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.
MISCELLANEOUS
ART. XVIII. _Biographical Notice of the late_ ARCHIBALD BRUCE, M.
D. _Professor of Materia Medica, and Mineralogy in the Medical
Institution of the State of New-York, and Queen's College,
New-Jersey; and Member of various Learned Societies in America and
Europe._ With a Portrait.
(Communicated.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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