HUSBANDRY: Coolidge Porridge

For months Chairman Alexander Legge of the Federal Farm Board has been begging U. S. farmers to feed the country's wheat surplus to their cows, hogs, sheep, horses, hens. Last week the Farm Board issued a pamphlet, "Practical Experiences in Feeding Wheat," to persuade farmers that Mr. Legge was right. This pamphlet received front-page publicity in scores of newspapers, urban as well as rural. But what put it over was not Chairman Legge's eloquence or the testimony of farmers with contented wheat-fed cows. The news-value was in a little item written for the first page by Farm Board Member Samuel Roy McKelvie, Nebraska's smiling one-time (1919-23) Governor. Mr. McKelvie described how wheat, good for kine and porkers, had also been found good for other of God's creatures, as follows:

"When the President and Mrs. Coolidge were summering in the Black Hills, Mrs. McKelvie and I were overnight guests at the Summer White House. At breakfast a food was served which I very much enjoyed. The President said he ate it regularly and added:

" 'It is made of two parts of wheat and one of rye. It is cooked whole without grinding. The grain is just as it comes from the field and is put in a double boiler and cooked until the kernels of wheat burst open. This sometimes takes four or five hours. " 'We cook up a batch of it, put it in the ice chest and get some out and warm it up each morning. I suppose it will last for a week or ten days without getting sour.' " Interrogated as to whether they might add Coolidge Porridge to their line of cereals, expressed great amusement, Quaker replied: Oats Co. "Heavens no!"