uch that is
any way hostile to health. Feed young puppies upon _milk from the cow_,
and they will never die with that ravaging disease called "_the
distemper_." In short, to suppose that milk contains any thing essentially
unwholesome is monstrous. When, indeed, the appetite becomes vitiated:
when the organs have been long accustomed to food of a more stimulating
nature; when it has been resolved to eat ragouts at dinner, and drink
wine, and to swallow "a devil," and a glass of strong grog at night; then
milk for breakfast may be "_heavy_" and disgusting, and the feeder may
stand in need of tea or laudanum, which differ only as to degrees of
strength. But, and I speak from the most ample experience, milk is not
"_heavy_," and much less is it _unwholesome_, when he who uses it rises
early, never swallows strong drink, and never _stuffs_ himself with flesh
of any kind. Many and many a day I scarcely taste of meat, and then
chiefly at _breakfast_, and that, too, at an early hour. Milk is the
natural food of _young people_; if it be too rich, _skim_ it again and
again till it be not too rich. This is an evil easily cured. If you have
now to _begin_ with a family of children, they may not like it at first.
But _persevere_; and the parent who does not do this, having the means in
his hands, shamefully neglects his duty. A son who prefers a "devil" and a
glass of grog to a hunch of bread and a bowl of cold milk, I regard as a
pest; and for this pest the father has to thank himself.

137. Before I dismiss this article, let me offer an observation or two to
those persons who live in the vicinity of towns, or in towns, and who,
though they have _large gardens_, have "_no land to keep a cow_," a
circumstance which they "_exceedingly regret_." I have, I dare say,
witnessed this case at least a thousand times. Now, how much garden ground
does it require to supply even a large family with _garden vegetables_?
The market gardeners round the metropolis of this wen-headed country;
round this Wen of all wens;[8] round this prodigious and monstrous
collection of human beings; these market gardeners have about _three
hundred thousand families to supply with vegetables_, and these they
supply well too, and with summer fruits into the bargain. Now, if it
demanded _ten rods to a family_, the whole would demand, all but a
fraction, _nineteen thousand acres of garden ground_. We have only to cast
our eyes over what there is to know that there is