860 



Dr. BossEY wished to know what was the quantity of aqueous mat- 

 ter in the potato, to which 



Mr. Rogers replied, that it might be averaged from 72 to 78 per 

 cent. 



Mr. WooLLETT asked whether the process was not more simple in 

 the preparation of meal and flour from the potato than from wheat ? 



Mr. Rogers replied, that it would be infinitely more simple, and 

 that any farmer who had the apparatus for making cheese, would, by 

 the addition of a common bread-grater, be enabled to prepare 

 meal and flour for his household use. Mr. Rogers then described 

 the operation to consist in grating the potato on a bread-grater into 

 a tub of water : the whole matter, when grated, settles down to the 

 bottom, and, after changing the water two or three times, becomes fit 

 to be placed in a cloth made up in the shape of a small parcel ; and 

 the water being pressed out of it by means of a cheese-press, or com- 

 mon lever, the cake thus formed may be dried on a cloth or tray before 

 the fire, and on being broken up by the hand, and run through a com- 

 mon coffee-mill, will present the whole meal of the potato. This 

 whole meal, sifted in the same way that the farmer sifts the whole 

 meal of wheat, will give the different descriptions of flour required for 

 household use. 



Mr. WooLLETT thought that much of the nutriment would go off in 

 the water. 



Mr. Rogers said his impression was that little, if any, went off so ; 

 iDut that if it did, the analysis made by the French chemists and others 

 had been on the dry material, and that, therefore, whatever quantity 

 had gone off in the water was not taken into account in the tables 

 given. 



Dr. BossEY was curious to know what quantity of potatoes was con- 

 sidered necessary to support a working man per day, he asked the 

 question in relation to the quantity of nutriment necessary per day to 

 support a man. 



Mr. Rogers replied, that those of his poor countrymen who had 

 nothing else but the potato to live upon, usually used three-quarters 

 of a stone a day, in three divisions or meals ; and that that was his 

 principal reason for so strongly advocating the preparation of meal 

 and flour from the potato, in order that they might obtain its nutritious 

 value in a properly condensed state, in place of being obliged to gorge 

 themselves with 75 per cent, of useless aqueous matter contained in 

 the potato when only boiled. He would not, however, be understood to 

 advocate altogether the discontinuance of the use of the potato in its 



