e more of the
_sweetness_ of grain than is to be found in the offal which comes from
the sawings of deal boards. The nutritious nature of barley is amply
proved by the effect, and very rapid effect, of its meal, in the fatting
of hogs and of poultry of all descriptions. They will fatten quicker upon
meal of barley than upon any other thing. The flesh, too, is sweeter than
that proceeding from any other food, with the exception of that which
proceeds from _buck wheat_, a grain little used in England. That
proceeding from Indian corn is, indeed, still sweeter and finer; but this
is wholly out of the question with us.

83. I am, by-and-by, to speak of the _cow_ to be kept by the labourer in
husbandry. Then there will be _milk_ to wet the bread with, an exceedingly
great improvement in its taste as well as in its quality! This, of all the
ways of using skim milk, is the most advantageous: and this great
advantage must be wholly thrown away, if the bread of the family be bought
at the shop. With milk, bread with very little wheat in it may be made far
better than baker's bread; and, leaving the milk out of the question,
taking a third of each sort of grain, you would get bread weighing as much
as fourteen quartern loaves, for about 5_s._ 9_d._ at present prices of
grain; that is to say, you would get it for about 5_d._ the quartern loaf,
all expenses included; thus you have nine pounds and ten ounces of bread a
day for about 5_s._ 9_d._ a week. Here is enough for a very large family.
Very few labourers' families can want so much as this, unless indeed there
be several persons in it capable of earning something by their daily
labour. Here is cut and come again. Here is bread always for the table.
Bread to carry a field; always a hunch of bread ready to put into the hand
of a hungry child. We hear a great deal about "_children crying for
bread_," and objects of compassion they and their parents are, when the
latter have not the means of obtaining a sufficiency of bread. But I
should be glad to be informed, how it is possible for a labouring man, who
earns, upon an average, 10_s._ a week, who has not more than four
children (and if he have more, some ought to be doing something;) who has
a garden of a quarter of an acre of land (for that makes part of my plan;)
who has a wife as industrious as she ought to be; who does not waste his
earnings at the ale-house or the tea shop: I should be glad to know how
such a man, while wheat s