6 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 310 



to make the home visits necessary tor the collect ion of such data without at the 

 same time doing some teaching, either consciousl\- or unconsciousK-, which ni'ght 

 influence the diets of the children still more. 



Schools Studied 



The study was carried on in four consolidated rural schools located in various 

 parts of the State and invo'ved in all some 760 children (386 girls and 374 boys). 

 Of these a fairly large group (230) were observed over a two-year period and 106 

 for three years. Unfortunately it was not possible to obtain complete records 

 on all these children. 



Schools A and B were small, with a total enrollment of appro.ximately 90 

 children in each. All the grades in these schools were observed. Both were in 

 essentially rural farming communities with only a very small village: the first 

 in a town adjacent to a large metropolitan area, the second in the hills in the 

 western part of the State. The children of school A came largely from o'd New 

 England or Norwegian stock, those in school B also ver\- largeK' from old New 

 England families. School C was in a rural industrial village which was in many 

 wa>-s quite difTerent from the other communities. The population was very 

 largely foreign born. Mere than half the children were of Italian parentage; a 

 large proportion were Lithuanian, Polish, or English;a few were Irish and French; 

 and only a sprinkling were of Yankee stock. School D, which was in a neighbor- 

 ing village in the same town, was, on the other hand, predominantly of native 

 New England stock with a small percentage of French, Irish, Lithuanian, Norweg- 

 ian, Finnish, and Italian families. The last two schools were much larger, with 

 40 to 50 children in each grade. Only the lower four grades were used in both, 

 except during the last year when five grades were observed in school D. 



E.xcept for the fact that the mills in Village C did not close during 1930-32, 

 even though not running at full capacit\-, the economic situation in these com- 

 nmnities was not unique, but was rather t\ pical of the more prosperous New 

 England rural towns. Probably few of the families would be rated as wealth\' 

 though a number were seemingly in quite comfortable circumstances. A large 

 proportion apparently belonged to that economic group with modest means, 

 while not a few had cjuite meager incomes, and a small group in each community 

 was receiving aid from the town welfare boards. 



TJie Lunch 



The study was begun in September 1929 in school A. The children were 

 divided into two groups similar in age and sex. To the one a lunch consisting 

 of a cup of whole milk plus a 20 calorie plain cracker was given; to the other, 

 1/3 cup of a 50 per cent tomato concentrate, equivalent to approximately 33 

 calories, plus the same sort of cracker as to the first group. Grade A pasteurized 

 milk with a high fat content (6 per cent') and from a tuberculin-tested Jersey' 

 herd was obtained from a neighboring dair\' and delivered at school each morning. 

 The tomato concentrate was canned by the Department of Horticultural Manu- 

 factures of the .State College.^ The concentrate was thicker in consistency than 

 most commercial products and presumal)l\' had a relati\'eK' higher food \alue, 



'.\nal)sis made l>y Philip H. Smith of the Experiment Station Control Laboratory. 



-The tomatoes were first cooked at slow boiling in a covered steam-jacketed kettle for approx- 

 imately 20 minutes and then pureed. To each gallon of this fine puree 4}4 ounces of sugar and 

 54 ounce of salt were added, and the pulp was concentrated to a specific gravity of 1.0.5S. put into 

 No. 2 sized cans and processed in boiling water for .30 minutes. 



