POTATO PARAGRAPHS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 19 July 1907, Page 4

POTATO PARAGRAPHS.

The public wants good potatoes at a reasonable price. But goodness in a potato may take various forms, according to the conditions. A potato which is a remarkable success when "nen" may lx> a rank failue as a keeper. Then a tine potato for storing may turn out very watery when cooked, potato boom acutest in the United Kingdom, where the raisers of plants have been very busy introducing new varieties. This was a movement much needed on account of the degeneracy overtaking many of the old forms though the prolonged propagation from the ''eyes" of so-called seed potatoes. The boom thought out amazingly audacious claims for the qualities of some of them. It would seem as if potatoes weighing a pound apiece, yielding in the pot an alaba.ster white mass of meal with the liavor of nectar, were to drive off Hie market the puny waxy things that now appear upon our tables. During the potato boom one novelty was said to have fetched £'>() per tuber, and the purchaser of one precious "eye" out of this had to pay i's for the privilege. Another lot of new -seed" potatoes Were „aid to have changed hands at 1201111 per lb. The result was that a couple Of years ago the enterprising farmers in vaiiondistricts paid more for their "seed" than they got for the resulting crops. That brought about the collapse of the

Srols farmers were said lung to resist tin- introduction ol' the potato, because there was no Scriptural authority fi«r its growth. Wlmt would the oldtime Scots farmer h ilv ,. thought of the audaciity of liis descendants in producing new varieties as if the sihl planted in the Card™ of Kili'ti fur Adam and Kve were not good enough for any of their sinful descendants.

Though Hie potato is so excellent an liiigredient of a mixed dick it is quite unstated for sale as a. sole or staple food. It is rich in starch, but poor in flesh for giving constituents.. Tlie English habit of using potatoes to supplement meal is most ratiorfal. Probably Hie people of Ireland made a mistake in trusting too much to the potato. In the first ease they were induced liy the Royal Horticultural Society to take it up as a standby against famine when ordinary cereal crops failed, as they were, liable to do with the Irish climate. Hut when t!i" potato caught on it began to be used a- a substitute for ■„ hi at and oats. In many eases the weight of potatoes taken out of uu acre uf ground was 30 limes that of the wheat which could lie got. Kveu when allowance is made for the fact that threeijuarters of the potato is water, the potato in Ireland produces about six times 113 much dry foodstuffs as wheat to each acre. The overmuch reliance of the Irish people on the potato produced the terrible famine of 18JG-J7. when the potato blight ruined I lie staph; crop. Through the direct and indirect results of the scarcity of food, half a million people perished. Thus the Ante ricaii tuber, which was introduced to avoid famines, caused one of the severest, through being too much relied upon. 11l Germany a failure of the grain crops in 1772 first brought the potato into prominence in the national system of farming. Germany is now by far Hie large,! producer of potatoes in ||,e world, raising four times as much as the I'uited States. That country converts more than :>,oOi),n()(i tons of potatoes every year into alcohol. While the Australian selector is burning off tine timber jii-t to get rid of it. the German fanner is growing potatoes to make alcohol, which is being used as a fuel more and more.