The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1900-04-13
IHE WORLDS FOOD SUPPLY
Nut Products Will Feed Three
Times the Worlds People.
NUT CULTURE is URGED.
Then There Are Many Weeds and
Wild Fruits That Can Be Used at
Pinch-Where We Get Our Pres
ent Food Supply.

Systematically investigating the food
stock in trade of nearly every coun-
try on the globe.
Agents who are food students have
been sent to China, Peru, Persia, Mex
leo everywhere to the remotest ends
of the earth for the purpose of find
Ing out what the new or neglected
food products are, their value as a
nutritious diet, and the extent to
which they can be used to lengthen
the menu of the civilized cook.
Some very interesting and startling
facts are being handed in through the
reports that cover the food question
from New England to the Philippines
from Mexico to the heart of the Mon
golian empire. II has been discov.
cred that the nut trees alone could at
a pinch feed population three times
as great as the present number of in
habitants.
While a dozen vegetables cover the
limit of the variety on the average
table. the earth is growing hundreds
of kinds that are nutritious, delicious
and easy to cultivate.
A Single wild tribe of Western In
dams is using forty-one kinds of veg
etables which are absolutely unknown,
even to the chef who draws a salary
as large as that of a United States
Senator
An endless variety of downtrodden
weeds can be converted into whole.
some, succulent garden truck" Even
the much maligned nettle has the lat
est qualities of a delicious eXtremet.
Especially interesting are the facts
furnished by the nut specialists
There is no product that requires so
little cultivation as the nut and none
is more wholesome as a food staple
An orchard of two thousand trees in
California yields every year over "a.
600 pounds of hulled nuts. Already
the commercial mind has seized upon
the enormous profits to accrue from
the sale of various preparations Of
nuts. and at least ten large companies
manufacture nothing but nut food
The government is making a special
point of recommending nut culture
In New England the abandoned farms
are being planted with nut trees, and
the worked-out ground is found to
furnish nourishment enough to cause
the walnut, butternut and chestnut to
flourish abundantly. Farms in nearly
every 4NOIluNtSleTu Sldlc are DlduC-
ing nut trees along with their peaches
and pears, and are utilizing the hill
sides where nothing else will grow for
fruit orchards.
In the past the objection to nuts as
food has been that they were hard to
digest, but with the new methods of
preparing and cooking them, they are
rendered as healthful as they are
palatable, even in America where
good digestion does notinvariably wait
on appetite.
The introduction of new foods is
an excellent plan for both the health
and commercial prosperity of a nation.
Nearly all of what are now regarded
as indigenous fruits and vegetables
have been imported to us from other
lands. OF the food plants now In use
only pumpkins and few grapes,
plums and berries were originally
found on the soil.
Oats, barley and rye originated in
wild forms along the Mediterranean,
The first noted species of wheat was
brought from Persia. The common
garden bean traces its ancestry back
OF the landing of the Pilgrims to an
early aboriginal state in the Andes.
The Orient furnished us with melons,
cucumbers and onions. Egg plant
and tomatoes were discovered in
Peru. Ounces, pears, currants and
large white grapes In Europe. While
the most common of our vegetables,
celery. lettuce cabbage and spinach,
were transplanted from the shores of
the Mediterranean.
If these important features of our
daily food supply have all found their
way to us from foreign lands, 1t seems
but a question of sufficient search
throughout the world to increase the
store until all possibility of food
famine In future ages is rendered in
conceivable.
One point that is being strongly
brought out by the government Is that
many things once considered wild and
poisonous, and many that are still
looked upon as weeds, are health-giy.
ing products and should be ranked as
a portion of the reserve food supply.
Indeed, the bureau has selected seven
teen of the most orc mary weeds and
has issued a pamphl 1t extolling their
virtues as available, healthful foods.
In the list are found lock, the mashed
marigold, mercury. black charlock,
commonly held as poisonous; chic
cory, pokewOod, also regarded as pois-
onous; purslane, for which the farmer
inherits his dislike, md the despised
nettle.
A wonderful reserve fund for the
human appetite is to be found in the
vegetable diet of The Klamath In
dams. A novel variety of food form
ing a menu unknown to civilization
is offered in the pulp of the great vel
low water lily, which is converted in.
to a farinaceous food; in the weed
known as goosefoot, which bears a
black seed, which is ground up for
loaves and cake ard in the arrow.
head, which in the fall develops a
starchy white tubeT at the end of the
roots, not to mention the tubers that
resemble beets, tuTips and carrots,
the nuts that are grI und into coffee"
and the flower leaves that furnish
fairy.like desserts.
The tanning Of wild fruits is another
branch Of the food agents business.
Mr. Augustus Henry who is authority
on Chinese fora, tates that there
1rc ai len ore hEi bred varieties of
fr7is er4V '0e wild in the interior of
China chat II tCaner lanted to another
soil and p-cperly cultivated, would
prove as important food supply as
our present necessary apple and pear.
The lie Conte pear Z hich has revolu-
tionized pear grow ng in Southern
California, was orig sally the Chinese
san pear, grown solt y for ornamental
purposes.
No Two Finger Prints Alike.
The chance Of two finger prints be
ing alike is not one in sixty -four bill
lions.