Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-08-03
Farmers Food.

upon the fat OF the land. He is the pro-
Queer of all that is good and it comes
first into his hands. He receives it in
all its pristine purity and excellence.
BY the sweat of his brow he has earned
it. 1t is his, and if he parts with it. it
is his own fault.
Do not understand me as saying that
the farmer should live high and fast,
that'he should be an eater of delicacies
and drinker of sweet drinks. The
farmer should eat good food aud drink
good drink, not that which tickles his
palate and wars with his stomach, but
that which is nutritious and easily di-
gested; in short wholesome food. That
he can do SO needs no proof Food is
rendered unwholesome by time. 1t is
the action of oxygen that produces the
decay of vegetables and flesh, and this
renders them unwholcsome. But as
the farmer is the producer he can al
ways have fresh, wholesome food,
grain and vegetables in season. The
dwellers in cities are often compelled
to eat tainted meat, butter and vege-
tables; the flesh of diseased animals;
the refuse and poorest quality of fruit;
because some of these evils can not be
detected and others can not be avoided.
But the farmer can pluck fruit when it
is neither green nor over-ripe; he can
have fresh vegetables through the warm
months; if an animal is diseased he is
aware of it. If he eats unwholesome
food he can not excuse his so doing on
the score of necessity.
God gave man meat and grain for
strength, vegetables for health, and
fruit for pleasure. Yet while these are
listinctively the office of each they all
are necessary to health. Mans body is
so constituted that for the nutriment
necessary to maintain its healthy action
it demands a variety of food; and to
supply that demand the same wise hand
that fashioned it has made the golden
grain, the herb and vegetable, the
luscious fruit, the beasts of the fields,
the fish of the seas, and the fowls of the
air. Yet the farmer, who of all men
has the least excuse for doing so, most
neglects these wise and bountiful pro-
visions of nature. His meat is pork,
and pork alone; his bread is wheat or
corn; and vegetables and fruit he often
has not. At all seasons fruit and vege-
tables should be eaten, but in summer
the demand for them is the most mr.
gent. 1t is then that the system calls
most loudly for such nutriment and
bhen that it is slow suicide to eat bread
and pork alone. Meat contains n large
proportion of carbon; this carbon
nnites with the oxygen taken into
the lungs in the act of breath
ing, and by their union, similar
20 that of any other form of combustion,
they produce most of the animal heat
Of the body. This is just what is need
ed in cold weather, for then the cold
atmosphere is continually seeking to
needed there is an appetite for it. We
have a normal desire for meat in win
ter; the inhabitants of the Arctic re-
gions drink seal oil. But in summer il
is just what is not needed.
Then the great desideratum is to re-
duce the animal heat, for the hot at
mosphere tends to keep it in an excess
i've supply. Meat should be avoided.
But what shall man eat? Nature never
creates want that she does not at the
same time create a supply for it. Fruit
and vegetables contain very little oil or
carbon, and therefore are the proper
food for hot weather; and il is lust at
this season that they may be had for
the asking of nature. Health is the
condition which nature would give to
all; it is our ignorance or indifference
that creates disease. All the variety OF
food needed TO maintain the healthy
action of our bodies is at hand, and
each article is obtainable when needed.
The nature Of my quarrel with farm.
ers has, perhaps, become apparent. ]
accuse them of relying too much upon
pork and bread for food, and of ne
glectipg to provide themselves with
vegetables and fruit. Any one who is
familiar with the life of farmers knows
that have just grounds for my accusa-
ton. How often do they sit down 10 a
table where fruit and vegetables are
conspicuous only by their absence? No
tice the farmers gardens and orchards
as you take drive through the coun-
try and how many of them will you
find meager aud neglected! People Of
sedentary occupations could not live
upon the diet that half the farmers oil
this country subsist upon. The vigor-
Gus bodily exercise of the farmers &C.
cupation and the purer air he breathes
are all that saves him from continued
i'll health.
/ He who has the use of an acre Of
ground can live well. He can fare
sumntuously. Upon one-fourth of that
space of ground he can raise all the
vegetables and fruit that he will need.
To have plenty Of wholesome and PAL
atable vegetables and fruit does not re-
quire much capital. much labor, or
much special knowledge. It is not the
expense, il is not the care and trouble,
that hinder farmers from having plenty
of fresh vegetables. but their indifier'
ence. It is not because they can not.
but because they will not, live we'll,