TESTING NEW FOODS' 



David Fairchild 



Agricultural Explorer in Charge of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washingtoii, D. C. 



EVERYONE has his own idea of 

 foods and will discuss it with 

 you as long as you will listen. 

 It forms the chief topic of con- 

 versation among primitive peoples, and 

 yet, strange to^ say, so little serious at- 

 tention has been given to the subject 

 that the real bearing of taste upon food 

 production is not suspected by most 

 educated people. 



There is a general feeling that a new 

 food plant comes into use in some quiet, 

 mysterious way, that belongs in the 

 category of natural occurrences, in- 

 stead of requiring the solution of many 

 practical problems. 



In the attempts which my associates 

 and I have been making for twenty 

 years to introduce into use in America 

 the food plants popular in other lands, 

 we have learned a good many things 

 about foods and the difficulties of really 

 testing them, and we have also caught a 

 glimpse of certain changes which are 

 coming in the world of food production 

 and consumption. The thought that 

 these experiences of ours and the 

 deductions which we have drawn from 

 them may interest the members of this 

 section of the association, prompted me 

 to accept Dr. Cook's invitation to join 

 such distinguished company as that of 

 my old friends Harper and Moore. 



It is a complicated thing to test a new 

 food plant ; it seems simple, but it is 

 not so. Let me give some actual expe- 

 riences in illustration. 



THE ARRACACHA 



In 1899 I visited Caracas with my 

 friend Mr. Barbour Lathrop and be- 

 came familiar with the Arracacha, 



{Arracacha xanthorisa), which is a 

 favorite vegetable among Venezuelans. 

 I ate it poorly prepared in a hotel there, 

 but believed, nevertheless, that it had 

 possibilities. My friend was rather in- 

 different to it. I interviewed old Dr. 

 Ernst, a German botanist, who had 

 spent many years in Caracas, and he 

 was enthusiastic in his praise of it. 

 How could it be decided whether my 

 friend's epicurean judgment. Dr. 

 Ernst's, or my own, in regard to the 

 vegetable, was correct? I decided that 

 my own guess was as good as my 

 friend's, and that when the vegetable 

 was better prepared, and he again had a 

 chance to taste it, he might change his 

 mind. There were no other Americans 

 in Caracas whose opinions I could get. 

 The vegetable could not be sent to the 

 United States, for it would rot on the 

 way. The only alternative was to get 

 sets^ of it and grow them in some part 

 of the United States. I had not seen 

 the plant growing, so I went into the 

 interior and saw it as it is grown there 

 in the door-yards, and photographed it 

 under difficulties. The sets failed to 

 survive the voyage. I imported them 

 again in 1899 from Jamaica, in 1905 

 from Porto Rico, in 1909 from Pan- 

 ama, in 1910 again from Caracas, in 

 1911 from Panama and Caracas, again 

 in 1912 and 1913 from Caracas, and in 

 1916 from Jamaica and Venezuela. 

 Sometimes they died in transit, some- 

 times they refused to grow after being 

 injured by the necessary fumigation, 

 and sometimes they were killed by neg- 

 lect or frost in the field tests. At last 

 Consul Brett of La Guaira sent me a 

 lot of fine sprouts or sets, and, coinci- 



1 Address before the Botanical Society of America and Section G of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, in Baltimore, December 26, 1918. 



2 Young plants fit for setting out. — Ed. 



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