After an experiment of more than five years in feeding the Poor at Munich during which time every experiment was made that could be devised, not only with regard to the choice of the articles used as Food, but also in respect to their different combinations and proportions; and to the various ways in which they could be prepared or cooked; it was found that the cheapest, most savoury, and most nourishing Food that could be provided, was a soup composed of pearl barley, pease, potatoes, cuttings of fine wheaten bread, vinegar--salt and water in certain proportions.

The method of preparing this soup is as follows; The water and the pearl barley are first put together into the boiler and made to boil; the pease are then added, and the boiling is continued over a gentle fire about two hours;--the potatoes are then added, (having been previously peeled with a knife, or having been boiled, in order to their being more easily deprived of their skins,) and the boiling is continued for about one hour more, during which time the contents of the boiler are frequently stirred about with a large wooden spoon, or ladle, in order to destroy the texture of the potatoes, and to reduce the soup to one uniform mass.--When this is done, the vinegar and the salt are added; and last of all, at the moment it is to be served up, the cuttings of bread.

The soup should never be suffered to boil, or even to stand long before it is served up after the cuttings of bread are put into it. It will, indeed, for reasons which will hereafter be explained, be best never to put the cuttings of bread into the boiler at all, but, (as is always done at Munich,) to put them into the tubs in which the soup is carried from the kitchen into the dining-hall; pouring the soup hot from the boiler upon them; and stirring the whole well together with the iron ladles used for measuring out the soup to the Poor in the hall.

It is of more importance than can well be imagined, that this bread which is mixed with the soup should not be boiled. It is likewise of use that it should be cut as fine or thin as possible; and if it be dry and hard, it will be so much the better.

The bread we use at Munich is what is called semel bread, being small loaves, weighing from two to three ounces; and as we receive this bread in donations from the bakers, it is commonly dry and hard, being that which, not being sold in time, remains on hand, and becomes stale and unsaleable; and we have found by experience, that this hard and stale bread answers for our purpose much better than any other, for it renders mastication necessary; and mastication seems very powerfully to assist in promoting digestion: it likewise prolongs the duration of the enjoyment of eating, a matter of very great importance indeed, and which has not hitherto been sufficiently attended to.

The quantity of this soup furnished to each person, at each meal, or one portion of it, (the cuttings of bread included,) is just one Bavarian pound in weight; and as the Bavarian pound is to the pound Avoirdupois as 1,123842 to 1, --it is equal to about nineteen ounces and nine-tenths Avoirdupois. Now, to those who know that a full pint of soup weighs no more than about sixteen ounces Avoirdupois, it will not, perhaps, at the first view, appear very extraordinary that a portion weighing near twenty ounces, and consequently making near one pint and a quarter of this rich, strong, savoury soup, should be found sufficient to satisfy the hunger of a grown person; but when the matter is examined narrowly, and properly analyzed, and it is found that the whole quantity of solid food which enters into the composition of one of these portions of soup, does not amount to quite six ounces, it will then appear to be almost impossible that this allowance should be sufficient.

That it is quite sufficient, however, to make a good meal for a strong healthy person, has been abundantly proved by long experience. I have even found that a soup composed of nearly the same ingredients, except the potatoes, but in different proportions, was sufficiently nutritive, and very palatable, in which only about four ounces and three quarters of solid Food entered into the composition of a portion weighing twenty ounces.

But this will not appear incredible to those who know, that one single spoonful of salope, weighing less than one quarter of an ounce, put into a pint of boiling water, forms the thickest and most nourishing