The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1910-11-08
GOSSIP AT THE
NATIONS CAPITAL
Especial to the Silver state.)

motor transportation in the depart
ment of municipal industry remarked,
the secretary of agriculture has a
pretty nifty potato patch over on the
Potomac flats. "Uncle jerry he
says, "by the way, ism It is funny that
some people think that 'Uncle Jerry
Rusk is still the secretarys They
never catch up with the times. l was
going to say that Secretary Wilson
has undertaken to out-Burbank the
Burbank potato. He has had his ex-
perts get busy on this subject, and
the result is that they are now har-
vesting thirty thousand varieties Of
the ordinary potato of commerce, OF
as the Pacific coasters call them,
"spuds, in the hope that one or more
of the thirty thousand will prove to
be unusually fine.
Maybe you never had to buy pota-
toes for the household, or never had
to try to cook them so that they
would come out mealy and delicious.
On the other hand, perhaps you have
had occasion to find out from practical
experience how difficult it is to find
really fine potatoes, even from Aroo-
stock, county Maine, where lots of
good ptatoes come from-or from
Greeley, Clorado, or Salinas, Califor-
mia, where more good ones are grown.
There is likely to be something de-
cidedly anemic about the potatoes you
get; they look understood, or under
fed, or they have warts and freckles
and other facial blemishes, and the
worst of it is that these designations,
despite the proverbial assertion re-
garding beauty, are more than skin
deep. Moreover, they refuse to de-
velop mealiness in the pot, and come
out soggy and waterlogged. Or they
ere discolored and are generally passe
and debilitated, and unfit to associate
with honest folks, assuming that there
are still people to be placed in that
category. One wonders if the highly
pampered and opulent farmer has kept
! all the good potatoes for himself, if
he fed the seconds to the $40 pigs
and brought what the pigs wouldn t
eat to the city. That seems reasonable,
too, in the light of everything. Just
look as the potatoes they give you;
and how could bacon ever reach 30
cents a pound in the city unless the
pigs that originally owned it were fed
fois gras, and such thingsf
It's condition, and not theory,
that confronts US. That quotation
works perfectly well when applied to
the potato situation. The department
of agriculture got wise to the con-
dition some time ago, and 1T under
took to see if perfectly new potato
could not be evolved which would pos
sess all of the sweet, unassuming, yet
valuable characteristics so long sought
in that useful product of the kitchen
garden; potato which would ask
| little vet give much, which would not
sulk and sop up moisture when too
much rain came, and yet which would
not shrink up into a leathery, warty
lump if it happened to be too dry.
The diagnosticans of the bureau OF
plant industry have lot of long
names for the troubles they found with
the potato, but everyone knows about
what was and is the matter with it.
What they would like to know is how
to cure the evil, and restore the av-
erage potato to the state should hold
as a respectable member of the vege-
table kingdom.
It finally came to this, that the
secretary ordered his men to find him,
or to get the best way they could, a
perfectly new potato, or potatoes,
which would be the ne plus ulutra in
the potato line; something which
should meet all the specifications a
lady names to her grocer when she
telephones to him to send up quart
of potatoes right away in time for
dinner. And it so happened, that in
pursuit of their instructions, the ex-
perts sent to Chile Eyes, that is really
where hte Irish potato originally came
from; not from Ireland at alD, and
secured from an American there, Mr.
Jose d. Husbands, 200 Seeding pota-
toes, representing the original Chile
stock from which potatoes all over the
world are said to have been derived,
Professor Stuart, of the department OF
agriculture, then made crosses be-
tween the best potatoes he could get
in this country or in Europe and those
new potatoes direct from Chile, and
as a result, he secured 10000 true ny
birds, the hrst, it is elaine, that
were ever bred.
When one grows potatoes from the
seed, the product that may be ex-
pected the first year is lot of little
potatoes about the size of marbles.
These are coaxed along and developed
until perhaps some of them prove to
be worthy of perpetuation. But the
department of agriculture has found
out how to grow tubers from seed the
first year weighing pound. That is
not all, either, for from single seed
35 potatoes have been harvested to
the hill, half of them being big enough
to be called of merchantable size, and
measuring as high as a peek to the
hill.
While this is small stunt in plant
breeding, where the department is
carrying on hundreds of operations
continually, the experts are very
proud of it, even though It will take
four or five years to complete it and
bv careful selection to determine
wbatber any varieties of real value