OUR ALLIES 153 



redoubled speed. For the present evolution is giv- 

 ing us more new friends and opening the way most 

 rapidly in the vegetable kingdom. Our agricultural 

 colleges and experiment stations are doing some 

 splendid work in the way of improving breeds of 

 cattle or restoring lost breeds, yet it is among the 

 cereals and the fruits more than among the meat 

 producers that they are achieving triumphs. 



You may note that, whether we will or no, our 

 whole race is becoming more vegetarian in diet. So 

 we shall find out, as we go on with this discussion, 

 that while we have some wonderful friends in the 

 stable and kennel, we have just as valuable and quite 

 as important in the garden and orchard. We are 

 not only eating less meat, but we shall eat less and 

 less as the population increases and the vast cattle 

 ranges are turned into little homesteads, each with 

 its garden of vegetables, its egg producers, and its 

 apples or its oranges. Every country home that is 

 carved out in this way can produce, and must pro- 

 duce, nearly all its own food, besides giving a sur- 

 plus to the general market. Our cities must melt 

 away and spread out into a great suburbanism, where 

 homes will not be piled on top of each other, but be 

 gardenized in a few acres, homeful, sweet, whole- 

 some, and the seat of a grand alliance, of cooperat- 

 ing animals and plants. 



In my judgment, the noblest ally that we have to- 

 day is the cow. I say this as a lover of milk; a bowl 

 of sweet milk, half filled with bread and blackberries ; 



