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Page 34
But here I must restrain my rovings, and recall my purpose to descant on
other points. And indeed the uses of water are so numerous and varied
that the subject might well engross a lecture by itself; and I must
needs therefore cut the matter short. It is only Hodge-Podge, moreover,
I have undertaken to dish up before you, and I must keep my word. For,
fain as I am to dilate on the many economic virtues of water, I must not
forget that the pot contains other ingredients, and that the dish I am
serving out of it would yield but poor fare, if it did not.
2. I come therefore to the next ingredient in the soup I am providing;
for, as the housewife said, "there's mutton intilt," and it is the most
important ingredient in the mess. But the animal which produces it, like
the kindred animals that produce the like, serves other purposes as
well, and these no less essential to the exigency of the race; and it is
of them I propose to speak. It is beside my design to enter on the
domain of the sheep-breeder, and attempt an account of the different
kinds reared by the farmer; enough to say that, numerous as these are,
they are all fed and tended for the benefit of the human family, and
that they minister to the supply of the same human wants.
The child, as it frolics on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently
aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother
talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are
not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander
from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the
lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections
are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but
when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service
and value, all such sentimental and aesthetic emotions pass out of
court, and only calculations of base utilitarianism fill the eye from
horizon to horizon. No doubt the creatures are lovely and beautiful to
behold on the meadows and hill-sides of the landscape, which they
enliven and adorn; but man must live as well as admire, and unless by
sacrifice of the sheep he must not only go without hodge-podge to his
dinner, but dispense with much else equally necessary to his life and
welfare. The cook requires the sacrifice, that he may purvey for the
tables of both gentle and semple; the tallow-dealer requires the
sacrifice, that he may provide light for our homesteads, and oil for our
engines, both stationary and locomotive; and the wool-merchant and the
currier insist on stripping the victim of his fleece, and even flaying
his skin, before they can assure us of fit clothing and covering against
cold and rain for our bodies and our belongings. And what a wretched
plight we should be in, if the sheep, or their like, did not come to the
rescue, or the help they are fitted to render were not laid under
contribution! For not only might we be fated to go often dinnerless to
bed, and to live all our days in a body imperfectly nourished, but our
evenings would in many cases be spent without light, and our journeys
undertaken without comfort, and our outer man left to battle at odds,
unshod and unprotected, with the discomforts of the highway and the
inclemency of the seasons. Of all the services rendered by the sheep to
the race of man, perhaps the most invaluable is that which is accorded
in the gift of wool; and it is for the sake of this alone that, in many
quarters, whole flocks, and even breeds, are reared and tended,--so
great is the demand for it, and such the esteem in which it is held for
the purpose of clothing the body and keeping it in warmth.
3. But, again, to advance a step further, there are, as the landlady of
the inn remarked, "neeps intilt." On this part of the subject, that I
may pass to the next topic on which I mean to speak, and which is of
wider range, I intend to say little. I have already referred to the
important place assigned to this vegetable by a living economist as
affording a basis for grouping society into two great classes. To the
farmer it is of equal, and far more practical, importance; for it is, by
the manner of its cultivation, a great means of clearing the land of
weeds; it is the chief support of sheep and cattle through the months of
winter; and it is one of the most valuable crops raised on British soil,
and of equal account in the agriculture of both England and Scotland.
The culture of turnips on farms involves considerable expense indeed,
and is sometimes attended with loss, and even failure; but they are of
inestimable value in cattle husbandry, as without them our sheepfarms
would soon be depopulated, and the animals hardly outlive a winter. One
function they, and the like, fulfil in nature, is turning inorganic
matter into vegetable, that the component elements may in this form be
more readily assimilated into animal flesh and blood; while their
introduction as an article of farming is of great importance as
rendering possible and feasible a regular rotation of crops.
4. But I must, as I said, hasten on to another ingredient of the dish we
are compounding; I refer to barley, for that too, as our gracious
hostess would say, is "_intilt_." From this single grain what virtues
have been developed! what mildness, what soothing, what nourishment, and
what strength! What a source it is to us of comfort, of enjoyment, and
of wealth! There is barley-water, for instance, a beverage most
harmless, yet most soothing; meet drink for the sick-room, and specially
promotive of the secretions in patients whose disease is inflammatory,
and who suffer from thirst. Then there is barley-bread, extensively used
in both England and Scotland, than which there is none more wholesome to
the blood and more nourishing to the system; the meal of which is of
service too in the shape of a medical appliance, and, when so used,
acts with most beneficial effect. But its strength is not so pronounced
or decisive either in the form of an infusion or in that of bread, much
as in these forms it contributes to health and vigour: it is not when it
is put into the pot, or when bruised by the miller, that it comes out in
the fulness of its might; it is when it is immersed in water, and
subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt. In this form it can be
converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used
aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but
when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe,
it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to
withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will
dare with impunity to enter the lists with it, and can hope to retire
from the contest with the strength unshorn and a firm footstep.[C]
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