ded, so man may not
pitch or pour indiscriminately into his stomach whatever substance may
be cooked or liquid distilled and offered to him, and we are thrown back
upon the direct test of their innocent or noxious properties, with full
responsibility of action; but still I have a profound conviction that
all such general production of the chief articles of food and drink has
its origin in some deeply felt necessity of human nature in their
particular localities;--the people may be on the wrong track in their
attempts to provide for such necessities, but that these are felt and
are the stimulus to the production is beyond doubt.

Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still
perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand
years ago:--"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main
deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is
wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It
is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole
country lies in a high latitude,--Munich, though in the southern part,
being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at
such an elevation,--about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the
Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its
site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of
feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty
miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of
weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The
air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the
days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits,
none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich. The whole country suffers
from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not
themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do
in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five
times in the year, on their chief holidays,--namely, Shrove Tuesday,
Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on
but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be
many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of
late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel
the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too l