My aim is to discourse on the same constituents as they display their virtues and play their parts on a larger scale, in a wider economy; and when I have said my say, I hope I may be able to lay claim to the credit of having spoken intelligibly and profitably, though I must at the outset bespeak indulgence by promise of nothing more than the serving up of a dish of simple hodge-podge. The question I put in a wider reference is the question of the Englishman, as expressed in the Scotchwoman's dialect, What's intilt? and I assume that there enter into it, as radically component parts, at least the ingredients of this motley soup. Into the large hodge-podge of nature and terrestrial economics, as into this small section of Scotch cookery, there enter the element of water, the flesh of animals, and the fruits of the earth, as well as the processes by which these are brought to hand and rendered serviceable to life. The ingredients of hodge-podge exist in _rerum natura_, and the place they occupy and the function they fulfil in it are no less deserving of our inquisitive regard. Thus, there is water in it, without which there were no seas and no sailing of ships, no rivers and no plying of mills, no vapour and no power of steam, no manufacture and no trade, and not only no motion, but no growth and no life. There is mutton, or beef, in it, and connected therewith the breeding and rearing of cattle, the production of wool, tallow, and leather, and the related manufactures and crafts. There are turnips and carrots in it, the latter of such value to the farmer that on one occasion a single crop of them sufficed to clear off a rent; and the former of such consequence in the fattening of stock and the provision of animal food, that a living economist divides society exhaustively into turnip-producing classes and turnip-consuming. There are leeks and onions in it, and these, with the former, suggest the art of the gardener, and the wonderful processes by which harsh and fibrous products can be turned into pulpy and edible fruits. And there are pease and barley in it, and associated therewith the whole art of the husbandman in the tillage of the soil and the raising of cereals, with the related processes of grinding the meal, baking the bread, preparing the malt, brewing the beer, and distilling the fiery life-blood at the heart. Now, to discourse on all these, as they deserve, would be a task of no ordinary magnitude, but the subject is an interesting one, and to treat of it ever so cursorily might not unprofitably occupy a reflective moment or two. Water is the first topic it is laid upon me to talk about, and I begin with it all the more readily because it suggests a sense of freshness, and thoughts which may float our enterprise prosperously into port.