FISCAL POLICY AND AGRICULTURE 335 



of employment, solid food was scanty, milk was 

 generally found for the children.^ 



Looking at the value of this article for the proper 

 nurture of children and at the milkless diet of the 

 present day, this fact should weigh heavily in any 

 consideration of the price of food. In a recent return 

 it is estimated that among the agricultural labourers in 

 England the average consumption per week is only 

 4J pints of new milk, or 8f pints of skim per family 

 of six persons.^ This shows that milk has practically 

 ceased to be an article of food for the labourer's family.' 



1 The present writer remembers as a lad — in accordance with a 

 common custom— going in the early morning to a neighbouring farm 

 with a large pitcher which, for a penny, in the summer for a halfpenny, 

 was filled to the brim with good skim (not separated) milk. New milk 

 was correspondingly cheap. This, with home-made bread, home-fed 

 bacon, eggs, cheese, an occasional fowl or rabbit, with plenty of vege- 

 tables, formed a wholesome diet. The cost was small, the labour con- 

 nected with the produce being done by the family. When this diet is 

 compared with that of the poorer classes of the present day, which is 

 largely composed of tea, white bread, salt fish, tinned meats, etc., with 

 few, if any, vegetables, physical deterioration is largely accounted for. 



' " Statistical Tables," 1903, Cd. 1761. This refers to milk thoroughly 

 separated by machinery. By the old method of hand-skimming a good 

 portion of butter-fat was left in the milk. Prof Long, referring to the 

 fact that milk is not regarded by the public as a food because it is a fluid, 

 states that it contains all the materials necessary for the nourishment of 

 the body. In comparing milk with meat he states that a sample of lean 

 beef without bone contains 72 parts of water, 3^ lb. of fat, 19^ lb. of 

 albuminoids, or muscle-forming matter, and 5 lb. of salts per 100 lb. A 

 sample of rich milk contains 4 lb. of fat (superior to that of beef), 5 lb, 

 of sugar, 4 lb. of albuminoids, and | lb. of salts. The beef would cost 

 at least five times as much as the milk, while on the basis of " unit " value 

 it would be worth just double. 



* Speaking of milk recalls an incident which illustrates the difference 

 between the old and the new. Twenty years ago the present writer was in 

 a cottage in Wiltshire where a little child, one of a large family, was ailing. 

 The mother, with loving hands, was vainly trying to tempt the child's appe- 

 tite with sweet, milkless tea and bread with a scrape of butter on it. In 

 the olden times referred to, milk and eggs would have been given to the 

 little one, not as luxuries, but as the cheapest food the mother could get. 



