Popular Science Monthly 



699 



would not be discovered whereby the 

 surplus crop of fat years could be saved for 

 use when demand required. This seems 

 to be the process for the purpose. 



An instance of the needless waste of 

 vegetables in this country is afforded 

 by the fact that not long ago 3,300 

 bags of onions were thrown into 

 San Francisco Bay because 

 they had deteriorated in the 

 warehouses and could not 

 be sold. This when the 

 price of onions was 

 soaring sk>-ward at an 

 unbelievable rate! 

 Green vegetables 

 will remain edible 

 so long, and no 

 longer. The ulti- 

 mate consumer, and 

 he alone, must pay 

 for wastage. 



When You Buy Vege- 

 tables You Pay for 

 Much Water 



It is not generally ap- 

 preciated to what extent 

 water enters into all vege- 

 table matter. With 

 wheat, for instance, 

 twenty per cent is mois- 

 ture. In other words, out of every five 

 carloads of wheat, one represents water. 

 Freight charges are paid on this as if it 

 were nutriment. There is no rebate on the 



Shredding a cabbage preparatory to 

 relieving it of its 91.5 per cent water 



The water extracted from the vegetables in 

 this machine runs off into the barrel below 



water contents of the foodstuffs carried by 

 railroads and freight ships. 



The ultimate consumer foots the entire 

 bill when he buys his barrel of flour. Not 

 only that, but the baker's loaf — sold by 

 weight — is thirty-five per cesnt 

 water. 

 The marketman has to contend 

 with the same difficulties. A 

 goodly percentage of his 

 stock wilts and deterio- 

 rates, all because of the 

 same trouble-breeding 

 moisture. What he 

 sells must therefore 

 bring a price high 

 enough to balance 

 this loss. 



The wholesaler, 

 also, is confronted 

 by similar condi- 

 tions. He has to 

 pay charges for trans- 

 portation, cover depre- 

 ciation in transit, and 

 sell at prices that will 

 insure a profit. 



Returning again to the 

 farmer: He can ship 

 only the ver>' best of his 

 produce in order that his 

 perishable wares may 

 stand reasonably well their journey to the 

 markets. As a result, when his vegetables 

 ripen overabundantly, he has to count as a 

 loss that part of his crop which remains 

 in his barn, and is forced to increase the 

 price of his marketable goods accordingly. 

 Although consumers fume over the high 

 price of fresh vegetables, they seldom 

 realize these fundamental causes, which 

 op>erate to bring it about. 



When the Europeans turned their minds 

 to conserving surplus farm products, they 

 sought to imitate nature, which had taught 

 primitive man how to keep food by drying 

 it in the sun or by the heat of a fire. The 

 great difficulty experienced by foreign 

 scientists was that while heat dried vege- 

 tables brought into contact with it, it did 

 not do so with any degree of uniformity. 



To preserve vegetables, it is necessary 

 to withdraw the moisture from their inner- ' 

 most recesses as well as from their exterior. 

 Otherwise, deterioration will start and 

 progress under the surface. Too great an 

 amount of heat will bake the interior; and 

 too little will leave the interior subject to 

 mold and decay. 



