36 Uses of the Potatoe. 



mer objects to the constant use of potatoes for food, not 

 because they are pernicious to the body, but because they 

 hurt the faculties of the mind. He owns that those who eat 

 maize, potatoes, or even millet, may grow tall and acquire a 

 large size. It does not, however, by any means appear, that 

 the general use of potatoes has impaired either the health of 

 body or vigor of mind of its inhabitants. 



The manufacture of potatoe flour is carried on, to a consid- 

 erable extent, in the neighborhood of Paris, and the flour is 

 sold at a price considerably higher than that of wheat, for the 

 use of confectioners, and of bakers who supply the finer kinds 

 of bread. The potatoes are washed and grated, and the 

 starch separated from the pulp so attained by nitration ; it is 

 dried on shelves, in a room heated by a flue, and afterwards 

 broken on a floor, by passing a cast iron roller over it. It is 

 then passed into a bolting machine and put into sacks for 

 sale. It is reported by Count de Chatrol, in his statistical 

 account of Paris, that forty thousand tons of potatoes are an- 

 nually manufactured into flour within a circle of eight leagues 

 around the city. 



The quantity of farina which potatoes produce varies not 

 only according to tjie species, but according to the period 

 when the extraction takes place. The variations produced 

 by this last cause are nearly as follows : 



Two hundred and forty pounds of potatoes, produced of 

 farina, or potatoe flour, in 



August, from 23 to 25 pounds. 



The extraction of the farina should be discontinued at 



