ard to the former, it is of the
greatest importance, that children be well fed; and there never was a
greater error than to believe that they do not need good food. Every one
knows, that to have fine horses, the _colts_ must be kept well, and that
it is the same with regard to all animals of every sort and kind. The
fine horses and cattle and sheep all come from the _rich pastures_. To
have them fine, it is not sufficient that they have _plenty of food_
when young, but that they have _rich food_. Were there no land, no
pasture, in England, but such as is found in Middlesex, Essex, and
Surrey, we should see none of those coach-horses and dray-horses, whose
height and size make us stare. It is the _keep when young_ that makes
the fine animal.

275. There is no other reason for the people in the American States
being generally so much taller and stronger than the people in England
are. Their forefathers went, for the greater part, from England. In the
four Northern States they went wholly from England, and then, on their
landing, they founded a new London, a new Falmouth, a new Plymouth, a
new Portsmouth, a new Dover, a new Yarmouth, a new Lynn, a new Boston,
and a new Hull, and the country itself they called, and their
descendants still call, NEW ENGLAND. This country of the best and
boldest seamen, and of the most moral and happy people in the world, is
also the country of the tallest and ablest-bodied men in the world. And
why? Because, from their very birth, they have an _abundance_ of _good_
food; not only of _food_, but of _rich_ food. Even when the child is at
the breast, a strip of _beef-stake_, or something of that description,
as big and as long as one's finger, is put into its hand. When a baby
gets a thing in its hand, the first thing it does is to poke some part
of it into its mouth. It cannot _bite_ the meat, but its gums squeeze
out the juice. When it has done with the breast, it eats meat constantly
twice, if not thrice, a day. And this abundance of _good_ food is the
cause, to be sure, of the superior size and strength of the people of
that country.

276. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter. A tall
man is, whether as labourer, carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor,
or almost anything else, _worth more_ than a short man: he can look over
a higher thing; he can reach higher and wider; he can move on from place
to place faster; in mowing grass or corn he takes a wider swarth, in
pitc