\ 
Vol. LXXVIII. 
Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co., 
S3?. W. 30th St.. New York. Price"One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, MAY 3. 1019. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter. June 26. 1879. at the Post ,~ 0 o 
Office at New York, N. Y.. under the Act of March 3. 1879. rsO. 
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.. > '■ • ' fi 
The Food Value of Milk 
A Necessity for Full Growth 
STUDY OF VALUE.—The high cost of feed 
and labor, which has compelled the producer 
of mi.lk to raise the price above that which the 
consumer has been accustomed to pay, has led to 
more violent protests than have ,met the advancing 
costs of any other widely-used commodity. Unques¬ 
tionably the underlying reason for these protests is 
the fact that milk has 
a place in our dietary 
-which cannot be tilled 
by any other animal or 
vegetable food. This 
has. of course, long been 
recognized, but few have 
realized on what a broad 
basis of carefully estab¬ 
lished evidence this 
rests. Tt is generally 
conceded that no other 
food product can be 
used in feeding infants 
and growing children 
with anything like the 
success attending the 
use of cow’s milk, but 
the real reasons for this 
have only recently been 
established on a truly 
scientific basis. In cook¬ 
ing foods for adults or 
preparing the breakfast 
cereal milk lias become 
well nigh indispensable, 
not because it makes the 
food taste better, but 
because it makes the 
whole meal really bet¬ 
ter. much more capable 
of fulfilling its func¬ 
tion in nutrition by giv¬ 
ing a higher value to 
the other articles of the 
diet than they would 
have if the milk were 
omitted. 
• NEW FACTS DIS¬ 
CO YE R E D.—A large 
part of the recently dis¬ 
covered facts relating to 
the value of milk in 
supplementing deficien¬ 
cies which would other¬ 
wise exist in the dietary 
of the average American 
has been the outcome of 
extensive investigations 
of the chemistry of nu¬ 
trition which have been 
made in the laboratories of the Connecticut Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Station in co-operation with the 
Carnegie Institution of Washington. The importance 
of milk in the human dietary has assumed a new 
position since these discoveries, because previously 
it was assumed that proteins, fats, carbohydrate, 
and the mineral salts of milk were of no greater 
nutritive value than when these were supplied by 
other food products. 
CHEMICAL DIFFERENCES IN PROTEIN.— 
The investigations just referred to showed for the 
first time how the part played by the individual 
proteins could be studied and their nutritive value 
determined. From such studies it was learned that 
some of the chemical differences in the protein which 
the earlier investigations of the'subject had revealed 
have a profound influence on their nutritive value. 
While most of these proteins were more or less 
adequate for growth, some of them were found to 
be inadequate even for maintenance, while others 
sufficed to maintain the animal, but permitted no 
growth whatever. Others which promoted growth 
when eaten in sufficient amount were decidedly in¬ 
ferior when supplied in smaller quantities, while 
others, even in correspondingly small proportions, 
promoted a growth at a perfect normal rate. These 
differences in nutritive properties were proved to be 
caused by deficiencies in the chemical constitution 
of the inferior proteins, and it was further proved 
that these deficiencies could be made good either by 
purely chemical means or by combining the defective 
protein with some other protein which was not 
similarly defective. - ' 
SURPRISING RESULTS.—Among the proteins 
which best remedy the deficiencies of the cereal 
proteins are those obtained from milk. The demon¬ 
stration of these facts led to comparison of the 
growth obtained when all of the protein of the diet 
was supplied either by wheat flour or eornmeal with 
the growth made when milk supplied one-third ot 
the same amount of protein in the diet. The con¬ 
trast was surprising for, although the food con¬ 
tained exactly the same proportion of protein, all of 
the animals receiving the food containing wheat 
flour protein grew very slowly, while those receiving 
the food containing the corn protein grew scarcely 
at all. In contrast with 
these, the animals which 
had the foods contain¬ 
ing one-third milk pro¬ 
tein grew very rapidly. 
It was thus shown that 
the addition of milk to 
the cereal diet had 
changed it from one 
wholly unsuited for the 
young animal into one 
which completely satis¬ 
fied all of its require¬ 
ments for growth, and 
was in every way suited 
to its needs. 
IN COMBINATION 
W I T II CEREALS.— 
These experiments show 
what an important part 
milk plays in our ordi¬ 
nary diet, of which a 
large part always con¬ 
sists of wheat flour, 
sugar and lard, each de¬ 
ficient in one or another 
factor which milk sup¬ 
plies in abundance, and 
more cheaply than any 
other food. Although it 
has been exceedingly 
difficult to discover that 
the real reason for this 
practice lies in the 
chemical constitution of 
the constituents of milk 
and flour, it is a curious 
fact that nevertheless 
man has discovered the 
most efficient way to use 
these foods. Economi¬ 
cally this use of milk as 
a supplement to our 
cereal food is of great 
importance because the 
proteins of the cereals 
are thus rendered of 
equal value with the 
more costly proteins 
derived from animal 
sources. 
MONEY VALUES.—T.et us see what the money- 
saving is which may be thus effected by combining 
milk with flour: 100 lbs. of flour costing .$7 contain 
93 lbs. of dry matter, of which 11 per cent is protein, 
or 10.23 lbs. About SS per cent is carbohydrate and 
a little fat. The cheapest source from which the 
two latter can bo obtained in a form fit for man to 
eat is eornmeal, which at $3 per 100 lbs. would make 
this SS per cent of the wheat flour worth S2.64 per 
100 lbs. of flour. Subtracting this from ST which 
100 lbs. of flour cost, leaves $4.36 for the 10.3 lbs. 
of dry protein which it contains, or 42 cents per lb. 
COSTS IN MILK.—Applying the same method of 
Starting the Dairy Calf on its .Journey to a profitable Place in the Herd. Fig. 206 
