| Azotized Substance. | Fecula. | Mineral Matter | |
| Wheat, | 282 lbs. | 879 lbs. | 49 lbs. |
| Rye, | 243 lbs. | 661 lbs. | 34 lbs. |
| Pease, | 309 lbs. | 431 lbs. | 33 lbs. |
| Potatoes, | 525 lbs. | 3,785 lbs. | 178 lbs. |
In Saxony, from 1838 to 1852, the average prices stood as follows:
| Of Rye. | Of Wheat. | Of Potatoes. | |
| One lb. of dry substance, | 1 | 1.28 | .95 |
| One lb. of protein substance, | 1 | 1.11 | 1.78 |
| One lb. of fecula, | 1 | 1.14 | 0.72 |
(loc. cit.) The high price of protein in wheat depends probably on the more agreeable appearance and pleasanter taste of wheat flour; the still higher price of potato protein on the exceedingly easy mode of its preparation.
[162-4] As regards food alone, the cost of the support of a plowman on Count Podewil's estate, reduced by Rau, Lehrbuch, § 191, to the unit of rye, is annually 1,655 lbs. of rye. According to Koppe, it is 1,952 lbs.; to Block, 2,300 lbs.; to Kleemann, from 1,888 to 2,552 lbs.; to Möllenger, 2,171 lbs. The first three estimate the cost in meat at 78, 160 and 60 pounds. Compare Block, Beitr. Z. Landgüterschätzungskunde, 1840, 6. Exhaustive estimates for all Prussian governmental districts in von Reden, Preussische Erwerbs, und Verkehrsstatistik, 1853, I, 177 ff., according to which the requirement, per family, varies between 71 thalers in Gumbinnen and 204 thalers in Coblenz, the average being 105 thalers. According to more recent accounts, a laborer's family in East Prussia, gangmen not included, get along very well on 177 thalers per annum. (von der Goltz, Ländl. Arbeiterfrage, 1872, 9 ff.) In Mecklenburg, omitting Hofgänger, on 183 thalers. (Ann. des. patr. Vereins, 1865, No. 26.)
The necessary outlay of the family of an agricultural day laborer in England, in 1762, was estimated as follows: for bread and flour, £6 10s. per annum; for vegetables and fruit, £1 1-2/3s.; for fuel, light and soap, 2-9-5/6s.; for milk, butter and cheese, £1 1-6-5/6s.; for meat, £1 6s.; for house-rent, 1-6s.; for clothing, bedding, etc., 2-16-1/3s.; for salt, beer and colonial wares, 1-16-5/6s.; for medicine, expenses attending confinement of wife, etc., 1-6½s. (J. Wade, History of the middle and working Classes, 1853, 545.) Concerning 1796, compare Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, I, 660, 1823; Lowe, on the present Condition of England. Compare on the receipts and expenses of ten working families in and about Mühlhausen, the tables in the Journal des Economistes, October, 1861, 50; and further Ducpétiaux, Budgets économiques des Classes ouvrières en Belgique, 1855. According to Playfair in Knop, Agriculturchemie, I, 810, ff., different classes of grown men need daily food.
| Grammes. | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. |
| Plastic material, | 56.70 | 70.87 | 119.07 | 155.92 | 184.27 |
| Fat, | 14.70 | 28.35 | 51.03 | 70.87 | 70.87 |
| Starch, | 340.20 | 340.20 | 530.15 | 567.00 | 567.00 |
Here 1 stands for a convalescent who can bear only enough to preserve life; 2, the condition of rest; 3, moderate motion of from 5 to 6 English miles' walk daily; 4, severe labor = a walk of 20 English miles daily; 5, very severe labor = to a day's walk of 14 English miles, with a load weighing 60 lbs. If the fat be given in terms of starch, the aggregate need of both substances in the case of 1 is 6.6 times as great as the need of plastic substance; in the case of 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively 5.7, 5.2, 4.8 and 4.0 times as much.
A Dutch soldier doing garrison duty receives daily, in times of peace, 0.333 kilogrammes of wheat flour, 0.125 of meat, 0.850 of potatoes, 0.250 of vegetables, containing in the aggregate 60 grammes of albumen. In forts, where the service is more severe, he receives 0.50 kilogrammes of wheat flour, 0.06 of rice or groats, with an aggregate amount of 116 grammes of albumen. (Mulder, Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeiste, übersetzt von Molecshott, 1847, 58 seq.) According to the researches of Dr. Smith, in order to avoid the diseases caused by hunger, a man needs, on an average, to take 4,300 grains of carbon and 200 grains of nitrogen in his daily food; a woman 3,900 grains of carbon and 180 grains of nitrogen. In 1862, the workmen in the famishing cotton industries of Lancashire were actually reduced to just about this minimum. (Marx, Kapital, I, 642.) Death from starvation occurs in all vertebrates when the loss of weight of the body, produced by a want of food, amounts to between two-fifths and one-half of what it was at the beginning of the experiment. (Chossat, Recherches expérimentales sur l'Inanition, 184, 3.)