The whole of this tribe afford a much more agreeable, though not a more nutritive aliment, when their seeds are used green, young, and tender, and simply boiled, than when fully ripened, and their flour baked. It is remarked, that all the substances of which bread is made, as well as the substitutes for it, when chemically considered, are chiefly composed of one and the same identical material; namely, the farinaceous matter of the seeds, roots, fruits, or other products of vegetables, of different climates and soils; and that _starch_, or the amylaceous fecula, forms the most valuable part of all the materials used for making bread, and its substitutes. This substance forms by far the most abundant, the most nourishing, and the most easy to be procured aliment, obtainable from the vegetable kingdom. “Whilst immense tribes of creatures devour the amylaceous fecula in the grain, as nature produces it, man knows how to give it different forms, from the most simple boiling to the most complicated delicacies of the arts of the confectioner and pastry-cook. “It is singular that man should waste so valuable a substance for the purpose of hair-powder, a kind of custom perhaps ridiculous, in which modern nations imitate, without being aware of it, those people whom they term barbarous, and by which custom they lavish away a portion of the subsistence of a great number of families.” This nutritive aliment, we find, exists in various combinations, in the roots, seeds, in the stems, and fruits of plants. Many roots abounding in the amylaceous fecula, yields a palatable and highly nutritious aliment. Hence the potatoe is a substance largely employed as a substitute for bread. Its nutritious qualities are fully ascertained by the experience of all Europe; it makes a considerable portion of the food of the poor; and in Ireland in particular, millions of people exist, who, from sufficient evidence, we are pretty certain live for years together almost wholly on this root and water, without any other seasoning than a little salt. It contains much amylaceous fecula, and when mixed with wheaten flour, may be formed into good and palatable bread. Other substances, besides the grains before mentioned, are in different parts of the world substituted for bread. These are the following: The Bread-Fruit.