Again, we have seen that the whole meal is more nutritious--so that this coarser flour will go farther than an equal weight of the fine. The numbers at which we arrived, from the results of analysis, show that, taking all the three sustaining elements of the food into consideration, the coarse is one-half more nutritive than the fine. Leaving a wide margin for the influence of circumstances, let us suppose it only one-eighth more nutritive, and we shall have now nine people nourished equally by the same weight of grain, which, when eaten as fine flour, would support only seven. _The wheat of the country_, in other words, _would in this form go one-fourth farther than at present_. But some one may remark, if all this good is to come from the mere use of the bran, why not recommend it to be withheld from the pigs, and consume it by man in some way alone? This would involve no change in the practice of our millers, and little in the habits and bread of the great mass of the population. But such a course, if possible, would not bring us to the economical end we wish to attain. Suppose it could be made palatable and eaten by man, little comparative saving would be effected. First, because, when eaten alone, the fine flour will not go so far as when mixed with a certain proportion of bran: that is to say,--a given weight of fine flour will produce an increased nutritive effect when mixed with the bran: greater than is due to the constituents of the bran taken alone. The mixture of the two in reality increases the virtues of both. Again, if eaten alone, bran would prove too difficult, and therefore slow of digestion in most stomachs. Much would thus pass, unexhausted of its nutritive matter, through the alimentary canal, as whole oats often do through that of horses, and thus a considerable waste would ensue. And further, supposing all to be dissolved in the stomach, there would still, of necessity, be a waste of material, since the bran actually contains a larger proportion of bone material and saline matter compared with its other ingredients, than the body, in its natural healthy state, can make use of. All this excess must, therefore, be rejected by the body, and, as nutritive matter, for the time be wasted.