t
mass of very interesting matter Mr Stephens has brought together, in
regard to the composition, qualities, and uses of the different kinds of
grain. The point to which we shall advert is the composition of oatmeal.
Every country is naturally prejudiced in favour of its national food. We
Britons look with real or affected disgust on the black rye-bread of the
northern nations; and yet on this food the people thrive, are strong,
healthy, and vigorous. The bread, too, is sweet to the taste. It is only
disagreeable associations, therefore--connected in our minds with the
darkness of the colour--that make us consider it disagreeable or
unwholesome. In like manner, our Irish brethren are strong, vigorous, and
merry, on their potato diet. Why should we condemn it as the lowest kind
of diet, or pity those who are content to live almost wholly upon it? It
is true that, from its being the main staff of Irish life, great distress
ensues when a failure takes place in the potato crop. But such would be
the consequence of a general failure in any kind of crop on which they
might happen chiefly to rely. The cure for such seasons of suffering,
therefore, is not to be sought so much in bringing about change of diet,
as in introducing a better system of husbandry--an improved system of
drainage especially--by which a general failure of any crop will be
rendered a more rare occurrence. The spread of railroads will soon render
it comparatively easy to transport even the bulky potato from one county
to another, and thus to prevent the recurrence of famine prices.

But in South Britain the oatmeal of the Scottish peasantry--the national
food--is looked upon with as much prejudice, and those who live upon it
with as much pity, as the black bread-eaters of Germany and Sweden, or the
potato-diggers of Ireland. But the health and strength of the Scottish
peasantry, who live entirely upon oatmeal, is proverbial. On this subject,
in speaking of the Scottish ploughmen, where the bothy system is
practised--that is, where the single men all live together in a room or
bothy provided for them, which serves them both for sleeping and
cooking---Mr Stephens has the following characteristic passage:--

"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, as _brose_, as it is
called, which is a different sort of pottage to porridge. A pot of
water is put on the fire to boil, a task which the men take in turns;
a handful or two of oatmeal is take