepulchres of the Egyptian kings, which were opened by the naturalists and other scientific persons, who accompanied the French army to Egypt, was found the common wheat, in vessels which were so perfectly closed, that the grains retained both their form and their colour. The wheat, buried there for several thousand years, was a proof of the ancient civilization of Egypt, as convincing as the ruins of temples, and the inscriptions of belisks."*

Various are the thoughts and emotions excited by the prospect of a field of corn, The first feeling experienced is one of cheerful gratitude to the Giver, associated with the joyousness so happily expressed by the Psalmist :-"the fields also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing." Another sense conveyed by the prospect, is one of beauty; and here I would remark, that in no part of the economy of nature is Providential purpose more distinctly proclaimed, than in the means of necessary physical sustenance thus being made to minister at the same time to man's intellectual requirements. What can be more beautiful than the corn in every stage of its growth, from the green blade to the full ear, and in the alterna

* Vegetable Substances used as Food of Man, published by Charles Knight; a work to which I would refer those who desire information regarding the history and cultivation of plants which furnish food.

tions of light and shade, of still and ruffled atmo

sphere!

"Broad and brown, below

Extensive harvests hang the heavy head;
Rich, silent, deep they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain;
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumined field,
And back by fits the shadows sweep along ;
A gaily-checker'd, heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corn.” *

There is yet another thought arising out of the prospect of the corn-field. It is, that man's industry, responded to by a genial nature, soon obliterates the traces of the spoiler, and throws a mantle of beauty over the work of destruction. This was the sentiment that animated me when standing, some Springs back, on the plain of Waterloo. Here and there were young crops of wheat undulating as the light breeze played over them, and the whole landscape was so gay and smiling under the warm sunshine of a May morning, that I could with difficulty realize the associations of the spot, and feel, that beneath the fresh grass, the bright wild flowers, and the waving corn, there lay, by thousands, the silent dead!

The principal cereal grains are wheat, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, rice, and maize or Indian corn. These cereal plants are remarkable for possessing greater adaptability to climate than any other members of the vegetable kingdom.

Thomson's Seasons.

To so great a range of climate have they accommodated themselves, that we have almost lost sight of the centres whence they severally sprung, and they have become, as it were, cosmopolitan. At the same time, some countries are better suited than others to their growth and to the development of their nutritious qualities.

Wheat is the cereal of temperate regions, and is now to be found in nearly every part of the earth where the external conditions are suited to

its cultivation. It is spread over the greater portion of Europe, and is largely cultivated in North Africa, the United States, and the temperate zones of tropical mountain-chains. There are several varieties, and those of warmer climates possess more gluten. Good grain is of a golden yellow, or pale brown colour, and is full, firm, and glistening. The flour of wheat contains plastic nutriment in the form of gluten, and respiratory materials in the form of starch and sugar, in the proportion necessary to meet the wants of the system, associated with a small quantity of inorganic substances and some water. It contains less water and more gluten than that of other cereals, and is, therefore, better adapted for food. The quantity of gluten in wheat varies from 8 to 32 per cent., being in direct ratio to the average temperature of the country in which it grows. Wheaten flour is generally used in the form of bread, which is either fermented or unfermented.

If the dough formed by mixing flour with water be submitted to a warm temperature, fermentation will spontaneously take place in it. In the ordinary process of bread-making, a little