The morning call., 1893-04-08
THE JUMP IN POTATOES.

That large class OF the community who
do not believe that dinner is dinner
without dish OF potatoes are now mourn
ing over the price of the tIber. Within a
couple of weeks potatoes have advanced
about hundred per cent. The cause is of
course 4 diminished supply. The long cold
spring has retarded the growth of the early
potato, and receipts of new crop so far have
been small A frost last November de-
stroyed'a considerable portion of the visible
supply. Many potato fields on the Saera-
mentu are flooded. Oregon is now supply
ing this market to a considerable extent
shipments coming from that direction at the
rate of over 10000 sacks week. In the
southern counties there is net only no sur
plus for export TO San Francisco, but San
Diego and Los Angeles are ordering pola-
toes from here. In a small way we are eX-
periencing potato famine.
The catastrophe would perhaps be de-
plorable if there was a scarcity of other
vegetables; happily most of them are album
dant ami cheap Our condition would in
decd not be an unmixed misfortune If it led
people to consider seriously whether we
are doing ourselves Justice in eating p0ta-
toes as largely as we do. OF all the COM
mon articles of food the potato is the worst
feeder. Ii contains 70 per cent of water,
about 10 per cent of starch and hardly any
nitrogen, which. with carbon. Is the most
essential Ingredient of wholesome diet A
man who undertook to live on potatoes ex-
clusVely would ShriYel away and die. The
Irish, whose diet largely consists of pota-
toes. mix them with milk and butteTmilk.
which carry about per cent of nitrogen in
the shape Of casein andi albumen; the COM
pound IS exceedingly wholesome aud nutri-
tiOus. Without the milk potatoes merely
distend the stomach without supplying the
loss of solids in the body.
Farmers grow potatoes because they yield
q crop larger in bulk than any other vege-
table. According to the census, the average
yield Of land planted in potatoes is ninety
bushels to the acre. but on the Sacramento
crops twice as large as that have been mar
vested. At a cent pound, which is per-
haps a fair average price, the grower real
ICES something like $50 an acre. less the
cost of planting, cultiyating, digging and
transportation. This probably pays as well
as wheat, and there is generally market
for potatoes. Housekeepers buy and serve
them on their tables because they are cheap.
and because it Is found that people will eat
potatoes more frequently without getting
tired Of them than any other vegetable. 1t
must be admitted. too, that good potato is
paiatabe article OF food. a fine. mealy
potato, well boiled, always tastes agTeeably,
and when they are mashed with butter
which is the only shape in which they ought
to be eaten-pOtatOes are an article of diet
against which little can be said. 1t is OBJ
served, however, that in cases of serious
illness where the regimen is a mater Of
moment the first article which the doctors
prescribe Is the potato.
a more wholesome vegetable is the sweet
potato, which is largely consumed in our
Southern States, in China and in the Pacific
Islands. This is as rich in starch as the
Irish potato. but contains considerable
proportion OF nitrogen. 1t would be posi-
BE to sustain life for a long time on a diet
consisting exclusively of sweet potatoes.
But at the North they have never become
generally popular; the fondness OF some
people for them is an acquired taste. To
be healthy a mans diet ought to embrace as
large a variety of wholesome foods as posi-
BILE; those who eat the same thing day after
day, without varying their dietary. are apt
to be neither strong nor long lived At the
time Of the Frdnco-German War, curious
investigations we're made in the science of
OlbttAlGos IL W d. 4OAuu Alldb Il man WIN
lived on bread alone required to eat four
pounds a day to keep himself alive, ana
loaded his system with starch which could
not be assimilated; while man who lived
on meat alone needed three and a hail
pounds of lean meat per day, and filled
himself up with albuminous matter, which
he could not dispose of. The old bread and
water diet to which prisoners used to be
sentenced, and which still survives in some
Of our prisons as punishment diet" con-
sisted of one pound Of bread day and un-
limited water After three days of this
diet the prisoner loses about three pounds a
day in his weight, and when the loss
amounts to anything over half his original
weight lie dies.
People do not die OF eating potatoes, but
if they eat many of them they treat their
stOmachs very unfairly.