The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1916-03-03
The Idaho Idea in Potatoes
Twin Makes the Big Sell the Little Ones
BY Jas. II Collins, in Country Gentleman.

tatoes for baking alone. For boiling,
frying and salad he will probably
choose potatoes of different character,
from an eastern growing district. The
housewife, however, wants an all
round, general-purpose spud, 40 boil
and fry as well as to bake. Baking
takes so long that potatoes are cooked
this way only once or twice week
in the average home, if that often. In
the apartments and flats of modern
city life, where cooking is done with
gas, the baked potato is rather costly
and not always satisfactory.
Housewives boiled the Idaho pota-
toes in the regular way, and OF course
had trouble with them when they boil
ed to pieces. The best way to COOK
these fancy spuds, next to baking, Is
to steam them To make steaming
easy the man from Idaho got three
quart tin double cooker, something
like an oatmeal cooker, with one re-
ceptacle for the potatoes and another
beneath it for water. This he sends
to housewives for a coupon and fifty
nine cents The coupon is clipped
from an advertising folder distributed
by grocers who handle his brand or
potatoes, and with each cooker he
sends recipe book. The cooker solves
the boiling problem and is useful for
steaming other foods.
There are a number of shipping con-
Germs handling fancy baking potatoes
at Twin Falls, and also a cooperative
marketing association Of about eighty
growers, with a large storage plant
for carrying potatoes through the win
ter.
Each shipper has his own trade,
mostly in the middle west, his own
brand, his own ideas about packing
and grading, and his own way OF sup
plying customers.
The South Wants Small Potatoes
The first striking novelty in market
ing was the box baking potato. graded
as carefully as apples in size, wrap
ped like apples, and picked in bushel
apple boxes. Grading and packing
were done at Twin Falls, and the stuff
was shipped to Chicago in carloads,
where 1t was put in storage to supply
hotels and grocers.
That did not work out into a per-
Imanent market method. Today Twin
Falls ships no wrapped box potatoes.
Even with the greatest care In pack
ing and handling there was some de-
cay in storage Spuds grown in high,
dry Idaho suffered when they were
carried several months in the humid
climate of Chicago. So all the box
stock shipped from the west had to
be inspected and repacked to main
} tain the high standard.
Twin Falls now grades the potatoes
as they come from the field, separat-
ing the fancy baking sizes from ordin-
airy market run The bakers are put
up in sacks, unwrapped, and shipped
in carloads to the east to be carried in
storage, and there sold in two differ
ent ways:
Some concerns stick to the box plan
| wrapping each potato. Packing can be
/ done more cheaply in city like Chi
/ cago, labor and boxes being less ex-
/ pensive, and grade maintained in a
way that makes every potato perfect
= Others simply sell the fancy bakers in
sacks, unwrapped, after going over
the stock to remove potatoes showing
} decay and damage.
This Is so much better that probably
} Twin Falls will never ship box pota-
toes again Some men with consider
Y able experience in making markets fol
} fancy baking potatoes have abandoned
t the box idea altogether, saying that il
represents useless work and expers
r and that the steward and grocer can
= handle unwrapped graded stock in
e sacks just as we'll. Wrapping and
r boxing has some advantages, however
J.. 1t carries the brand better. Twin
Falls has done nothing in developing
> trade in peck boxes of graded potatoes
IT, or
e in eastern growing districts.
9 Even if the box potato ultimately
3 proves too expensive, and disappears
= from the trade, the idea has served
e a fine purpose in marketing For Il
\ was just the novelty needed to make
: strong appeal to the Imagination II
y connection with new way of grading
0 potatoes. Trade and public often meet
jolt to wake them to the merits Of {
4 staple article In new form. The boz
= idea widely advertised the fancy baker
!, They handle the small marketable
potatoes skillfully In Twin Falls. Fol
0 latter the big bakers have been sorted
J. out of field run, and nubbins have
: been fed to the hogs, the sizes in be
= tween, running from four to eigh
S ounces, are just the uniform stock t
= DAAi6 Tic OCot RAANCo AAOaAA NAtC oON~-
e ern trade.
$ The south has its own notions abou
y Irish potatoes.
Last winter Twin Falls shippe
t rolled several cars of nicely grade
o baking potatoes to st. Louis. TIe.
k averaged twelve ounces each, and HI
= sent them away in the belief that tn
: trade there would be greatly pleased
= for he considered them choice. To hi
d establishment complaint was mad'
: about them.
|. TOO big-overgrown! said 81
= Louis, and would take them only at
: reduction from regular market prices
y He reshipped them to Chicago and go
n a premium over the market price.
d All through the south they like tn
q small potato. Quality seems to b.
associated with the four to eight ounce
q sizes, which are considered inferior II
e the north. So. In grading out tn
s fancy bakers for the northern trade