Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-11
SOME INTERESTING REMARKS ABOUT
THE GROWING OF THE POTATO.

Our beloved tuber, "the tropical potato"
is sad apple of discerd among scientists,
experts, growers, and consumers. The
scientists will shake his head at mans
peculiar propensity to prefer the starchy
potato to the leguminous peas and lentlls
the expert will prove that temperate zones
cannot produce this much. loved esculent
90 perfectly as certain tropical climates
the grower will lament his loss when the
field so well tended produced but hollow,
yellow, watery tubers, and the consumer
will groan over the blsck-patched, watery,
ill-smelling article, he gets on his table.
What is to be done about it? 1t is well
nigh national question, whether the
potato crop succeeds or not; it is really a
humanitarian question whether thia crop
fail utterly or not. Once indeed whole
nation nearly succumbed under the loss of
the potato crop-vide Ireland. In 1873
the potato crop failed everywhere. Why
was this failure universal? What atmos-
pheric influence brought about this change
The potato is delicate plant, there is
10 doubt about it. II is not hardy veg
etable it can only succeed under certain
conditions, and ought not to be grown in
discriminatory. The culture of the potato
requires much more care than is bestowed
upon it, and much more intelligence than
is thought necessary for it. 1t may be
thought that potatoes must be grown any
how, as feeders of the million. We dissent
from this. Potatoes are now wasted to
very considerable extent. We may boldly
assert that one. fourth of all potatoes grown
are lost by bad and unsuccessful culture,
and one-fourth more by bad aud unsuc-
IL and that ONLY, we M rthr
of the potatoes grown and cooked become
really available for the food of man. The
potato is perhaps the most remarkable in
temperate climate becoming the generally
adopted food of the latter, to the exclusion
of the other. In no tropical country or
semi tropical country is the potato as much
eaten as in temperate countries. In the
latter countries of Europe and America it
is daily food, generally adopted as the
principal vegetable addition to meat, fish,
poultry, etc.
What entities the potato to such posi-
ton? By what right has it replaced other
vegetable growths indigenous to the soil,
and taken the lead where it sLould only
have had a proportional place Does the
potato possess so much nutrition Does it
possess so much favor Is it SO easy Of
cultivation or SO easy of preparation
What is it? 1t would be difficult to an
swer these questions uaage more than
anything else has raised the potato on her
pedestal, from which reason alone can de-
throne her. The potato, in fact, is deli
cious tuber when well grown, healthy and
well prepared but very iadigestible and
useless food when these qualities are not
combined.
Sorry was the day for Ireland when the
potato was fist introduced. Its cultiva-
ton brought the first downward step to
that once well cultivated country, which
exported wheat and was full of the rich
lazy, influenced the brain progress of its
citable and unstable from want of solid
nourishment, and lowered the whole status
of the nation. 1t ia wonder that people
fed for one century on potatoes could still
show so much hardness, so much purpose,
so much firmness ; if the means taken TO
show these qualities are not always well
potato feeding. People who live on potatoes
may grow fat on them, but can never be
endowed with that stability of living
Whicn is tne nrsF quanly 10 Keep up d
national position. Take any other nation
and feed it for one century on potatoes
mostly and the result will be far worse
than it has been in Ireland.
The time will come when general po
tato culture will not predominant, and
when we shall give the potato her real
value as an accompaniment to our meals of
the day. Bat when we shall be far more
careful how it IS produced and how it is
prepared or cooked. Let us fret look at
the growth OF potatoes.
The best adapted analysis Of the potato
grown in Northern Europe is the follow
inp.