FOOD AND FEEDING. 387 



second place. The chestnut also is largely eaten by the poorer popu- 

 lation, hoth it and maize containing more fatty matter than wheat, 

 oats, and legumes. 



In Spain, the inhabitants subsist chiefly on maize and rice, with 

 some wheat and legumes, among them the garbanzo or " chick pea," 

 and one of the principal vegetable components of the national olla, 

 which contains also a considerable proportion of animal food in variety, 

 as bacon, sausage, fowl, etc. Fruit is fine and abundant; especially so 

 are grapes, figs, and melons. There is little or no butter, the universal 

 substitute for which is olive-oil, produced in great quantity. Fowls 

 and the pig furnish the chief animal food, and garlic is the favorite 

 condiment. 



Going northward, flesh of all kinds occupies a more considerable 

 place in the dietary. In France the garden vegetables and legumes 

 form an important staple of diet for all classes ; but the very numerous 

 small land proprietors subsist largely on the direct products of the 

 soil, adding little more than milk, poultry, and eggs, the produce of 

 their small farms. The national pot-au-feu is an admirable mixed dish, 

 in which a small portion of meat is made to yield all its nutritive qual- 

 ities, and to go far in mingling its odor and savor with those of the 

 fragrant vegetables which are so largely added to the stock. The 

 stock-meat eaten hot, or often cold with plenty of green salad and oil, 

 doubtless the most palatable mode of serving it, thus affords a source 

 of fat, if not otherwise provided for by butter, cheese, etc. 



Throughout the German Empire, the cereals, legumes, greens, roots, 

 and fruits supply an important proportion of the food consumed by the 

 common population. Wheaten bread chiefly, and some made from 

 rye, also beans and peas, are used abundantly. Potatoes and green 

 vegetables of all kinds are served in numerous ways, but largely in 

 soups, a favorite dish. Meats, chiefly pork, are greatly esteemed in 

 the form of sausage, and appear also as small portions or joints, but 

 freely garnished with vegetables, on the tables of those who can afford 

 animal diet. Going northward, where the climate is no longer adapt- 

 ed for the production of wheat, as in parts of Russia, rye and oats 

 form the staple food from the vegetable kingdom, associated with an 

 increased quantity of meat and fatty materials. 



Lastly, it is well known that the inhabitants of the Arctic zone are 

 compelled to consume large quantities of oily matter, in order to gen- 

 erate heat abundantly; and also that animal food is necessarily the 

 staple of their dietary. Vegetables, which, moreover, are not produ- 

 cible in so severe a climate, would there be wholly inadequate to sup- 

 port life. 



We will now consider the food which the English peasant and ar- 

 tisan provide. The former lives, for the most part, on wheaten bread 

 and cheese, with occasionally a little bacon, some potatoes, and per- 

 haps garden greens : it is rarely indeed that he can obtain flesh. To 



