30 DBHYDRATIOIT OF FKUITS AND VEGETABLES. 



The Chairman. That is a very good suggestion. I did not pro- 

 vide that it ought to be a revolving fund, but I see it ought to be so. 



Mr. Faiechild. Otherwise the money would soon give out. 



Senator Noeris. They might take toll as they did in the olden 

 times when they took their wheat to the gristmill — ^bring in the 

 product and take toll of it. 



Mr. Faiechild. I think the difficulty wo aid be that the man on the 

 farm who brought his product to market would have his own fresh 

 vegetables. 



Senator Noukjs. Some things, like potatoes, that he could keep he 

 would. 



Mr. Faiechild. That would not make it commercially feasible. 

 We can return to the question of how well these dried vegetables 

 would be liked. I carried on a campaign which I would like to men- 

 tion in this connection. Assuming that we follow those who are our 

 superiors socially in these matters of food — and I am convinced that 

 the foods we aie now growing, many of them at least, became estab- 

 lished fashions through such agencies as the patronage of royalty 

 and the patronage of the Pope in the old days, and similarly to-day 

 I have found by practical experience that with these new vegetables 

 the higher I go up on the social scale the more likely I am to get 

 people to interest themselves in them. The others follow their lead 

 ]ust as they do in other fashions. 



I got last summer a number of ladies in the Cabinet to taste a 

 number of these dried vegetables to find out whether they would like 

 them, and I have here the testimony from them. There have been 

 given a number of luncheons, or dinners, in which these vegetables 

 have been served just as you would serve fresh vegetables, and the 

 testimony indicates that they are very palatable indeed. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. Can these vegetables be had anywhere 

 in Washington '( Is there any place where they can be bought on the 

 market ? 



Mr. Faiechild. That is one of the difficulties; they can not be; 

 and that is where the most serious check in the expansion of the 

 business has taken place. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. Can these vegetables be bought any- 

 where in Washington in the market ? 



Mr. Faiechild. That is one of the difficulties. They can not be, 

 and that is where the most serious check and the expansion of the 

 business has taken place. The distributing agencies of any dried- 

 vegetable firm must be very large. in order to cover the cities of the 

 country, and unless something unusual is done to attract the public 

 attention to these vegetables they will drag along and be a very 

 long time before they are where people can get to them. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. How many plants would you say you 

 could build with $250,000— good, big plants? 



Mr. Faiechild. It would be very difficult to say. The smallest 

 sweet-potato plant which we have even considered 



Senator Smith of Georgia (interposing). That is what I am most 

 interested in. 



Mr. Faiechild (continuing). Would cost about $5,000. The dry- 

 ing of the sweet potatoes we figured was a simpler process than any 

 of the other processes. 



