MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 73 
of potatoes is sufficient for planting 150 feet of rows, which 
should yield 3 bushels of potatoes. The best early varieties 
are Early Ohio, Early Rose, and Irish Cobbler, while Rural 
New Yorker No. 2 and Carman No. 3 are the best late 
varieties. 
CANNING VEGETABLES 
With a sufficient amount of land available, not only can 
fresh vegetables be raised for the summer’s needs, but, per- 
haps what may prove to be even more important, a consid- 
erable addition to the winter’s supply of food may be had at 
comparatively little extra cost ica effort. As set forth in the 
preceding article, potatoes and similar crops which are easily 
stored should, when possible, constitute a part of the garden; 
but if this is not practicable, the canning of surplus vege- 
tables, or, better, growing extra peas, corn, tomatoes, etc., 
especially for preserving, will help much towards preventin 
the anticipated food shortage in this country next fall an 
winter. 
In America particularly we have become so accustomed 
to the preservation of all kinds of foods in glass or tin that 
it is difficult to realize how comparatively modern is this 
process. Yet it is less than a hundred years since the estab- 
lishment of the industry, Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett 
being credited with packing oysters, lobsters, and salmon in 
New York, and William Underwood and Charles Mitchel 
preserving fruits in Boston, about 1820. Nicholas Appert, 
a French confectioner and chef, is usually regarded as the 
discoverer of the art of canning. The French bsg 
having offered a prize of 12,000 francs for a method of pre- 
serving foods which would be eae for army and naval 
use, Appert set to work about 1795, but it was not until 1804 
that he hit upon the essentials of the method, namely, heat- 
ing the product and hermetically sealing the container. By 
1810, after innumerable experiments, Appert was satisfied 
with the results and published his method, whereupon he 
was awarded the prize. Although primarily a war measure, 
the great advantage of being able to preserve food for indef- 
inite periods was obviously of such value that the process 
was almost immediately applied commercially, and to-day 
the annual value of goods canned in the United States alone 
exceeds a quarter of a billion dollars. 
_ Appert, of course, worked long before anything was def- 
initely known concerning the causes of the spoiling of foods, 
and ascribed his results to the exclusion of the outside air. 
Indeed, Guy Lussac, one of the foremost chemists of his time, 
