No. 149.] 379 



The importance of milk as an aliment in domestic economy is 

 of vast value, and any improvement conducive to its production, 

 by enlarging the breed of animals kept for that purpose, or the 

 mode of feeding and managing the same, should meet with cor- 

 dial approbation by the community at large. Its use is of great 

 authority ; you all recollect what Csesar says in his commentaries, 

 " Lacte et carne vivunt ;" the inhabitants subsist on flesh and milk, 

 I imagine our modern breed of cows give at least one-third more 

 milk on an average, than those belonging to the ancients, owing 

 to improved breeds and better management. It is not generally 

 known, still it is a fact, that milk is not only a fluid, but likewise 

 a solid ; for it no sooner passes our palate, than it comes in con- 

 tact with the gastric juice of our system, coagulates, and sepa- 

 rates into whey and curd, the latter of which is very nutritious 

 to our animal economy, nothing can be more so; as it must be 

 universally admitted by all who have given the subject a thought, 

 that it is the natural food of animals, both of the quadruped and 

 biped species ; it is our, and their first food, and occupies middle 

 rank between vegetable and animal diet, being peculiarly adapt- 

 ed to very young, and even old persons requiring nourishing 

 food. It has been known to become acid when used to excess 

 by persons possessing weak constitutions; still this is easily coun- 

 teracted by the use of a particle of magnesia or soda. I declare 

 milk to be the perfection of diet, and the only substance known 

 to man as containing the three grand alimentary principles of 

 food, namely ; the albuminous, oleaginous, and the saccharine, 

 represented by the white of egg, butter and sugar. The curd of 

 milk is principally albumen, the butter oil, and a large percent- 

 age sugar ; thus you perceive it contains them all. 



Nature has therefore given us a substance completely perfect 

 to nourish us in our infancy ; and if we were to use nothing else, 

 with perhaps few exceptions, the span of our lives would much 

 exceed four score years and ten 1 



From what other substance can so great a variety of delicious 

 articles of food be prepared as from milk; I answer without fear 

 of contradiction, none, for they are endless ; some of them are de- 

 lightful luxuries, some are food, others drink, some medicinal. 



