JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XV January, 1914 No. 169 
VEGETABLE FOODS; THEIR DISTINCTIVE CHAR- 
ACTERISTICS AND CLASSIFICATION* 
Our vegetarian friends are quite insistent upon the immorality 
of raha: the lives of the lower animals for the purpose of 
securing our food supplies. They sometimes go so far as to 
declare ie this constitutes murder. they are reminded that 
these animals are brought into existence on an enormously 
increased scale for the very purpose of furnishing this food supply 
and that the sum total of animal happiness is thereby greatly 
increased, they reply that, in any case, we should be better off if 
we used only vegetable food. 
It is not the purpose of this series of lectures to discuss ques- 
tions of this kind, but it is not out of place to say here that con- 
siderations of economy will more and more compel a resort to 
vegetable foods. Meat products grow and will continue to grow 
more high-priced as population increases, and great numbers of 
people who can now make a free choice between animal and 
vegetable food, will eventually be forced to depend largely upon 
the latter. To a certain extent, this condition will certainly 
ure, because it cannot be denied that, while we can 
eeu subsist upon a mixed diet, our digestive organs a 
better adapted to deal with animal than with vegetable foods: 
The anticipated change will involve the necessity for an exten- 
sive adaptation to meet it, and the human race cannot too soon 
* Abstract of a lecture delivered at the New York Botanical Garden on Oc- 
tober 4, 1913 
(ouaNar: for December, 1913 (14: 195-230) was issued January 22, 1914] 
1 
