EDIBLE TUBERS, BULBS OR ROOTS 



for winter use) were accustomed to save a portion 

 of tlie Bread-root harvest, first slicing the tubers 

 and then drying them in the sun or over a slow 

 fire. The dried article was ground between stones 

 and added to stews or soups, or mixed with water 

 and baked in the form of cakes. The heart of the 

 tuber is white and granular, and, according to an 

 analysis quoted by Dr. Havard,^ contains 70% 

 starch, 9% nitrogenous matter and 5% sugar. Some 

 attempts have been made to introduce it into culti- 

 vation as a rival of the potato, but the latter is so 

 well entrenched in the popular regard that nothing 

 has come of the effort. As a resource for those 

 who are cut off from a potato supply, however, this 

 free offering of Nature should be better known. 

 John Colter, one of Lewis and Clarke's men, escap- 

 ing from some Blackfeet who were intent upon 

 killing him, lived for a week entirely upon these 

 Bread-root tubers, which he gathered as he made 

 his painful way, afoot, wounded, and absolutely 

 naked, back to the settlements of the whites. 



There are, by the way, two wild species of true 

 potatoes indigenous to the mountains of New Mexico 

 and Arizona — Solanum tuberosum boreale, Gray, and 



2 "Food Plants of the North American Indians," Bulletin Torrey 

 Botanical Club, Vol. 22, No. 3. 



