The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1910-11-04
WASHINGTON LETTER
BY F. j. Dyer.

about politics. as the second assistant
secretary TO the superintendent of mo-
tor transportation III the Department
if Municipal Industry remarked, the
Secretary of Agriculture has pretty
nifty potato patch over on the Poto-
mac flats. "Uncle jerry he says,
''by the way, isn't it funny that some
people think that Uncle Jerry Rusk
is still the Secretary? They never
catch up with the times I was 60
ing to say that Secretary Wilson has
undertaken to out-Burbank the Bur
bank potato. lie has had his experts
get busy in this subject, and the re-
suit is that they are now harvesting
thirty thousand varieties of the ordi-
nary potato of commerce, or as the
Pacific Coasters call them, "spuds, in
the hope that ore or more of the 30
thousand will prove to be unusually
fine.
Maybe you never had to bup pota-
toes for the household or never had
to try to cook them 50 that they would
come out mealy and delicious, On
the other hand, perhaps you have had
occasion to fnd potatoes, even from
Aristook county, Maine, where lots OF
good potatoes come fr0m-Or from
Greeley, Colo, or Salinas, Cal, where
more good ones are grown. There is
likely to be something decided anemlc
about the potatoes you get; they look
understood, or underfed, or they have
warts and freckles and other facial
blemishes, and the worst of 1t IS that
these designations, despite the pro
verbal assertion regarding beauty, are
more than skin deep. Moreover, they
refuse to develop mealiness in the pot,
and come out soggy and waterlogged.
Or they discolored ana are generally
passe and debilitated, and unfit to as
sociate with honest folk, assuming that
there are still people to be placed IN
that category One wonders II the
highly pampered and opulent farmer
has kept all the good potatoes for him
self, if he fed the seconds to the $lo
rs, and brought what the pigs would
eat to the city. That seems rea'
able, too, in the light of everything
1t look at the potatoes they give
4; and how could bacon ever reach
no az
IS that originally owned it were fed
potatoes, and truffes, and pate du
gras, and such things?
It's condition, and not theory
at confronts us. That quotation
rks perfectly well when applied tx
potato situation. The Department
Agriculture got wise to the condl-
on some time ago, and it undertook
see if d perfectly new potato coulo
be evolved which would possess al
the sweet, unassuming, yet valuable
Aracteristics SO long sought in that
eful product of the kitchen garden;
potato which would ask little yet
i've much, which would not sulk and
VI up moisture when too much ram
me, and yet which would not SHRINK
into a leathery, warty lump IT II
opened to be too dry. The dlagnos'
ans of the Bureau of Plant Indus
have a lot of long names for the
Ibles they found with the potato
everyone knows about what was
ais the matter with it. What they
wd like to know is how to cure the
ey and restore the average potato tt
th,tate it should hold as a respectable
@aeber of the vegetable kingdom.
49, finally came to this, that the Sec.
- aaprdered his men to find him. o.
foat1,. best way they could, per
uonr1 - potato, or potatoes, whlci
49, ne plus ultra in the Pc
all the speeiaeaifn,g which should NEE
fso'le IS a lady names II
her grocer when >elephones to hin
to send up quart ol,aota+oas r;oh
away in time for dinner. Aaa = .
happened, that in pursuit of,eba;r IN
structions, the experts sent to rhil
eyes, that is really where the Irish |,
tato originally came from; not fro
Ireland at ally, and secured from a