178 Journal of AgricuUvre, Victoria. |11 March, 1918. 



of lime calcium, and you must add chlorine calcium and protein. 

 Animals fed on foods that do not contain these ingredients never pro- 

 duce and rear young. They may in a few cases have a few young, but 

 they will never rear any. There are just such situations arising in 

 practically every community. 



False Economy. 



The price of foodstuffs has continually been rising during the last 

 few years, and the point has already been reached when the housewife, 

 who is dependent for the upkeep of the family expense account on the 

 wages of even a skilled artisan, has difficulty to make the proper 

 purchases of food. JSTow, under these circumstances, the natural 

 tendency is for women to begin to restrict the number of purchases for 

 the table to those articles which appear to be cheap. The text-books 

 on dietetics even to-day are beginning to tell the story that I have just 

 told you in the last few minutes. The main points that are emphasized 

 in the discussion of human dietaries are the protein contents. The 

 point I want to emphasize is this : the most expensive foods, and there- 

 fore the articles on which the first cut is liable to be made, are eggs 

 and dairy products. These are the most expensive articles; they appeal 

 to the housewife as being the most expensive foods. 



Protect Dairying. 



In human dietaries, the safe plan is this : protect the dairy industry, 

 no matter what effects may come to us, and Iioav expensive it may 

 become to produce dairy products. The dairy industry is the greatest 

 safeguard to nutritive food. If we do away with the dairy industry, 

 we do away with the use of cream in our coffee and our desserts, and 

 we would soon become an inefficient people compared with what we are. 

 Just consider this world in a general proposition, and consider what 

 jicople are thrifty, and consider the character of their diet. Which 

 people are progressive? The greatest single event in the history of 

 the progress of humanity is that time and event which led to the 

 discovery of milk-producing animals. Unless a supply of milk was 

 regularly available to a primitive people, some time in this history of 

 this world, that people began forthwith to be outstripped by their 

 neighbours in every undertaking which they might have attempted. 

 Under no circumstances should the use of milk, and all the constituents 

 of milk, be diminished. 



The first place and the safest place to economize is in the consump- 

 tion of meat. We can do without meat without any detriment if we 

 care to give up our pleasure in eating meat. ISTow, meats are good. 

 We all like them, and to some extent we are going to continue to eat 

 meat. I would not advise doing aAvay with the beef-producing industry, 

 because a number of other industries are dependent upon the beef 

 industry. The leather industry is one which we must protect. If we 

 are to maintain an efficient dairy industry, Ave must produce a certain 

 number of excess males among cattle. The beef animal largely takes 

 care of itself. There is but a small labour item in the production of 

 meat as compared with the production of milk. A number of reasons 

 might be cited, but these are enough; but wherever it is necessary to 

 economize, the Avise thing to do is to shear the famih^ budget in those 



