Milk and Butter.

Milk, throughout the area studied, was regarded as a necessity, and keeping a cow, if it could be afforded, was taken as a matter of course. Eighty per cent of the families had one or more cows at the time of the study. Of the 24 families without them, 9 were purchasing a regular and apparently adequate amount of milk, 4 were buying an irregular or an inadequate supply, while 11 families had very little or none.

Fifty-seven of the 99 families keeping one or more cows had no period when they were without milk of their own. Of these families those with more than one cow planned to have them go dry at different times, while the others traded the cow about to go dry for a fresh one.10 Thirty-four families, when the cow was dry, either bought milk or received it as a gift from neighbors. The milk secured was usually buttermilk and varied in amount and regularity. Eight families went without milk when their own cows furnished

none.

Only one family in the whole district used condensed milk, and milk powder was unknown. To summarize, 100 families, or 81 per cent, were having a fairly steady milk supply, while 19 per cent either had no milk at all or were without it for considerable periods. In many places milk figures little in the diet of children and perhaps not at all in the diet of adults. In this community, on the contrary, it was regarded as a staple article of diet and whenever obtainable, was drunk regularly by children and adults alike. When it was plentiful great pitchers of it were put on the table at every meal. "Milk," said one mother, "is what I've raised my family on. My family here uses buttermilk like it was water." A number of families testified to using milk "for water;" and many a strong man was pointed out proudly as having been reared on milk and corn bread.

Milk was alike the best feature of the better diets and the salvation of many of the poorer ones. Indeed, as later will be more fully apparent, it was the one redeeming feature of the whole food situation.

Seventy-one per cent of the families visited were accustomed to making all their own butter. Of the remainder, 13 families bought all they used, 4 supplemented their home supply by purchase, and 18 (15 per cent) used no butter. The amount that was made was frequently inadequate and the making of butter was necessarily discontinued in many homes during the period of decreasing milk supply as well as during the time when the cow was dry. At such times the families who depended entirely on their home supply of butter

There were traders in this section who made a regular business of buying up dry cows and selling them at a higher price when they became fresh.

substituted drippings. Some families, to be sure, that had more than one cow could manage so that their own supply never failed. It is certain that a far larger number than the 15 per cent who did not use butter at all must have had a very limited supply or lacked this food entirely during an appreciable part of the year.

Absence of butter from the diet is of small consequence, providing plenty of whole milk is used, as it customarily was in the homes of this section whenever available. But, unfortunately, when the milk supply diminished or failed entirely and the family could no longer make butter, it was skim milk or buttermilk rather than whole milk which was usually secured. Thus the families who were most in need of butter, those using skim milk, were the ones without it, while the families having plenty of whole milk were also those who had butter. Adequacy of food supply.

It has been seen that the diet of families in this section was much restricted. Vegetables and fruits, which are usually relied upon to lend variety and flavor to the diet, were little used, while even potatoes, a staple food, did not figure very largely in the dietary. Fresh meat, eggs, and butter, all of which add much in the way of flavor and general palatability as well as food value, had but limited use. The diet may indeed be described as one of corn bread, milk, and fat salt meat, while in some diets milk was lacking or limited in amount during at least a part of the year. Adding to this list beans, sorghum, and biscuits, with butter when the cow was fresh, and blackberries and a few vegetables for a short season, there results the usual diet at its best. Only a limited number of families fared better than this, their supply of milk and butter being more plentiful, fresh meat bought fairly frequently, and vegetables and fruit used more extensively.

So restricted a diet is unquestionably monotonous. A hopelessly monotonous diet, however, may be a perfectly adequate one if it is capable of supplying all the body's needs. The diet of corn bread and milk on which a considerable number of mothers stated they had reared their families is probably capable of barely meeting all the needs of the body, provided that the milk is whole and is taken in liberal amounts, and provided that the corn meal is made from the whole grain. Both of these conditions were often met in the diets studied in this district.

To suggest the advisability of living on a diet of these two foods is not for a moment, of course, intended. It can not be doubted that the addition of fruits and vegetables would render such a diet more surely safe as well as distinctly more palatable. Nevertheless the fact remains that it would be difficult to find two other foods which together would be better able to provide an adequate diet. Any

other whole cereal, or potatoes, might take the place of the corn meal, but if the milk is dropped out, decreased in amount, or changed to skim milk or buttermilk, as was all too frequently done in this section, the effect is disastrous.

The corn-bread and fat-meat diet which was the common one when milk was omitted is deficient in calcium, adequate protein, and vitamine content. Add any one or more of the foods used in the community-beans, biscuits, sorghum, potatoes, sweet potatoes, or fresh meat-and though the diet is bettered it still remains inadequate in some respect, notably in calcium and in the fat-soluble vitamine. Restore milk and all the deficiencies are covered. Small wonder, then, that milk is called a "protective" food. It is veritably the salvation of the diets of this community.

THE DIET OF THE CHILDREN.

In the discussion of the family food supply, the possibilities for the children's diet in the families studied have to no small extent been indicated. Diet is of such importance in relation to nutrition, however, that an effort was made to secure more detailed information concerning the feeding of the children between 2 and 11 years of age. The actual diet of a child on the day preceding the. interview was learned," and to supplement this information his food habits were ascertained-the amount of milk he drank; the frequency with which he ate fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs; his likes and dislikes for important foods; his custom with reference to eating between meals; his indulgence in candy and other sweets; and his use of coffee and tea. As a result a fairly clear picture of the child's dietary was obtained, and what is believed to be a tolerably safe judgment regarding its adequacy was in most cases possible.

The feeding of the children during the period of infancy will first be discussed, after which consideration will be given to the use of the different classes of food and the adequacy of the diets as a whole.

INFANT FEEDING.

No study of the factors responsible for a child's nutritive condition would be complete without some inquiry as to his care and feeding during infancy. In this survey a detailed study was impossible, but a few important questions were included in the schedule. Information was secured as to whether or not a child was breast fed, the age at which he was weaned, and the time at which he was given solid food.

Breast feeding.

Practically all the children in the survey had the very distinct advantage of having been breast fed; 221, or 86 per cent, were reported to have been nursed for 6 months or longer, 4 less than this time, and only 9 had never been breast fed. For 22 children, no reply as to infant feeding was obtained. It was indeed fortunate that so many had had the benefit of breast feeding, for a breast-fed child has not only a better chance of living beyond infancy but can withstand much more in the way of unwise care and feeding than can an artificially fed child.

11 If the diet on the day preceding varied from the ordinary one, a more typical day's diet was ascertained instead.

Age of weaning and age at which solid food was given.

Not only was breast feeding common but prolonged nursing was not at all unusual. Of the 221 children who were nursed for six months or longer only 22-10 per cent-were weaned before they were a year old. About half were weaned when they were between 1 year and 18 months of age and 44 per cent were nursed for 18 months or longer. Indeed, more than a fourth were not weaned until the age of 24 months or even later.

The prevalence of this custom of late weaning would be of greater significance had the children received no other food than breast milk before weaning. It was a common practice, however, to give tastes of food to very young babies. Thirty-four children (13 per cent) were given solid food before they were 1 month old, and fully two-thirds of the children were receiving it when they reached the age of 6 months. By solid food is meant food from the family table. The common belief and practice in respect to early feeding was probably summed up by the mother who stated that at about one month she began giving her babies "mighty nigh anything" that was soft, and at 5 months the whole family diet, because "a great big baby 5 months old can eat anything."

The feeding of babies, as the foregoing discussion indicates, was rarely according to plan, but followed rather the line of least resistance. A baby was nursed because it was the custom; he was taken to the table in his mother's arms and given tastes of whatever the mother ate; he was nursed whenever he cried; and he weaned himself when he grew big enough to prefer other food to breast milk or when another baby had usurped his place.

MILK.

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Where the family food supply is as limited as in the locality studied the rôle which is played by milk becomes a doubly important one. Especial effort was therefore made to gather information regarding its use by the children. The amount of the family supply, taken in connection with the number in the family, afforded some indication of the amount available for each child, but further effort was made to learn how much each child consumed. The daily amount was usually reported by the mother as so many "cups." Since a cup" might hold from a fourth to a half of a pint, the agent asked to see the cup which the child used and then approximated the amount. Inquiry was also made regarding frequently used foods containing milk, such as corn bread and milk gravy. From the amount consumed by the entire family, the number in the family, the amount which was taken as a beverage by the child, and the amount consumed in other food, a conservative estimate of the total amount of milk consumed by the child was made.