OF SCOTCH AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 5 



tabulated), we find that oatmeal is invariably used, and in no 

 instance have we been able to point out an- exception to this rule 

 amongst the rural- population. 



The high' dietetic value of oatmeal is a very im-poYtant feature, 

 where its use is so universal in any district or country as it is in 

 Scotland ; and when taken in connection with milk as the other 

 staple article of food and nourishment,- its competency to afford 

 a great amount of physical nutriment is considerably enhanced, 

 for we find that as a nutritive agent, milk is almost unequalled. 

 Whether its use be limited to the undeveloped system of an 

 infant,- to' the' enfeebled and debilitated frame of an invalid, or to 

 the brawny and muscular conformation of the hardy day labourer 

 in any of our industrial employments, where his- muscular system 

 receives its greatest and most continued strain, we find the suita- 

 bility of milk for maintaining the frame in vigour, or for nourish- 

 ing or recruiting the daily waste of matter of the bodily 

 functions, eq.ually undeniable ; while its value is still further in- 

 creased from the fact of its being one of the most easily digested 

 foods in use by the peasantry. Having regard to poverty of diet 

 in any one district, we would impress most urgently in that 

 quarter the necessity for using every effort to increase the supply 

 of milk, for tl*e state of health and immunity from scrofulous 

 disease, amongst the poorly fed and clad population, are usually 

 in proportion to the quantity of milk accessible, and there could 

 be no more efficient aid given to the rural agricultural popula- 

 tion generally, in the direction of an improved dietary, than by 

 affording them the means of obtaining an increased supply of 

 milk regularly. We may notice case No. 5, Appendix " A," as 

 an instance of a very low-fed family's health being mainly sup- 

 ported by milk ; while in the same parish of the island of Skye, 

 case No. 7, Appendix " A," affords a very fair example of a weakly 

 constitutioned family suffering from scrofulous disease, attri- 

 butable in no small degree to the absence of milk from their 

 dietary. In the neighbourhood of large towns we found the 

 labourers complain much of the difficulty of obtaining milk, 

 even in scanty supplies, and this scarceness of so important an 

 article of diet leads to the substitution of treacle and water, or 

 sugar and water, and in a very few rare instances of beer. None 

 of these can in any way be compared (as regards nutritive pro- 

 perties) with milk, while the presence of such substitutes does 

 not act upon systems having any scrofulous tendency or liability 

 to cutaneous eruptions in the beneficial manner in which milk 

 does, but rather the reverse. 



Potatoes also form a large proportion of" the general national 

 dietary of Scotch agricultural labourers. As an article of nutri- 

 tive value, potatoes cannot be said to rank high. The cheapness 

 of this commodity is its chief recommendation, and it may be 



