Meat 16 ounces or 1 pound avoir. Bread and all other 19   ,,   ,, 1.19  ,,     ,,   carbohydrates, Fat, butter, 3 1/2   ,,   ,, 0.22  ,,     ,,   Water 52   ,,   ,, 3.38  ,,     ,,   The quantity and quality of food taken into the system every twenty-four hours, should depend upon the amount and kind of labor done, whether muscular or nervous, whether sitting or not, inactive or active, whether indoors or out of doors; upon the kind of atmosphere we breathe; upon season and climate, etc.; also upon the opportunities we have of throwing off the surplus carbon and nitrogen that the system has been overcrowded with. These conditions determine the proper variations of the income, since that has to be regulated and corrected by the outcome, and amounts after all to just so much carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, saline matter, and water as are contained in the proteids, fats, carbohydrates, salts, and water. It matters little how food is prepared. The main feature is that the supply is equal to the loss, of good and wholesome quality. Whether the food is manipulated by an artistic $10,000 cook or by a plain, clean housewife, the result is the same. Whether the special sense of taste, the gustatory nerve, has or has not undergone a high course of training and education, the fact remains that all that can be supplied is the necessary material that has been expended by the work and labor done by the muscular and nervous tissues. The subjoined results, selected from Boussingault, exhibit in a tabular form the relative quantity of organic and inorganic constituents in several kinds of herbage compared in several cases with the root or grain. The water was previously driven off by thorough drying: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leaves of Root of Mangel- Mangel- Potato Pea Clover Wheat Wurzel. Wurzel. Tops. Potatoes. Straw. Peas. Hay. Straw. Wheat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carbon 38.10 42.75 44.80 43.72 45.80 46.06 47.53 48.48 46.10 Hydrogen 5.10 5.77 5.10 6.00 5.00 6.09 4.69 5.41 5.80 Oxygen 30.80 43.58 30.50 44.88 35.57 40.53 37.96 38.79 43.40 Nitrogen 4.50 1.66 2.30 1.50 2.31 4.18 2.06 0.35 2.27 Ashes 21.50 6.24 3.90 3.90 11.32 3.14 7.76 6.97 2.43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------