FOOD AND FEEDING. 389 



moderate proportion, is more nutritious and wholesome than chiefly 

 animal food. For those whose labor is chiefly mental, and whose 

 muscular exercise is inconsiderable, still less of concentrated nitro- 

 genous food is desirable. A liberal supply of cereals and legumes, 

 with fish, and flesh in its lighter forms, will better sustain such 

 activity than large portions of butcher's meat twice or thrice a day. 

 Then again it is absolutely certain, contrary to the popular belief 

 as this is, that while a good supply of food is essential during the 

 period of growth and active middle life, a diminished supply is no 

 less essential to health and prolongation of life during declining years, 

 when physical exertion is small, and the digestive faculty sometimes 

 becomes less powerful also. I shall not regard it as within my prov- 

 ince here to dilate on this topic, but shall assert that the " support- 

 ing " of aged persons, as it ' is termed, with increased quantities of 

 food and stimulant, is an error of cardinal importance. These things 

 being: so, a consideration of no small concern arises in relation to the 

 economical management of the national resources. For it is a fair 

 computation that every acre of land devoted to the production of 

 meat is capable of becoming the source of three or four times the 

 amount of produce of equivalent value as food, if devoted to the 

 production of grain. In other words, a given area of land cropped 

 with cereals and legumes will support a population more than three 

 times as numerous as that which can be sustained on the same land 

 devoted to the growth of cattle. Moreover, the corn-land will pro- 

 duce, almost without extra cost, a considerable quantity of animal 

 food, in the form of pigs and poultry, from the offal or coarser parts 

 of vegetable produce which is unsuitable for human consumption. 



Thus this country purchases every year a large and increasing 

 quantity of corn and flour from foreign countries, while more of our 

 own land is yearly devoted to grazing purposes. The value of corn 

 and flour imported by Great Britain in 1877 was no less than 63,536,- 

 322, while in 1875 it was only just over 53,000,000. The increased 

 import during the last thirty-two years is well exhibited in the fol- 

 lowing extract : "In 1846 the imports of corn and flour amounted to 

 seventeen pounds weight per head of population ; in 1855 they had 

 risen to seventy pounds per head ; and in 1865 to ninety-three pounds 

 weight per head of population. Finally, in 1877 the imports of corn 

 and flour amounted to one hundred and seventy pounds weight per 

 head of population of the United Kingdom." * 



Lastly, those who are interested in the national supply of food 

 must lament that, while Great Britain possesses perhaps the best 

 opportunities in the world for securing a large and cheap supply of 

 fish, she fails to attain it, and procures so little only that it is to the 

 great majority of the inhabitants an expensive luxury. Fish is a food 

 of great value ; nevertheless, it ought in this country to be one of the 



* "Statesman's Year Book," 1879, p. 258. 



