All About Potatoes

Waupaca Post

February 1894

ALL ABOUT POTATOES

Facts Concerning the Most Popular of Food Products

America is rich in both the quantity and variety of her food products, but bread and potatoes are the leading articles consumed by all classes, and in very many cases potatoes were an ingredient of the bread.

A taste for potatoes is universal (the number who do not like them being so small as not to count) and natural. No one has to “acquire” a liking for them. Probably they are agreeable to this vast majority for the same reason that water is – the lack of taste. The potato is all things to all men because, having no distinct flavor of its own, it readily takes any that may be added to it, and thus acquires the variety essential to good living, and which prevents satiety.

To most people potatoes are divided into two classes, poor and good; but with the experts who make a study of their development the classes go far beyond such a dimple division, while the number of varieties is something overwhelming to a novice in potato lore. However, the principal classes known to commerce are but four, although the varieties included in each class are numerous and constantly changing. For new varieties are produced every year, and when one is grown that has some quality which makes it superior to preceding sorts it is sure to find a foothold with potato growers, and so takes its place as a market variety in the class to which it belongs.

Occasionally a variety is produced that possesses such distinctive characteristics as to set it quite apart from all that have preceded it, creating an entirely new fashion in potatoes and becoming the founder of a new class. Its name, as a variety, is arbitrarily decided by the grower; but, once given, it is usually also adopted as the name of the new class. Each subsequent variety derived from this founder of a line, and resembling it more or less, it is also given a name to distinguish it form all other varieties, but all belong to the one class. So it comes about that while growers recognize both variety and class by name, dealers usually pay attention only to classes, and to them all varieties of the Burbank class are Burbanks, while those belonging to the Hebron class are Hebrons, and so on though the list.

These classes have a greater interest for consumers than appears on the surface. The varieties are of far less importance. In fact many a housewife still asks for Peachblow potatoes, because of a remembered liking for a red potato bought years ago, and thinks she gets it, although there has probably not been a Peachblow potato grown in the United States for a long time. But she is just as well, or even better off, since she gets what looks to her like the old variety, and is in reality an improved descendant.

An amusing instance of this clinging to the old name occurred last September in the remarkably instructive potato exhibit made by new York State in the Agricultural Building at the World’s Fair.

A cheery, elderly countrywoman bustled up to Mr. Pierson, the director of the exhibit, and said: “I see you have Black Mechanic potatoes. I haven’t seen any for a long time.”

“No, we have none, madam.”

“O, yes, you have. There they are, right out there on the table. My husband used to raise them, and I should like so much to have one to carry home and show to the children.”

“Very well, madam. You may take one and welcome.”

And the woman went on her way smiling and content, carrying her odd souvenir, while Mr. Pierson said to the writer: “It’s only a descendant, with a strong resemblance to the ancient founder of the line, but it makes her happier to think it the original.”

Wise potato man, and wiser Shakespeare. Truly “he is well paid that is well satisfied.”

The four prominent commercial classes are the Burbank, Hebron, and Rose for early (that is to say, for fall and winter) use, and the Peerless to be used in late winter, in spring, and in early summer up to the time when new potatoes are ripe enough to be wholesome.

Potatoes may be said to be composed of water and starch, and it is well to bear in mind that those of the varieties classed as “early”, marketed in the fall, contain a much larger proportion of starch than those of the late peerless class, usually held to supply the market in spring. The Peerless contains a large percentage of water when fresh, and for that reason keeps well, while for the same reason they make less desirable food at that age and stage, and should not be used in early winter if others can be obtained. But when the potato crop is short, as it is this year, the Peerless class often is found in market in quantities early in the season, for they are very productive. So consumers must be alert or they will be paying a good, round price for water neatly packed in potato skins when it would be cheaper to draw it from the faucet, or even from the well; and when by a little care in selection, something better worth the money could be had at the same price.

It is a matter well worth attention, too, for as one must eat twenty-seven pounds of the best potatoes to get as much nutriment as is contained in one pound of cheese, fancy the dire consequence of trying to build up one’s tissues on the watery sorts of which it would be necessary to consume – but there, the subject grows too bulky for comfort, and a word suffices for the wise.

The ability to distinguish the various classes being necessary, a sketch and description of each prominent type may be helpful. The Burbank class includes all white kidney-shaped potatoes, the leading varieties at this time being “Morning Star”, “White Star”, “dandy”, “White Flower”, “Dutton’s Seedling”, etc.

The Hebron class includes all flesh-colored or pink and white mottled potatoes, the principal varieties being “White Elephant”, “June Eating”, “Gen. Garfield”, “Albino”, etc.

The Rose class includes all red potatoes, but is subdivided into three important sections. The first, or Ohio division, is made up of all red or rose-colored potatoes that are short and cylindrical in form, as “Early Electric”, “Early Market”, “New Zealand”, “Everett’s Six Weeks’, etc., by its shape you must know it, and to recognize it at sight is important, because, while potatoes of this shape are excellent when of small or of medium size, they are almost certain to be hollow-hearted when grown to a large size. This fact is so well understood by the intelligent potato grower that the plants varieties of this class on poor soil which is exactly adapted to their peculiar characteristic, for in such locations they produce good marketable crops of medium sized tubers, while on rich soil they would be large, hollow, and unsaleable to reliable dealers.

The second section of the Rose Class includes all kidney-shaped, red or rose-colored potatoes, all of which are descendants of Early Rose. The present prominent varieties are “Summit”, “Pearl of Savoy”, “New York Central”, and “Paris Rose”. The third and last subdivision of the Rose class may be called the miscellaneous section since it includes all other shapes and sizes of red potatoes, embracing many of the Peachblow and Chili varieties, as “Dakota Seedling”, “Dakota Red”, “Seneca Red Jacket”, “Ideal”, “Maggie Murphy” (which is the latest of them all), and “Stray Beauty”, which many account the choicest of the section and as good a potato as has yet been produced.

Next comes the fourth class, the varieties of which are not, except in extreme cases, put on the market until spring – the Peerless class. The prominent varieties are “Rural Blush”, red: “Rural New Yorker”, No. 2, white; and “Blue Victor”, dark bluish purple in color. The shape of all varieties in this class is distinctive and is technically described by potato experts as round or oval. But this description is likely to be misleading to people in general unless it is understood that they are round or oval horizontally not at all approaching a ball or rue oval shape, and that they are distinctly flattened on the two broad sides. That is to say, they are much broader and longer than they are thick. It is safe to speak of them as large flat potatoes.

The use of all potatoes of this shape, regardless of their color, should be avoided when possible, until late winter. From that time on they are really better than any others because the water which makes them keep so well (and also makes them less desirable as food) has by that time largely evaporated, leaving them in good, eatable condition, while the varieties that were desirable earlier in the season have become flabby and in a measure unwholesome from being kept so long.

Another class – which does, not, however, come under the head of commercial – is interesting and, from the point of view of the consumer, extremely desirable – the baking class. Dwellers in cities may not hope to find any of its varieties in the market, for they are unprofitable as a market crop on account of their comparatively small yield. The class is made up of long, rather small, straight, or curved – some so much so as to be called the “cowhorn” section – potatoes with but slight depressions around the eyes and with skins of such fine, close texture that the dry earth falls off as they are dug, leaving them clean enough to be put in the oven without being washed They are a luxury because of their extraordinarily good quality, and many sensible farmers, who believe in having good things on their own tables, grow enough for home use.

The New York potato exhibit at the Fair was of scientific interest to all potato-growers. The experts who raised the samples shown were required to keep an exact record of he entire operation and this was attached to each lot shown, so that any one who would take the trouble to read could in a few minutes learn what it took a number of men an entire season to find out by experience. It was intended to be educational, the end in view being to learn the comparative yield of different varieties, under various conditions, and to determine the comparative value of different fertilizers. Under these test some of the results shown were as follows: “Blue Victor”, of the Peerless class, showed the largest yield of any variety tested, giving under field culture, both ill and field test were made in each case, 1,026-1/2 bushels per acre; fertilizer used, 1,000 pounds Mape’s food per acre. “Morning Star”, of the Burbank class yielded 400 bushels per acre; fertilizers, twenty loads of compost and 100 pounds of Bradley’s complete food per acre. “Gen. Garfield” of the Hebron class, yielded 600 bushels per acre; fertilizer, same as last. “Maggie Murphy” of the miscellaneous division of the Rose class yielded 574 bushels per acre; fertilizer, 300 pounds of Lister’s food per acre. Manitoba, red, white, and blue, of the Cowhorn section of the baking potato class, yielded 306 bushels to the acre; fertilizer, 600 pounds of Bowker’s food per acre.

Further tests made by the experts who supplied potatoes and facts for the New York exhibit included a showing of he relative results from planting one, two, and three eyes. In the case of ‘Blue Victor”, for instance, three eyes produced 256 2-3 bushels per acre more than one eye, all other conditions being equal. It does not follow, however, that it is always best to plant three eyes.

The conclusion drawn from the results of he various tests was that increasing the seed diminishes the size and increases the yield; so it is plain that all varieties of the Ohio division of the Rose class would be improved by planting three eyes. It was also found that rank-growing varieties require more seed than those of slender growth to produce the largest crop of marketable potatoes. It is interesting to know that the men who are every year experimenting with seedling potatoes, from which the new and improved sorts must come, are obliged to practice artificial fertilization since the potato bug has increased so materially in vigor and abundance. In a careful search made this last summer through 500 different varieties of potatoes only seventeen of them were found to be bearing seed. Such an ocular demonstration proves that science must do its part if our tables are to retain that essential to a dinner, either simple or elaborate – good potatoes. - Chicago Tribune