e calorific energy of meat comes, on an
average, to between 15 to 20 times dearer than that of bread or pulse
foods.

The diet with a vegetable predominance may therefore, by those who
adopt it, be considered as much less costly than a mixed one. Does not
this fact, then, deserve to be taken into consideration and
compared--startlingly illustrative--to the ingenious calculation
recently made by Lefevre in his examination of vegetarianism? One
acre of land planted for the purpose of breeding cattle produces three
times less living strength than an acre planted with wheat!

Is it not criminal, or at any rate ill-judged, for the richness and
health of the country to have, by the laws of a draconian
protectionism, spurred the French agricultural population along the
road to the breeding of cattle, thus turning it away from cultivation?
These laws are the cause, on the one hand, of the high price of wheat,
owing to the abandonment of its culture and the barriers opposed to
its entrance, and on the other, of the dearness of meat, owing to the
stock and the land which the cattle require.

Under these facts economists have indeed a direct responsibility, as
for more than fifty years economic orthodoxy has presented meat as a
necessity, whereas it is the least advantageous particle amongst so
many others.

In conclusion, let us hope that future distinctions of "Vegetalists,"
vegetarians or flesh eaters may be completely abolished. _In medio
stat virtus._ The dietetic regimen, the general adoption of which must
henceforth be desired, must reject all preconceived and hereditary
ideas, and unite in one harmonious use all foods with a hygienic end
in view. The place of each one amongst them and its predominance over
the others should be determined only by conforming to reasons at the
same time physiological and economic.

H. LABBE.

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