s I should not
hesitate to pronounce the white, upon the whole, the most precious of
the two, for us. The dry rice of Cochin-China has the reputation of
being the whitest to the eye, best flavored to the taste, and most
productive. It seems then to unite the good qualities of both the
others known to us. Could it supplant them, it would be a great
happiness, as it would enable us to get rid of those ponds of stagnant
water, so fatal to human health and life. But such is the force of
habit, and caprice of taste, that we could not be sure beforehand it
would produce this effect. The experiment, however, is worth trying,
should it only end in producing a third quality, and increasing the
demand. I will endeavor to procure some to be brought from
Cochin-China. The event, however, will be uncertain and distant.

I was induced, in the course of my journey through the south of France,
to pay very particular attention to the objects of their culture,
because the resemblance of their climate to that of the southern parts
of the United States, authorizes us to presume we may adopt any of
their articles of culture, which we would wish for. We should not wish
for their wines, though they are good and abundant. The culture of the
vine is not desirable in lands capable of producing anything else. It
is a species of gambling, and of desperate gambling too, wherein,
whether you make much or nothing, you are equally ruined. The middling
crop alone is the saving point, and that the seasons seldom hit.
Accordingly, we see much wretchedness among this class of cultivators.
Wine, too, is so cheap in these countries, that a laborer with us,
employed in the culture of any other article, may exchange it for wine,
more and better than he could raise himself. It is a resource for a
country, the whole of whose good soil is otherwise employed, and which
still has some barren spots, and surplus of population to employ on
them. There the vine is good, because it is something in the place of
nothing. It may become a resource to us at a still earlier period; when
the increase of population shall increase our productions beyond the
demand for them, both at home and abroad. Instead of going on to make
an useless surplus of them, we may employ our supernumerary hands on
the vine. But that period is not yet arrived.

The almond tree is also so precarious, that none can depend for
subsistence on its produce, but persons of capital.

The caper, though a