320 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



"The ash of feechng stuffs is of greatest importance to ani- 

 mals." This is shown by feeding them rations freed as far as 

 possible from the mineral elements, when they will, sooner or 

 later, die of mineral starvation. 



Howell states that the mineral salts of the body direct its 

 metabolism, though in what manner is not known. 



MILK SUGAR. 



Milk contains a third element which makes it especially desir- 

 able and efficient as a food for the animals ; namely, sugar, of 

 which it contains around 20% or five pounds in a hundred. It 

 may be questioned as to whether sufficient consideration has 

 been given to its dietetic effects upon the animal, whether calf 

 or pig. Concerning the value of sugar in the diet, Dr. Woods 

 Hutchinson, writing concerning *'What the Soldier Eats," under 

 the caption, "Feeding a Million Men," in the Saturday Evening 

 Post of November 7, 1914, after speaking of adding fresh beef 

 or mutton to the army ration, says : "This made a great improve- 

 ment, but there was something still lacking. It was found that 

 on a diet of simple bread, meat and fat, a craving for other 

 foods developed to such a degree as to impair the health." 



"This craving was found to be particularly keen for sweets 

 of all sorts ; and as soon as the new-found luxury, sugar, became 

 cheap enough to be available for army supplies, it was tested 

 out with fear and trembling, and found to be not merely free 

 from danger, but an extremely wholesome, digestible and readily 

 assimilable food, and it was added to the army ration." 



"The army ration has given the finishing blow to our ancient 

 nursery superstition about the unwholesomeness of sugar and 

 the way it makes our teeth decay, and our livers become en- 

 larged, and our joints inflamed with gout and rheumatism, and 

 our kidneys 'Brightsy.' It is one of the best, most readily 

 digestible and, at present prices, cheapest forms of body fuel 

 we have. Three-quarters of the work of the body is probably 

 done by burning sugar in the cells of our muscles, w^hich latter 

 turn it into alcohol and explode it in much the same way that 

 gasoline vapor is exploded in the cylinders of an automobile, — 

 only the cylinders are so innumerable and so tiny that we do not 

 hear any chugging and do not get the familiar smell. This 



