New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-06-13
English Grain VS.. American Meat.


1t is universally the belief that meats
more expensive than a vegetable diet;
yet q recent English writer gives ex-
tended figures showing the comparative
value OF q given surface for production
of human food, when devoted to grain
growing, as compared to like surface
devoted to the production of meat. The
essayist referred to reasons that each
acre devoted to growing butchers meat
will produce fifty pounds, and that, al
lowing three pounds to each person, the
acreage named would feed 2,172,9O
persons. This is on the supposition that
the population would make up the def
cheney with other food, as they could
not subsist on meat alone. It is said
Canadian boatmen and the Esquimaux
consume six to eight pounds each dav
when deprived of other food. 1t is
argued that each acre devoted to grain
raising will produce 1920 lbs. per acre,
which, at two pounds per day to each
person, would sustain population of
92,7O2,89 Thus he reasons that upon
grain diet, leaving meat out of the
question, the land will produce enough
food for their own people. The wish
may, in degree, be father to the
thought in the case. He argues that the
remedy for over-production is food re-
form, and brings in the oft-repeated
statement OF DR.. Hunter that forty-four
men could be sustained on 100 acres de-
voted to sheep raising; So on dairy
farm; 25O on farm devoted to wheat,
and 663 on farm devoted to potatoes.
We imagine that the 683 on potatoes
would hardly have strength enough to
dig and eat the potatoes after they were
grown.
The British farmer, it is claimed, has
been mainly driven from grain into cat
tie growing by the extensive shipments
to England of foreign grain; and now
foreign meats are pressing upon them,
and it really looks, taking the essayist's
figures as a basis, as if English acres
devoted to cattle and sheep growing
would leave their population more de-
pendent than ever upon the grains and
meats Of other countries The English
people are fully aware of this, and it is
reasoned that the British farmer and
feeder will continually, in the future,
encounter very strong competition from
our cheaply-grown meats. They argue
very strongly that the real food value of
cereals is enormously greater with them
than the best yield that can be obtained
through stock growing. 1t is claimed
also that the production of stock is
strictly limited, while through a better
system of farming, applied with care to
the production OF grains and vegetables
these articles could be considerably add
ed to.
1t is claimed also that the poor, pat
ternlng after their wealthy neighbors,
spend their money for the more expen-
slVe meats, whereas formerly they ate
but very little meat-very little even of
the cheapest-and that if they would
depend more upon "the kindly fruits of
the earth it would be full as we'll for
them, and much cheaper. But we sus.
pect that the poor people having cot a
taste OF good American grown meat, and
finding it ''toOthsOme.' notwithstand-
ing the vi gorous efforts through libelous
statements to place it in the background.
will quite surely clamor for more, be-
cause they find it agreeable to the taste,
and satisfying; and when it comes to do
ing hard labor they, of course, find that,
while bread and potatoes, constitute
pretty good diet-espccially good for
fillingg-still the wcll-fatted flesh of the
beast of the field is quite necessary to
make one strong in battle, whether the
battle be in the harvest field with sickle
in hand, or a carbine and knapsack over
the burning sands of Egypt. We con-
clude from all this that no sophistry
will change the taste OF the English
working and middle classes back to po-
tatoes, after having had few good tills
of American high-grade, well-fatted
meat. United States Economist.