The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1912-09-13

we find another has expressed wei
what we want to say we will ust
good material in a good cause and
the author will accept this as oul
apology for doing so.
By Capt. T. f. Peck, Commissioner
of Agriculture.
POTATOES. THEIR FOOD VALUE
By Margaret B. Foulks.
Owing to the rapid development OF
the potato growing industry as a
money crop and its steadily increas'
Ing popularity as a food, it will be
both interesting and beneficial to
know its history and its real food
value.
The potato, called by different peo-
pie, White potato, English potato or
Irish potato, stands in the vegetable
kingdom, second only to the cereals.
The most important products of the
vegetable kingdom are the bread
stuffs and cereals, but next to these
we place the potato tuber.
The White potato came from a
wild plant first discovered in Chill,
the root or tuber being used by the
natives as food. 1t was carried to
Europe by the Spaniards about 1880
and was for a number of years
grown in gardens more for a Curl
osity than for food The belief that
it was poisonous plant kept the
people from using it as food until
a series of bad harvests made the
staple food crops so poor that the
potato became popular and has been
increasing in popularity ever since.
1t Gang to this, .sQpntfy about the
end of the 10th century and was
first grown in Virginia and North
Carolina. The fact that potatoes can
be raised with small cost, kept over
winter and can be prepared in so
many different ways made it rise
quickly to a prominent place in our
vegetable kingdom.
Statistics are usually considered
dull. but we can hardly imagine the
increase and popularity of this We
getable until we look at government
statistics, which gave us short
while ago these figures: White pota-
toes raised in this country amounted
to 27S,31S,167 bushels or 407 per
cent. of the whole vegetable crop of
the United States. These potatoes
were valued at $9S,3S0,110. The
greater amount of these are used as
food, a small portion is used for ami
NAL fodder and for manufacturing
starch, alcohol and glucose, but it is
mainly the inferior quality used in
this way. In Europe most of the
starch on the market is made from
the potato, but in this country our
corn starch has supplanted it and we
seldom see potato starch on our
market, it being used principally by
manufacturers in the making of pa
per and textiles. The greatest part
Of our winter potatoes are raised in
the northeastern and central states,
the southern States producing chiefly
the early varieties which are shipped
to the northern markets.
With cultivation the potato seems
to have lost its power of producing
seed In its wild state it was raised
from seed but now as We know, the
grower uses the old tubers, each eye
in the potato producing a new bud
or plant The potato is really a large
underground stem in which the plant
stores material held in reserve for
the growth OF new plants The
value of the potato as a food lies in
the starch it contains, it being about
95 per cent. water and starch A
DIAGRAM of a potato will show plain
" that the bulk Of it is water The
edible portion, that is, the potato
without skin, holds an average Of
about rs per cent, water, so only
about 90 per cent Of the whole potato
has any food value, IS per cent, off
this being starch The heterogeneous
matter or protein in potatoes is very
slight, and most of what is there is
Of no nutritive value. The very small
amount Of fat is found chiefly in the
skin and is so scant that 1t is not
usually counted when discussing
their food value The most impor-
tant mineral matter found in potatoes