AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 183 



&quot; Meats generally are about three-fourths water ; and 

 milk, as it comes from the cow, over ninety per cent. 

 How is it as it comes from the milkman ? It is true that 

 chemical analysis does not give us the exact comparative 

 value of food, but with that, and the prices of the various 

 articles, it cannot be a hard matter to determine what is 

 the cheapest or most economical kind of food for us to use. 

 Perhaps of all the articles named, taking into account the 

 price and nutritious qualities, oatmeal will give the greatest 

 amount of nutriment for the least money. But where will 

 you find it in use ? Not one family in a thousand ever saw 

 the article ; not one in a hundred ever heard of it ; and 

 many who have heard of it have a vague impression that 

 none but starving Scotch or Irish ever use it ; and, in short, 

 that oats, in America, are only fit food for pigs and horses. 

 It is a great mistake. Oatmeal is excellent in porridge, and 

 all kinds of cooking of that sort, and oatmeal cakes are 

 sweet, nutritious, and an antidote for dyspepsia. Just now, 

 we believe, oats are the cheapest of any grain in the mar 

 ket, and it is a settled fact that oats give the greatest 

 amount of power of any grain consumed by man or beast. 

 This cheap food only needs to be fashionable, to be ex 

 tremely popular among laborers, all of whom, to say noth 

 ing of other classes, eat too much fine-flour bread.&quot; 



Again, he says : 



&quot; Look at the Scotch with their oatmeal porridge, as ro 

 bust a set of men as ever lived. A Highlander will scale 

 mountains all day upon a diet of oatmeal stirred in water 

 fresh from a gurgling spring with his finger, in a leather 

 cup. Another excellent, though little used, breadstuff, par 

 ticularly for the sedentary, or persons of costive habits, is 

 cracked wheat, or wheaten grits, as the article is called. 

 That and Graham flour should be used in preference, at 



