Too much pressed by the demands of the present to even think of this, the wise farmer endeavors to return to his soil what it has lost.
Growing crops are plowed under, fertilizers from the thronging cities are spread upon his fields, the seaweed cast up by the waves yields its potash, phosphorus, salt and iodine. The islands of the Pacific contribute their vast stores of ammonia accumulated for ages in guano beds; marl deposited in the estuaries of ancient geologic seas feeds the cereals; and the limestone deposits are made to give verdure to the grasses of a thousand meadows. In the meantime, nature has her own processes of restoration. The crumbling of the rocks by frost, their abrasion by water, the accumulation of humus by decay, and various chemical influences conspire to convert the unproductive rocks into fertile soil. It would seem that this intelligent forethought, united with the beneficent processes of nature may secure perpetual productiveness, to the end that the earth may continue to yield its increase for the sustenance of the animal, for, as the Scriptures say,
ALL FLESH IS GRASS.
Directly or indirectly all animals live on plants. We have roast lamb for dinner to-day, but yesterday the lamb was browsing herbage. It is an interesting fact that the nutritive qualities of bread are almost the same as those of beef—each, in itself, is very nearly a perfect food.
LEAN MEAT.
Great principles of economy regulate the use of these two articles, in accordance with the scarcity and price of either. Man may live without bread if he have meat, and vice versa, but his system demands one of them, or its equivalent.
As in the cell of the plant, mineral substances become organized, so, under the influence of animal vitality does vegetable material become transformed into the constituents of a new organism. The great argument against the doctrine that alcohol is a food, lies in the fact that it does not undergo this transformation. It leaves the body as it enters it. But beef-steak ceases to be steak, and bread is no longer the same; they have become bone, tissue, nerve, and all that makes a human body
Most are familiar with the marvelous processes of mastication, digestion, absorption and aeration, by which food is converted into blood freighted with all that is essential to the nutrition of the human system.
