342 



FOODS, COMPOSITION AND NUTRITIVE VALUES OF. 



and Nashville is assessed at $463,800. The 

 action of the courts thus adds nearly $5,000,- 

 000 of property to the revenue resources of 

 the State, such valuation being made taxable 

 under the decision. At average rate of State 

 and county taxation for 1883 the property thus 

 made liable will yield about $80,000 revenue. 



igrir alfare. The agriculturists of Florida are 

 rapidly turning their attention to the cultiva- 

 tion of fruits and early vegetables. This natu- 

 rally leads to small farms and an improved 

 system of cultivation. Truck-farming is be- 

 coming more general each year, and adds greatly 

 to the resources of the State. Truck-farmers, 

 inmost cases, own the land they cultivate. As 

 early as February 1st they send forward to the 

 Northern markets tomatoes, green peas, cu- 

 cumbers, and other vegetables, which bring, at 

 this early season of the year, remunerative 

 prices, and find a ready sale. The culture of 

 strawberries and other small fruit* is rapidly 

 increasing and proves profitable. The cultiva- 

 tion of oranges, lemons, and other tropical fruits 

 continues to increase annually, and this indus- 

 try will soon become one of the most impor- 

 tant in the State. The value of the orange 

 business alone in 1880 amounted to $1,000, 000, 

 with an employed capital of more than $10,- 

 000,000, and the industry has steadily increased 

 since. About 75 trees are planted to the acre, 

 the average yield exceeding 500 oranges to the 

 tree. The trees begin to bear when about seven 

 years old, and reach their prime in twenty 

 years, but will continue to be productive, it is 

 estimated, seventy -five or eighty years longer. 



The Everglades. A report has been made by 

 the expedition sent into the Everglades by the 

 New Orleans " Times-Democrat." It establish- 

 es the fact that the Everglades from Lake Oke- 

 chobee to Cape Sable are worthless for any 

 purposes of cultivation ; that they contain no 

 large tracts of land above water; that they 

 can not be successfully drained ; and that the 

 establishment and maintenance of a telegraph 

 line along the route traversed would be im- 

 possible. The Everglades, and especially the 

 northern glades, are a vast swamp, irreclaim- 

 able and useless. The only portions of the 

 southern peninsula capable of cultivation lie 

 on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with this vast 

 morass between them. 



FOODS, COMPOSITION AND NUTRITIVE VAL- 

 UES OF. It is a striking fact that while the chief 

 item of the living expenses of the majority of 

 civilized men is the cost of their food, even 

 the most intelligent know less of the actual 

 value of their food than of any other of the im- 

 portant articles they buy. It makes but little 

 difference to the man with $5,000 per annum 

 whether he pays fifteen cents or five dollars per 

 pound for the protein of his food, provided it 

 pleases his palate. But to the humble house- 

 wife, whose husband earns but $500 a year, it is 

 a matter of great importance ; and she is very 

 apt, after hesitating at the dry -goods store be- 

 tween two pieces of calico for her daughter's 



dress, and taking one at ten cents a yard for 

 economy's sake, though the one at eleven was 

 prettier, to go to the grocers, the butchers, or 

 the fish-dealers, and pay a dollar per pound 

 for the nutrients of her children's food, when 

 she might have obtained the same ingredients, 

 in forms equally wholesome and nutritious, for 

 fifty or even twenty cents. She will continue 

 this bad economy until she obtains a general 

 idea of the actual cheapness and dearness of 

 foods as distinguished from their price. 



The "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1881 con- 

 tained an article upon the " Nutritive Values 

 of Foods," in which were given the propor- 

 tions of nutritive ingredients in a considerable 

 number of the more common animal and vege- 

 table foods as shown by chemical analysis. 

 The figures for fish, oysters, etc., were selected 

 from the results of an investigation undertaken 

 under the auspices of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution and the United States Fish Commission 

 in the chemicall aboratory of Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity, Middletown, Conn., by Prof. W. O. At- 

 water.* The data for other foods were com- 

 piled from European sources, no considerable 

 investigations of the composition of American 

 foods other than fish having at that time been 

 made. Since then the researches upon fish 

 have been continued, and a large number of 

 specimens of our animal and vegetable foods 

 have also been studied ; those of animal and 

 some vegetable foods by Prof. Atwater, and 

 others of vegetable foods, by Prof. W. II. 

 Brewert of the Sheffield Scientific School, New 

 Haven, Conn., and still others by other inves- 

 tigators. During the same period new re- 

 searches upon the digestibility of foods, and 

 upon the functions of their nutritive ingredi- 

 ents, have likewise been published, so that we 

 are able to-day to present new and important 

 facts regarding the nutritive values of food in 

 general, and especially the composition of our 

 own food-materials. 



The article referred to in the " Annual Cy- 

 clopaedia " for 1881 contained some explana- 

 tions of the chemistry of foods and the func- 

 tions of their ingredients in nutrition. To 

 those who have made no special study of the 

 matter, however, the following brief state- 

 ments may be interesting, the more so because 

 late investigations are tending to decide some 

 disputed questions regarding the ways in which 

 food is used in the body, and because many 

 of the statements found in current works on 

 chemistry and physiology have become of lit- 

 tle value in the light of the latest knowledge. 

 A considerable number of the analyses of Amer- 

 ican foods given below appear in print for the 

 first time in this article. 



Viewed from the stand-point of their uses in 

 the nutrition of man, the constituents of ordi- 



* See partial account of results in " Report of United States 

 Fish Commission, 1880 " (published in 1S-a>. 



t Published in the " Report on Cereal Products of the 

 United States." By Prof. Brewer. ' United States Census, 

 1880," vol. iii. 



