Wheat, old as the civilized races, is the best of all cereals. It was the common food of the ancient Egyptians. The wheat harvest is spoken of in the patriarchal age, and Joseph dreamed of the sheaves of wheat. The primitive Greeks took with them on their war marches knapsacks filled with dry wheat; and in Caesar's time Roman philosophers wrote and poets sung the praises of wheat. So far as any one kind of food is concerned, wheat is the best, and may be put down as the prince of cereals.

The great men of history whose living, burning words startled the world were not born in the warm banana-lands of the South, but in the cooler wheat zone, or the great wheat belt, lying between 35 and 55 degrees north latitude.

Man can live upon wheat or wheat and milk alone; but he could not live any great length of time upon bread made of superfine flour. To sustain life the whole kernel must be utilized. Chemically considered, wheat is composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesia, sulphur, lime, potash, silica, soda, chlorine - in brief, all, or nearly all, of the ingredients and elements requisite for the support of human life, and yet I am of the opinion that the human system demands variety of food.

Milk is a most excellent article of diet. Indian meal mush and milk, oatmeal and milk, rice and milk, boiled wheat and milk, unleavened bread and milk have in them all the necessary elements of nutrition; hence, from childhood to old age one never tires of them. If, owing to some abnormal condition of the stomach, milk does not digest, add thereto a little lime water.

The hot water cure in some European cities is giving way, in part, to the hot milk cure. The temperature should be as high as can be sipped with a teaspoon. While the heat is beneficial, especially if a little capsicum be added, the milk itself is nourishing.

The cod liver oil craze is rapidly subsiding. The most eminent physicians. of Germany prefer fresh olive oil. In consumption, either olive oil or nice sweet cream is preferable to cod liver oil. A little olive oil mixed with oatmeal porridge constitutes a most excellent food.

Liebig pronounces oatmeal, so much used by Scotchmen, nearly as nutritious as the best English beef. Prof. Forbes, of Edinburgh, during a period of 80 years measured the height and breadth, and noticed the health of the students in the University. He found the Belgians, who were great meat eaters, at the bottom of the list; a little above them the French; very much higher the English, and the highest of all stood the Highland Scotch, who all through life are fed once, and generally twice, a day upon oatmeal porridge.

The oldest and probably the best oatmeal manufactory in this country is the one located at Akron, Ohio. These manufacturing works send out supplies in all directions, and for this excellent oatmeal I am happy to say there is an ever increasing demand.

Breakfast should be made largely of oatmeal, well-baked bread made from the whole wheaten grain, carefully ground, berries, fruits, fresh eggs broken into hot water, and a cup of good sweet milk. Neither meat, butter or grease of any kind is necessary.

"When Senator Palmer, of Michigan, goes to New York, and stops at the Fifth Avenue Hotel," says the New York Times, "he always carries a loaf of Graham bread in his satchel. Before going to his meals he cuts a couple of slices from the loaf and puts them in his pocket. At the table he pulls the bread out and has always something before him he can eat. In his house at Detroit he has a mill constructed on purpose to prepare his flour, and at home he will never eat bread made from hour ground at any other mill."

"I cannot eat coarse brown bread," says one, "it irritates my sensitive stomach."

No one has asked you to eat "coarse bread," at least, I have not; but I do ask and urge you to eat the wheat in its fullness, except the very thin, flinty, irritating outer covering, which the steel mill grinding discards, and yet retains the nutritious parts, the five layers of cells and all the valuable mineral matter.

"I am a farmer, and cannot work on oatmeal, rice, mush, milk and potatoes; on bread, vegetables, fruit and berries," says some honest tiller of the soil. How do you know; did you ever try it? I have seen the porters of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, bearing burdens of six, seven and eight hundred pounds, and that all day; and yet their food was a few handfuls of grapes and figs, or dry bread, a bunch of dates and some olives.

I have seen the Spaniards and half-castes of Mexico, Yucatan and Central America toiling in the mines, or by the olive press and the wine press by day, and dancing at night to the music of the guitar, and yet they subsist upon melons, fruits, bananas and bread dipped in olive oil and seasoned with capsicum.

I have seen Chinamen in Canton and other parts of the Empire bear upon their shoulders the sedan chair, 16 hours a day, or work in the fields the same length of time, and eat nothing but rice and a few vegetables.

All historians know that the old Roman armies, who built the roads and aqueducts, practiced in gymnasiums and marched under heavy baggage and armor, conquering the world, lived largely upon fruits, dry wheat, and barley bread dipped in sour wine.

But are not flesh meats and fatty foods necessary to keep up the animal heat, especially in cold climates? The herb-eating animals and the fleet reindeer found in the Arctic regions are a sufficient answer to that inquiry. Besides, for great muscular strength the rhinoceros exceeds all animals known upon earth, and yet it lives entirely upon vegetable food. Droves of tigers will fly with terror from before it, knowing its power.

"Carbon is heat," says an eminent physiologist. And yet skim cheese, pearl barley, rye meal, seconds flour, beans, peas, rice, Indian meal, oatmeal, and sugar all contain more carbon than does beef; and, further, not only does the finely-flavored cheese made in Cheddar, England, but even skimmilk cheese contains more muscle-making food than beef.