With Milk and Sugar Blest 197 



forms 20 percent of the total food of the people of the United 

 States. 



Did you know that somewhere in this country your family 

 has a cow? 



The more than thirty-six million dairy cows in the United 

 States, which statisticians have figured out as one cow to every 

 American family, carry the largest part of the national farm 

 program. They give us about one hundred billion pounds of 

 milk annually, which means an average of forty gallons per 

 capita. Our consumption of milk has been going up steadily 

 during the past twenty years. When Dr. E. V. McCollum, 

 working in the laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, dis- 

 covered the vitamins, and how these hitherto unknown ele- 

 ments in our food affected our health, and that milk was the 

 greatest single source of all six vitamins, he started a run on the 

 dairies. 



Men and women who had not drunk milk since they cut 

 their first teeth got so interested in vitamins A, B, C, D, E and 

 G and what these would do for them, that they gave up coffee 

 or tea at least once a day for milk. Girls who wanted Holly- 

 wood complexions and shining eyes ran for the milk bottle. 

 Schools began to serve milk to pupils, and records showed that 

 marks in classes went up in proportion to the amount of milk 

 consumed. Milk bars opened on crowded city streets. Finally, 

 the debutantes decreed that it was smart to drink milk at all- 

 night parties. 



This enthusiastic milk craze, which shows no sign of lessen- 

 ing, developed dairy farming all over the country, until it 

 became what it is today the largest single source of income 

 to American farmers. Twenty-six percent of the total receipts 

 of agriculture come from the sale of dairy products, and of 

 dairy animals sold for meat. There have been years when 

 the butter, cheese, milk and eggs raised on our farms exceeded 

 the value of the nation's wheat crop. 



All this is actually a by-product of the American corn. 



In her simple way, the cow is a milk-making machine. The 



