fluence of the Weever and the Dan, six ounces of salt are obtained from sixteen of water. At Droitwich in Worcestershire, the salt produced from the brine springs supplies all that part of the country, and from the port of Bristol it is exported to other countries. At Middlewich, which stands at the confluence of the rivers Croke and Dan, there are salt springs, with a fresh brook running between them.

These springs, commonly yield four ounces of salt, from a pound of brine.

Our method of drawing the salt from the brine, in England is thus: near the spring or place of the brine is built a saltern, or boiling-house; this contains se veral huge flat pans or boilers, each furnished with its grate and furnace. The brine being in the pan, the fire is kindled, and after two hours time, the salt begins to granulate or crystallize; this is known by a thin skim rising at the top, which they skim off into the brine tubs, that the brine which goes with it may not be lost. Afterwards, in order that the crystallization may not be obstructed by any agitation, they shut up the ventholes and door, and let the fire go out, and in twelve hours time the crystallized salt falls to the bottom and grows hard, a liquor called the bittern, remaining at top, which being again boiled away, yields more salt. From the bittern, or mother-water, which contains sulphat of magnesia, the magnesia of the shops is often. prepared.

The salt left in the flat pans is now taken out and put into cribs or vessels; where it soon becomes a hard granulated salt. Some afterwards bake the loaves twice or thrice in an oven.

In Hampshire, and some other parts of England, they use sea-water exposed by the sun, and then boiled, which they think preferable to the natural brine of springs.

Hitherto a vulgar and injurious prejudice has prevailed, that foreign salt is more powerful, and better for curing meat or fish, than English salt; Dr. Henry, however, has proved to the Royal Society, this year, (1810) that English salt is not only as powerful, but in some respects superior to any foreign salt whatever, and that consequently the enormous expense now in

curred in the purchase of foreign salt, is equally unnecessary and impolitic.

CHEESE is prepared of curdled milk, purged from the serum or whey, and afterwards dried for use.

Cheese differs in quality, according as it is made from new or skimmed milk, from the curd which separates spontaneously upon standing, or that which is more speedily produced with runnet. There is also a kind of cheese from cream, which is quite fat and butyraceous, and does not keep long. Dr. Percival's experiments prove cheese to be evidently of a septic nature, that is, causing, or promoting putrefaction. Rich, old, dry cheese, certainly assists digestion as a stimulant, but the common poor and humid cheese is highly indi gestible; even the best is by no means very nutritive; it is an expensive and not a nourishing food, although much used by labouring people

Cheese made from the milk of sheep digests sooner than that from the milk of cows, but it is less nourishing. As a food, physicians condemn the too free use of cheese. When new it is extremely difficult of digestion; and when old it becomes acrid and hot, and inflames the stomach.

Every country has places noted for this commodity; thus, Chester and Gloucester cheese are famous in England; and the Parmesan is in no less repute abroad, especially in Italy and France; this sort is made of cows' milk; but at Rochfort on the Charente, they make it of ewes' milk; and in other places it is made of goats, or ewes, in a certain proportion with that of cows.

The

Of all the cheese this kingdom produces, none is more esteemed than the Stilton, which is called the Parmesan of England. It requires to be kept two years before it is properly mellowed for sale. making of what is called Stilton cheese, is not confined to Stilton farmers. Others in Huntingdonshire and even in Rutland and Northamptonshires, make similar sorts, selling them for the same prices, and under the same name of Stilton cheeses.

The double Gloucester is a cheese that pleases almost every palate, and is held in high esteem. Chedder-cheese is admired; its goodness is said to be owing to the rich

ness of the land, rather than to any thing peculiar in the method of making, being the same as is pursued in Somersetshire and the adjoining counties.

Cheshire cheese, however, is the most generally esteemed and used. A cheese is sometimes above an hundred pounds weight.

In order to give a high colour to cheese it is usual to put a little annatto with the milk before it is turned. No cheese will look yellow without it, and it is perfectly innocent in its nature and effects, but it does not add any thing to the goodness of the cheese.

BUTTER is a fat unctuous substance, prepared or separated from milk, by beating or churning it. But little description is necessary, of articles so well known. In Spain butter is little known and seldom used, except medicinally for ulcers, olive-oil being adopted for all culinary purposes: the Dutch introduced the use of it in the East-Indies. The Romans used butter no otherwise than as a medicine, never as a food. Pliny says, that among the barbarous nations it was a delicate dish. The Greeks had not an early knowledge of butter. Their poets though they make frequent mention of milk and cheese, make not the least mention of it.

Cl. Alexandrinus observes, that the ancient Christians of Egypt burnt butter in the lamps at their altars instead of oil; and the Abyssinians, according to Godignus, still retain a practice much like it.

Cream is that part of the milk, of which butter is made; it is the thickest and fattest part of it.

Beef, mutton, veal, and pork, the flesh of cows, sheep, calves, and pigs, although primary articles of food, are too well known to require any description here.

FRUITS.

ORANGES make an article of considerable merchandize. Those called China oranges were first brought into Europe from China, by the Portuguese; and it is said, that the very tree, whence all the European orange trees of this sort were produced, is still preserved at Lisbon.

The China orange is not so hardy as the Seville, and rarely produces good fruit in England, nor are the leaves of the tree near so large or beautiful as those of the Seville orange. There is a great variety of sweet oranges both in the East and West Indies, some of which are much more esteemed than those we now have in Europe, but as they are much tenderer, they will not thrive in this country with the common culture. There are several varieties of the orange tree, but they may all be referred to the sweet, or China orange, and the bitter, or Seville orange.

Those most esteemed, and that are made presents of, as rarieties in the Indies, are no bigger than a billiardball; when they are sweetened with sugar, they are esteemed excellent for disorders of the breast. juice is cooling, and antiscorbutic.

The

Oranges are brought from Nice; Majorca, Seville, and other parts of Spain; from Genoa, Provence, Portugal, the American islands, China, and the coasts of India.

Oranges are often comfited into halves and quarters. They are first peeled, then scooped and dried in a stove. Orangeat is the orange-pcel cut in pieces and candied. The outer rind of oranges is a grateful aromatic.

There are various oils drawn from oranges, which are esteemed good for destroying worms in children, but they are apt to be sophiscated with oil of behen, or that of sweet almonds; from these, however, they are easily distinguished, as the genuine fragrant red oil drawn from oranges is wholly volatile, and the adulter. ated is not.

CITRON is the produce of a tree much resembling the lemon tree. A citron has the same qualities as the lemon, but it is bigger, higher coloured, and has a brisker smell. It is an agreeable fruit, and serves like that to cool and quench the thirst. It is held excellent against poisons, and Athenæus relates an instance of two persons preserved safe from the most dangerous aspics by eating a citron.

Genoa is the great European nursery for this sort of fruit. The Florentine citron, Miller says, is in such

great esteem, that the single fruits are sold at Florence for two shillings each, and are sent as presents to the courts of princes. This kind is not to be had in perfection in any other part of Italy, but in the plain be tween Pisa and Leghorn, and if transplanted to other parts it loses much of its excellence.

From citrons are produced essences, oils, confections, waters, &c.

LEMON is a species of the citrus or citron tree. There are some varieties of this tree. The common lemon, the sweet, the lesser sour, and the common sweet lemon are the four sorts that are brought from Lisbon every year in great plenty. The culture of citrons, lemons, and oranges merits particular attention. They are elegant evergreens, rising in this country from about five to ten feet in height, forming full and handsome heads, closely garnished with beautiful large leaves all the year round, and putting forth a profusion of sweet flowers in spring and early in summer; which even in this climate are often succeeded by abundance of fruit, that sometimes arrive at tolerable perfection.

The most cheap and expeditious method of procuring a collection of these kind of trees, is to have recourse to such as are imported from Spain, Italy, and Portugal. These come over in chests, without any earth to their roots, and with their heads a little trimmed; they are commonly from one inch to two or three in diameter in the stem; from two to four or five feet in height; and by the assistance of a bark bed they readily take root, and grow freely; forming as good trees in two years, as could be raised here by inarching or budding, in fifteen or twenty. They are sold in the Italian warehouses in London. Their price is from three shillings to a guinea each.

The fruits of the citron, lemon, and orange trees, yield very agreeable acid juices, which, besides the uses to which they are commonly applied, answer con siderable purposes in medicine. The young fruit of the Seville orange dried is used in medicine under the name of aurantia curaflaventia.

The MELON is a species of cucumis. The Cantaleupe melon, so called from a place in the neigh