nutricious qualities, let it not be
offered to the labourer; but if economy of this kind be required, let it
be exercised by those whose eyes are standing out with fatness, and to
whom a sparer diet might be beneficial.--MEAT in general, as well as all
other kinds of food, is nourishing or otherwise, according to its
quality, and the manner in which it is prepared. There are peculiar
constitutions, or particular diseases and periods of life, when animal
food is highly detrimental; and others again, when it is essentially
necessary; but it is the general use of it, and not these exceptions,
that will be the subject of the following observations. As a part of our
habitual diet, the main points to be attended to are, the kinds of
animal food, and the modes of dressing it, which are most to be
recommended. A choice of meat is desirable, but if the animals subject
to this choice be neither sound nor healthy, it is of little consequence
which kind is preferred, for they, are alike unwholesome. It is proper
therefore to avoid the flesh of all such as are fatted in confinement,
or upon pernicious substances, which can never make wholesome food. Oil
cakes and rank vegetables, with want of air and exercise, will produce
such sort of meat as will shew immediately from its appearance, that it
must be unwholesome. Animals may eat rancid fulsome food, and grow fat
upon it, and yet the meat they produce may be highly offensive. Hunger
and custom will induce the eating of revolting substances, both in the
brute and human species; and growing fat is by no means a certain sign
of health. On the contrary, it is frequently the symptom of a gross
habit, and a tendency to disease. The distinct effects of various kinds
of food upon animals, are very obvious in the instance of milch cows.
Grass, hay, straw, grains, turnips, and oil cakes, produce milk of such
different qualities as must be at once distinguished; and the preference
to that where cows are fed upon grass or hay, and next to them straw,
appears very decided. The inference would be fair, that it must be the
same with respect to flesh, even if it were less obvious than it is. It
is an unwise economy, in the management of cows, that withholds from
them a sufficient quantity of the best and most nourishing food. If duly
appreciated, the quality of milk is even of superior importance to that
of flesh, from its general excellence and utility as an article of food.
If milk was plentiful an