RABBITS AND MEN
SIR,—The letter of Dr. Sanderson-Wells in The Spectator of October 17th under the above title has created considerable excitement among my many correspondents interested in soil-fertility. It draws attention to the importance of our greatest experts on nutrition whose services, alas, have hardly ever been utilised. These are mostly quadrupeds—our livestock, our domesticated animals and the denizens of places like Whipsnade.
Most of our domesticated animals can give us the greatest possible help in deciding some of the chief nutritional questions of the day— such as the quality and food value of vegetables, fruit, milk, cereals and meat, grown (x) on fertile soil with the help of freshly prepared humus and (2) on land alongside treated with artificials and poison sprays by the conventional methods of the modern agricultural experi- ment station. The wild animals at Whipsnade can also give useful information on the nutritive value of our food-preservation processes. All that is needed is to put simple questions to the animal and to allow instinct free play. gut boys and girls could in this way be provided with many an interesting problem. I should be glad to pass on to my correspondents any results your readers care to send me.—Your obedient servant, H. HOWARD.
Previous page
