Water | Albumen | Fat | Carbon- hydrate | Cellulose | Salt | |
| Aleurone meal | 8.83 | 82.67 | 0.27 | 7.01 | 0.45 | 0.78 |
| Hen's eggs | 73.67 | 12.55 | 12.11 | 0.55 | 0.55 | 1.12 |
| Beef | 55.42 | 17.19 | 26.58 | .... | .... | 1.08 |
Aleurone meal is not only eaten directly, it is also used as a condiment in all sorts of bakery products, as well as soups and vegetables. Aleurone meal substitutes in a high degree meat preserves in point of nutrition; moreover, it is by far the cheapest albumen obtainable to-day. One kilogram of albumen costs:
| In aleurone meal | 1.45 marks |
| In white bread or white flour | 4 to 4.5 " |
| In hen's eggs, according to the season | 8 to 16 " |
| In beef | 12 to 13 " |
Beef, accordingly, is about eight times dearer, as albuminous food, than aleurone meal; eggs five times as dear; white bread or common white flour about three times as dear. Aleurone meal also has the advantage that, with the addition of about one-eighth of the weight of a potato, it not only furnishes a considerable quantity of albumen to the body, but produces a complete digestion of the starch contained in the potato. Dogs, that have a nose for albumen, eat aleurone meal with the same avidity as meat, even if they otherwise refuse bread, and they are then better able to stand hardships.
Aleurone meal, as a dry vegetal albumen, is of great use as food on ships, in fortresses and in military hospitals during war. It renders large supplies of meat unnecessary. At present aleurone meal is a side product in starch factories. Within short, starch will become a side product of aleurone meal. A further result will be that the cultivation of cereals will crowd out that of potatoes and other less productive food plants; the volume of nutrition of a given field of wheat or rye is tripled or quadrupled at one stroke.
Dr. Rudolf Meyer of Vienna, whose attention was called by us to the aleurone meal says[199] that he furnished himself with a quantity of it and had it examined on June 19, 1893, by the bureau of experiments of the Board of Soil Cultivation of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The examination fully confirmed our statements. For further details Meyer's work should be read. Meyer also calls attention to a discovery made by Otto Redemann of Bockenheim near Frankfort-on-the-Main. After granulating the peanut and removing its oil, he analyzed its component elements of nutrition. The analysis showed 47 per cent. of albumen, 19 of fat and 19 of starch—altogether 2,135 units of nutritious matter in one kilo. According to this analysis the peanut is one of the most nutritious vegetal products. The pharmacist Rud. Simpson of Mohrungen discovered a process by which to remove the bitterness from the lupine, which, as may be known, thrives best on sandy soil, and is used both as fodder and as a fertilizer; and he then produced from it a meal, which, according to expert authority, baked as bread tastes very good, is solid, is said to be more nutritious than rye-bread, and, besides all that, much cheaper.
Even under present conditions a regular revolution is plowing its way in the matter of human food. The utilization of all these discoveries is, however, slow, for the reason that mighty classes—the farmer element together with its social and political props—have the liveliest interest in suppressing them. To our agrarians, a good crop is to-day a horror—although the same is prayed for in all the churches—because it lowers prices. Consequently, they are no wise anxious for a double and threefold nutritive power of their cereals; it would likewise tend to lower prices. Present society is everywhere at fisticuffs with its own development.
The preservation of the soil in a state of fertility depends primarily upon fertilization. The obtaining of fertilizers is, accordingly, for future society also one of the principal tasks.[200] Manure is to the soil what food is to man, and just as every kind of food is not equally nourishing to man, neither is every kind of manure of equal benefit to the soil. The soil must receive back exactly the same chemical substances that it gave up through a crop; and the chemical substances especially needed by a certain vegetable must be given to the soil in larger quantities. Hence the study of chemistry and its practical application will experience a development unknown to-day.
Animal and human excrements are particularly rich in the chemical elements that are fittest for the reproduction of human food. Hence the endeavor must be to secure the same in the fullest quantity and cause its proper distribution. On this head too modern society sins grievously. Cities and industrial centers, that receive large masses of foodstuffs, return to the soil but a slight part of their valuable offal.[201] The consequence is that the fields, situated at great distances from the cities and industrial centers, and which yearly send their products to the same, suffer greatly from a dearth of manure; the offal that these farms themselves yield is often not enough, because the men and beasts who live on them consume but a small part of the product. Thus frequently a soil-vandalism is practiced, that cripples the land and decreases the crops. All countries that export agricultural products mainly, but receive no manure back, inevitably go to ruin through the gradual impoverishment of the soil. This is the case with Hungary, Russia, the Danubian Principalities, North America, etc. Artificial fertilizers, guano in particular, indeed substitute the offal of men and beasts; but many farmers can not obtain the same in sufficient quantity; it is too dear; at any rate, it is an inversion of nature to import manure from great distances, while it is allowed to go to waste nearby.
Several years since has the Thomas-slag been recognized as an eminently fit manure for certain soils. The manufacturers, however, who grind the Thomas-slag into flour and carry it to market, have built a ring, and, to the injury of the farming interests who make bitter complaints on that score, they keep the prices high. Thus every progress is crippled by greed in bourgeois society. Another and at present inexhaustable source of fertilizers is offered by the deposits of potash in the province of Saxony and contiguous regions. The Prussian State owns a number of potash works and it also made the attempt to monopolize the industry, to the end of raising the largest possible revenues for the Treasury.