I can in no way better illustrate the relation of fat to health and strength, than by repeating the remarks of an intelligent and observing young farmer. “I fatten my cattle,” said he, “because it pays——the market demands fat creatures; so I have my barn very snug and warm, and feed high. My neighbor, on the other hand, is what would be called a ‘poor farmer’; that is, his buildings are not of the best, his barn has broad cracks all around, which gives them pure air, and his cattle are never fat. He works his oxen hard, gives them enough to eat to keep them in full health and vigor, but nothing for adipose. Mornings, in winter, when he turns his oxen out into the yard, they prance out like a lot of colts, kick up their heels and shake their horns like healthy creatures as they are; while mine will almost tumble down over the door-sill! His cows never give as much milk nor make as much butter as mine; but they are never sick, while mine are sometimes, and I lose one now and then with ‘milk-fever,’ or some other disease resulting from high feeding; but I am farming for profit, and my heifers bring an extra price by reason of the great milk and butter record of their mothers, and I can afford to have a sick or even a dead cow occasionally, providing I keep the fact quiet——not advertise the danger of the process necessary to ‘drive the milk out of them.’” [Obesity being a disease peculiar to, and (terminating in cholera infantum or some zymotic disease) especially fatal in, infancy, the author has endeavored to treat the subject exhaustively in his work entitled “How to Feed the Baby.” He would merely observe, in this connection, that in plant life or animal life, the universal law is a _lean, lank infancy_: those creatures and those slips which thrive continuously and reach a healthy maturity are _never_ fat or stocky during the period of growth. The human infant only is sought to be made an exception to this rule; with what success the mortality reports fully attest.] CHAPTER VIII. BILIOUSNESS, “HAY FEVER,” NEURALGIA, ETC.