—the day the grubs have to earn their daily
bread by—and it was time for the butterflies
to be in bed.

JUSTICE TO CHICORY.

BECAUSE we do not like to receive chicory
under the name of coffee, it by no means
follows that we object to receive chicory in
its own name, or that we consider it wrong
to marry chicory and coffee to each other;
the alliance may be advantageous, only let it
not be secret. Secret marriages can scarcely
lead to any good. On the third of August
last—three months ago—an order was issued
from the Treasury to take effect among the
grocers three months after date, by which it
is forbidden to sell coffee and chicory in
combination, or to sell chicory by itself in packages
containing less than two ounces, thus:—

"That, in future, licensed Dealers in
Coffee be allowed to keep and sell chicory,
or other vegetable substances prepared to
resemble coffee, provided that they be sold,
unmixed with coffee, in packages sealed or
otherwise secured, containing respectively
not less than two ounces, and having pasted
thereon a printed label, with the name or
firm of the seller, the exact weight and true
description of the article contained therein;
and provided that no such article be kept in
a loose state, or otherwise than in such
packages as aforesaid, in any room entered
for the storage or sale of coffee."

Any stranger reading an order of this kind,
and knowing how many poisonous adulterations
are familiarly tolerated in this country,
would suppose chicory, which must not be
kept in a loose state under the same roof
with coffee, to be some very dreadful thing,
some dietetic gunpowder that grocers use for
the undermining of the constitution in this
country. In truth it is, however, one of the
most harmless substances that ever have been
used for the purpose of adulteration, not
excepting even water—as it is obtained in
London. In the case of all low-priced coffee—
of all coffee purchased by the poor—adulteration
with chicory yields profit to the grocer,
simply because it yields pleasure to the
customer. Good chicory and middling coffee
dexterously mixed can be sold at the price of
bad coffee, and will make a beverage at least
twice as good, and possibly more, certainly
not less, wholesome. Coffee that chicory
would spoil is bought by none of the poor,
and by a portion only of the middle classes.
We do not advocate secret adulteration, but
we would have the adulteration to be made
open, and all people to understand distinctly,
that since chicory is altogether wholesome, it is
a matter that depends upon the taste and the
pocket, whether they will buy coffee pure or
mixed. Take away all fraud from the use of
chicory, aud we shall be glad to see its use
fairly promoted. Let us look a little more
closely into the subject.

Chicory is better known to many of us
when growing wild in many parts of England
on dry chalky soils under the name of the
wild endive; it belongs to a tribe of
composite plants, called " the Cichoraceæ," in
which are included, also, dandelion, and the
garden lettuce. It shoots above the soil a
tuft of leaves, and when it runs to flower,
sends up a stem from one to three feet high,
rigid, rough, branched, clothed with leaves
and blue flowers. It has a long root like that
of a carrot, which becomes enlarged by proper
cultivation, and is the part used for the
manufacture of a substitute for coffee. Every
part of the plant is perfectly wholesome—the
root when fresh is tonic, and in large doses
slightly aperient. Chicory is cultivated
extensively in Belgium, Holland, and Germany.
It is cultivated in France for its leaves, as
herbage and pasturage; in Germany and
Flanders for its roots. It was first cultivated
in England about 1780, by the well-known
agriculturist, Arthur Young. It is a most
valuable article of farm produce. On blowing
poor and sandy land, it yields more
sheep-food than any plant in cultivation; it
will thrive on fen and bog and peat; it is
good fodder for cattle, it is good for pigs. It
grows only too readily, if that be an objection,
for if not carefully extirpated, it is apt to
become a vivacious weed. For herbage
chicory is sown precisely in the same way as
clover; for the roots it is sown and thinned
in the same way as carrots, and taken up, as
carrots are, in the first autumn after sowing.

The removal of the restrictions on the use
of chicory, by the minute recently rescinded,
stimulated its cultivation in this country, and
the memorial of the home-growers, who
appeal against re-imposition of restrictions,
does not go a syllable beyond the truth in
representing, that " the great demand for
chicory, which has arisen in consequence of
this minute, has led to its very extensive
cultivation in this country; considerable sums of
money have been expended on the kilns and
machinery required to prepare it for the
markets, and a large amount of capital is at
the present time profitably employed upon
this new branch of English agriculture. It
is not unimportant to notice that the cultivation
of chicory requires and remunerates
the use of land worth from five pounds to
eight pounds per acre; that so far from
exhausting the soil, wheat may be grown
upon it after chicory with the greatest advantage;
that it furnishes occupation for a very
large number of labourers, including women
and children, and at a time of year when the
fields afford but little other employment;
and that, consequently, in some parishes, the
poor's rate has been diminished by one half
since chicory was introduced."

The blanched leaves of chicory are
sometimes used as a substitute for endive, and are
commonly sold as an early salad in the Netherlands.
If the roots, after being taken up, be