Those whole avocations call them to visit distant countries, and those whose fortune enables them to travel for their amusement or improvement, have many opportunities of acquiring useful information; and in consequence of this intercourse with strangers, many improvements, and more REFINEMENTS, have been introduced into this country; but the most important advantages that MIGHT be derived from an intimate knowledge of the manners and customs of differing nations,--the introduction of improvements tending to facilitate the means of subsistence, and to increase the comforts and conveniences of the most necessitous and most numerous classes of society,--have been, alas! little attended to. Our extensive commerce enables us to procure, and we do actually import most of the valuable commodities which are the produce either of the foil of the ocean, or of the industry of man in all the various regions of the habitable globe;--but the result of the EXPERIENCE OF AGES respecting the use that can be made of those commodities has seldom been thought worth importing! I never see maccaroni in England, or polenta in Germany, upon the tables of the rich, without lamenting that cheap and wholesome luxuries should be monopolized by those who stand least in need of them; while the Poor, who, one would think, ought to be considered as having almost an EXCLUSIVE right to them, (as they were both invented by the Poor of a neighbouring nation,) are kept in perfect ignorance of them. But these two kinds of Food are so palatable, wholesome, and nourishing, and may be provided so easily, and at so very cheap a rate in all countries, and particularly in Great Britain, that I think I cannot do better than to devote a few pages to the examination of them;--and I shall begin with Polenta, or Indian corn, as it is called in this country. CHAPTER. VI. Of INDIAN CORN. It affords the cheapest and most nourishing food known. Proofs that it is more nourishing than rice. Different ways of preparing or cooking it. Computation of the expense of feeding a person with it, founded on experiment. Approved Receipt for making an INDIAN PUDDING. I cannot help increasing the length of this Essay much beyond the bounds I originally assigned to it, in order to have an opportunity of recommending a kind of Food which I believe to be beyond comparison the most nourishing, cheapest, and most wholesome that can be procured for feeding the Poor.--This is Indian Corn, a most valuable production; and which grows in almost all climates; and though it does not succeed remarkably well in Great Britain, and in some parts of Germany, yet it may easily be had in great abundance, from other countries; and commonly at a very low rate.