When the young animal comes first into the world, its powers of digestion are weak, and it is fed for some time entirely upon a food already digested for it by the parent. This parent-prepared food of the young animal, which is called milk, of course contains within itself all the several matters which have been spoken of above, as necessary for the supply of the body. Thus when the dairy-maid curdles milk with rennet, and draws off the whey, afterwards pressing and drying the curdled part, the curd at length comes out of the press as cheese. That is the flesh-substance which was contained in the milk. When the dairy-maid turns and twists cream about in the churn, until butter collects in the midst of it—that butter is the fuel-substance, or fat, which was contained in the milk. The whey which is taken off from the cheese, or butter, is principally water; but if this water were steamed away by heat, there would remain behind a small quantity of fixed ash, which could not escape. This is the mineral-substance. Here then we have what we may term a specimen of Nature’s pattern-food. The relative proportion in which the several food-principles are contained in milk, becomes most excellent guide to the way in which they should be used in the more artificial feeding of later life. Take then as A RECEIPT FOR PATTERN-FOOD, the following, which expresses the relative quantities of cheese, butter, and ash, in milk: One ounce of Flesh-substance, Two ounces of Fuel-substance, and Ninety grains of Mineral-substance, To twenty-two ounces of Water. The most extensively and generally used of all the articles of human diet is bread. It has been fittingly called “the staff of life.” Now it is a curious and remarkable fact that bread contains in itself just the same principles as milk; but it is of course drier, and has proportionally more fuel and less flesh-making substance. The flour, from which it is made, is composed of a stiff, sticky paste, and a fine white powder, well mixed up together. The paste is flesh-substance; it is nearly the same thing, indeed, as the flesh of the body, in all excepting arrangement. The powder is starch: just such as is used in the work of the laundry. Now starch is merely fat in its first stage of preparation. When bread is well made, the rising of the dough marks the change of the store-starch into sugar and gum through fermentation. This is really a beginning of the work of digestion, and, in so far, a lightening of the task the stomach will have to perform. It is very important, however, that this change shall be carried to a proper point, and then stopped. Bread should be neither too heavy nor too light. If the former, it will not be easy enough of digestion; if the latter, some portion of the virtue will have been unnecessarily wasted. Bread contains a great deal of water, and so to a certain extent is both food and drink.