Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-06-14
BILLIONS OF WASTE IN YEARS CROPS
Uncle Gould Maintain Standing Army of Million Men
If He Cashed In His Waste Food Products.
The Wonders of Thrift.
BY B. w. CURRIE

| thermore, poultry and eggs provide only one
item in the conservation of waste that is
| primarily due to the invention and develop
ment of cold storage aids. Every perish
! able food product is included in the long
| list.
The S40,O0O,OOO loss in spoiled eggs re-
ferred to could be saved merely by banish-
ing the roosters from the focks when their
services are no longer important. Infertile
eggs keep twice as long as fertile eggs
without the aid of cold storage. We are
teaching these essentially important facts
to 100000 boys and girls in our schools and
colleges today, whereas q decade ago such
knowledge was regarded as scientific
pabula" for scholars and indoor specialists.
Our potato crop does not begin to rank
up with our cereals in point of wealth of
yield, yet the annual waste from this crop
scales into the millions. Take the Maine
potato crop alone, which Is not more than
per cent. of our national crop of nearly
5OOoO0O0O bushels. and listen to what one
conservationist has to say on the subject of
waste;
The annual Maine shipment is 81, 900 cars.
The average waste is 20 bushels per car or
100000 bushels. The average freight from
Maine to New England and New York points
is 15 cents a bushe or $1O5, 900. The extra
labor employed because of this waste mixed
all through the cars is at least So per car,
or S175,OOO. Here is a total waste of $780,
600 without giving any value to the potato
culls.
And this is only one tiny possibility of
the stoppage of waste. There are other
potato States where the waste is vastly
greater. Two years ago when potatoes were
selling for so cents a peck in Los Angeles
nf dc
in the ground in the San Joaquin Delta of
California, more millions were rotting in the
Walla Walla district of Oregon
II our annual waste of staples runs into
the hundreds of millions so does the an
nual waste of fruit products.
homecoming on the farm of what we
would have to list otherwise as waste food
products will save to the nation, say the
Government specialists. at least S1OO,OOO,O 600
annually The American housewife could add
$2OO,0OO,OOO more to that by the exercise of
thrift and intelligent management in the
kitchen. The German Government has
thought enough of just this one phase of
thrift to issue what amounts almost TO an
edict on thrift to the German housewife.
and from what we have observed of the
German housewife in the past there was the
least possible necessity for such a caution.
II would simply be heaping up superfuous
evidence to list all of the products of the
soil and estimate the loss in waste of each
separate product. Nor is it possible to
work out an exact equation for any one
product. At the best we would have to deal
with constantly fiuctuating approximations.
What we can determine, however, beyond
peradyenture of doubt. is the fact that our
waste Of food products runs into the billions
and that 1t would not require any burden
some exercise Of thrift to cash in this waste
for SUFFICIENT dollars TO support a standing
army Of a million men.