CAROLINE.
Pray, is not honey of the same nature as sugar?
MRS. B.
Honey is a mixture of saccharine matter and gum.
EMILY.
I thought that honey was in some measure an animal substance, as it is prepared by the bees.
MRS. B.
It is rather collected by them from flowers, and conveyed to their store-houses, the hives. It is the wax only that undergoes a real alteration in the body of the bee, and is thence converted into an animal substance.
Manna is another kind of sugar, which is united with a nauseous extractive matter, to which it owes its peculiar taste and colour. It exudes like gum from various trees in hot climates, some of which have their leaves glazed by it.
The next of the vegetable materials is fecula; this is the general name given to the farinaceous substance contained in all seeds, and in some roots, as the potatoe, parsnip, &c. It is intended by nature for the first aliment of the young vegetable; but that of one particular grain is become a favourite and most common food of a large part of mankind.