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   Maize enters largely into the dietary of Americans, & is used

in a hundred forms. Well prepared hominy is a good substitute for rice, as a vegetable adjunct to roast meat, or stews. It ought to be as white as paper, but to prepare it in this way requires a tedious process, for it must be soaked for a long time in a strong lye, to get rid of its yellow skin. Maize bread is good only for a few minutes after it is taken out of the oven. As soon as it ceases to be warm, moist, & soft it ceases to be eatable. The sweet potatoes of America are as superior to those of Algeria, & the South of Europe as Stilton cheese is to that of Suffolk. The best are grown in the sandy soils of the South. In South Carolina from two to five hundred bushels per acre are harvested. Pigs will fatten on them, & men can live on pork & sweet potatoes. No dependence, however, can be placed on them, as in some years, for reasons that have not been discovered, they will not keep.

    To those who are desirous of introducing a little variety into their

Christmas dinner I wd recommend an American practice of serving the Turkey with hot apple jam. I need hardly say this is a very different thing from apple-sauce. There may however be some difficulty in getting the jam made as I do not recollect ever to have seen it in England. I wd also recommend for that festive season an American method of improving mince pies. On this side it is sometimes objected to this time-honoured institution, that there is a ha'p'orth of mincemeat to an intolerable quantity of crust. With their unfailing readiness of invention, they have hit on the method of uniting what with us wd be two or three dozen small pies, almost all crust, into one large raised? pie, which they help in pieces or slices. This completely meets the objection.