When I saw that Women's Institute convention listening to addresses 

 on the subject of pure milk production, and of what it meant to the 

 health, wealth and happiness of the country, I said, 'This is the best dairy 

 convention I have ever attended, and this is the best work we have ever 

 undertaken in this Province.' The Farmers' Institute work grows very 

 well, but the Women's Institutes of this country are growing- at a tre- 

 mendous pace. You have no idea of the great social revolution that is 

 taking place in connection with the agricultural life of this country. I 

 pleaded with these women to go home and demand that something should 

 be done in the rural public schools of this country to help out our agri- 

 cultural work. If we can get the farmers' wives and daughters 

 to work on this question of pure milk, whether for home con- 

 sumption or cheese-making and butter-making, and if at the same time 

 we can have introduced into our rural schools some simple instruction so 

 that the boys and girls will get some little knowledge of what milk is, of 

 what the value of milk as a food is, and the necessity for its being kept 

 absolutely clean, then, and not till then, will we have this question finally 

 started along right lines. Otherwise we will meet year after year in 

 convention and go over the same old ground again, meet the same old 

 difficulties, and will not make half the progress that we should have 

 made. " 



MILK AS A FOOD. 

 By Mrs. Lillian Gray Price, Toronto. 



It is interesting and beneficial to have a knowledge of the care and 

 handling of milk in regard to cleanliness of the cow, milk pails, and 

 vessels and of the milk itself, all of which cannot be given too much 

 attention ; for such attention is absolutely necessary ; but the subject seems 

 incomplete without a study of milk in regard to its place among the food- 

 stuffs that we are constantly using to build up bodily strength to fit us 

 for the work of living. 



When we have taken the milk from the cow and carefully and pro- 

 perly attended to it until we have it placed away ready for use by the 

 family, our knowledge, and indeed our desire for knowledge, should not 

 stop there, but we should think further and deeper, and endeavor always 

 to know just what this most important food supplies in the great economy 

 of bodily strength and vigor. 



In order to understand the food value of milk, or in fact of ?nv food, 

 we must have a definite knowledge of the composition of the body, and 

 of the classes of foods necessary to support life. Briefly, we require to 

 continually replace in the body, muscle and tissue, fat, mineral matter, 

 heat and energy and water. We know that with every movement we 

 make and with every thought we think, bodily material is being used up 

 and therefore being worn out ; and in order that we may not entirely wear 

 out and die, we must replace this loss as it occurs. This we do precisely 

 as we keep a fire going, bv adding fuel from time to time as the demand 

 is created, our fuel being food. 



