Most assuredly I do believe that body and mind are much influenced by the kind of food habitually depended upon. I can never stray among the village people of our windy capes without now and then coming upon a human being who looks as if he had been split, salted, and dried, like the salt fish which has built up his arid organism. If the body is modified by the food which nourishes it, the mind and character very certainly will be modified by it also. We know enough of their close connection with each other to be sure of what without any statistical observation to prove it.--_Oliver Wendell Holmes._ The thoughts and feelings which the food we partake of provokes, are not remarked in common life, but they, nevertheless, have their significance. A man who daily sees cows and calves slaughtered, or who kills them himself, hogs "stuck," hens "plucked," etc., cannot possibly retain any true feeling for the sufferings of his own species....Doubtless, the majority of flesh-eaters do not reflect upon the manner in which this food comes to them, but this thoughtlessness, far from being a virtue, is the parent of many vices....How very different are the thoughts and sentiments produced by the non-flesh diet!--_Gustav Von Struve._ That the popular idea that beef is necessary for strength is not a correct one, is well illustrated by Xenophon's description of the outfit of a Spartan soldier, whose dietary consisted of the very plainest and simplest vegetable fare. The complete accoutrements of the Spartan soldier, in what we would call heavy marching order, weighed seventy-five pounds, exclusive of the camp, mining, and bridge-building tools and the rations of bread and dried fruit which were issued in weekly installments, and increased the burden of the infantry soldier to ninety, ninety-five, or even to a full hundred pounds. This load was often carried at the rate of four miles an hour for twelve hours _per diem_, day after day, and only when in the burning deserts of southern Syria did the commander of the Grecian auxiliaries think prudent to shorten the usual length of the day's march. DIET OF TRAINERS.--The following are a few of the restrictions and rules laid down by experienced trainers:-- Little salt. No course vegetables. No pork or veal. Two meals a day; breakfast at eight and dinner at two. No fat meat is allowed, no butter or cheese, pies or pastry. VEGETABLES Vegetables used for culinary purposes comprise roots and tubers, as potatoes, turnips, etc.; shoots and stems, as asparagus and sea-kale; leaves and inflorescence, as spinach and cabbage; immature seeds, grains, and seed receptacles, as green peas, corn, and string-beans; and a few of the fruity products, as the tomato and the squash. Of these the tubers rank the highest in nutritive value.