Art. XVII. On the Comparative Quantity of Nutritious Matter which may be obtained from an Acre of Land when cultivated with Potatoes or Wheat.
Art. XVII. On the Comparative Quantity of Nutritious Matter which may be obtained from an Acre of Land when cultivated with Potatoes or Wheat, by Dr. Eli Ives, Professor of Materia Medica and Botany in Yale College.
In a good season an acre of suitable land well cultivated will produce 400 bushels of potatoes. In Woodbridge, a town adjoining New-Haven, a crop of 600 bushels of potatoes has been obtained from a single acre. A bushel of potatoes weighs 56 pounds. Multiply 400, the number of bushels, by 56, the weight of a single bushel, gives 22400, the number of pounds of potatoes produced upon one acre.
Thirty bushels of wheat are considered a good crop as the product of one acre of land. About ⅚ of wheat may be considered as nutritious matter.
According to the experiments of Dr. Pearson and Einhoff, about one-third of the potato is nutritious matter. From the analysis of Einhoff, 7680 parts of potatoes afforded 1153 parts of starch—fibrous matter analogous to starch 540 parts—albumen 107 parts—mucilage 312 parts. The sum of these products amounts to about one-third of the potatoes subject to the experiment.
Sir Humphry Davy observes, that one-fourth of the weight of potatoes at least may be considered nutritious matter.
One-fourth of 22400, the product of an acre of ground, cultivated with potatoes, is 5600. The whole weight of a crop of wheat calculated at 30 bushels to the acre, and at 60 pounds to the bushel, gives 1800. Deducting one-sixth from the wheat as matter not nutritious, and the weight is reduced to 1500.
The nutritious matter of the crop of potatoes to that of wheat is as 5600 to 1500, or as 56 to 15.
The starch might be obtained by a very simple machine, recommended by Parmentier; and in seasons when potatoes are abundant, the potatoes might be converted to starch, and the starch preserved for any length of time, and used as a substitute for wheaten flour.
The machine alluded to is a cylinder of wood about three feet long and six inches in diameter, covered with sheet tin, punched outward so as to form a coarse grater, and turned by a crank. This cylinder is placed in a box of boards whose sides slope a little inward upon the principle of a hopper, and a tub of water is placed beneath: The potatoes are thrown into this box, and as the crank is turned they are crushed, and the starch or fecula subsides to the bottom of the water. It is well known, that potatoes are largely used in England mixed with flour to form a very good bread; the starch of the potato would of course answer much better.
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