we go to the first and therefore the cheapest source of supply. The
tendencies of all advanced scholars in thrift should be to find out
plans for feeding all the community, as far as possible, direct from
the lap of earth; to impress science into our service so that she
may prepare the choicest viands minus the necessity of making a
lower animal the living laboratory for the sake of what is just a
little higher than cannibal propensities.

_--Dr. B.W. Richardson._

A VOICE FROM THE CORN.

I was made to be eaten, not to be drank,
To be husked in a barn, not soaked in a tank;
I come as a blessing when put in a mill,
As a blight and a curse when run through a still.
Make me up into loaves, and your children are fed;
But made into drink, I will starve them instead.
In bread I'm a servant the eater shall rule,
In drink I'm a master, the drinker a fool.
Then remember my warning; my strength I'll employ,
If eaten, to strengthen, if drunk, to destroy.

--_Sel._

SOUPS

Soup is an easily made, economical, and when properly prepared from
healthful and nutritious material, very wholesome article of diet,
deserving of much more general use than is commonly accorded it.

In general, when soup is mentioned, some preparation of meat and bones
is supposed to be meant; but we shall treat in this chapter of a quite
different class of soups, viz., those prepared from the grains, legumes,
and vegetables, without the previous preparation of a "stock." Soups of
this character are in every way equal, and in many points superior to
those made from meat and bones. If we compare the two, we shall find
that soups made from the grains and legumes rank much higher in
nutritive value than do meat soups. For the preparation of the latter,
one pound of meat and bones, in about equal proportion, is required for
each quart of soup. In the bone, there is little or no nourishment, it
being valuable simply for the gelatine it contains, which gives
consistency to the soup; so in reality there is only one half pound of
material containing nutriment, for the quart of soup. Suppose, in
comparison we take a pea soup. One half pound of peas will be amply
enough for a quart. As we take an equal amount of material as basis for
each soup, we can easily determine their relative value by comparing the
amount of nutritive material contained in peas with that of beef,