LECTURE ON MILK. 65 



pleasure of introducing to your notice the Hon. Harris 

 Lewis, of Herkimer County, New York. 



Mr. Lewis. Gentlemen, I can say, in answer to my 

 friend, the President here, that I have had something to do 

 with milk all my life, and yet do not know much about it. I 

 can give you, perhaps, a taste of skim milk ; but Josh Bill- 

 ings says the richest thing he ever saw on milk Avas the 

 cream. I do not know whether I can give you any of the 

 cream or not. 



Milk is so well known to every one of you, you have seen 

 so many analyses of milk, you have tasted it so many times, 

 you have seen it so often, that you all know as much about it 

 as I do. Yet there may be some things that have struck me 

 differently in regard to milk from what they may have pre- 

 sented themselves to you, and all I expect to do this after- 

 noon is to present you certain views of milk as I have seen it. 



It is enough for me to say, in regard to milk, that it is 

 composed of from 87 to 88 parts water, and the 12 or 13 

 per cent, remaining consists of butter, of cheese (what we 

 call caseine,) milk, sugar, and earthy matter. It may seem 

 astonishing to us, — it does to me, — that an article of ani- 

 mal food, so largely composed of water, should be of such 

 great value, but He who created milk and created the organs 

 that should produce it, knew precisely its value as an article 

 of food for all the young of that class known as mammals, of 

 which man stands at the head. Milk as an article of food is 

 capable of sustaining man (and I mean woman, too,) from 

 the hour of liirth until the hour of death, I care not how far 

 these two periods may be separated from each other by inter- 

 vening time. It will supply every need of the system, and 

 build up the whole structure. It Avill, in short, supply every 

 tissue required ; and this cannot be said of any other one ar- 

 ticle of food. Again, milk is the cheapest food known to us 

 to-day. Taken at the price which it brings in the market, 

 there is no animal food that in cheapness compares with it. 

 Again, the cost of its preparation is wiped out; there is no 

 cost in preparing it for food. He who is wiser than all pre- 

 pared it perfectly. There is no waste, as is the case with 

 other animal substances ; no bone, although there is sufficient 

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