THE POTATO AND ITS COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS. 331 



their production. The tree grew in size, and the leaves and the flowers 

 were abundant, or otherwise, and palely or intensely coloured, according to 

 the degree of sunshine poured upon them. Decay conies over the living 

 forests, and they gradually change into the form which we name coal. We 

 dig this from the earth, and we submit it to the destructive chemistry of 

 the gasworks. Gas is obtained ; we employ it for all purposes of illumina- 

 tion, and there are other products left behind. The quantity of light we 

 obtain from the gas produced by a given weight of coal is exactly the 

 quantity of Light which was necessary to complete the growth of the plants 

 from which the coal was formed ; so that we are actually in our library, 

 writing this brief essay, warmed by the Heat, and illuminated by the Light, 

 which was flooded upon this earth long before it was fitted to be the abode 

 of man. Again, the Mauve and Magenta, with their allied colours, are due 

 to those mysterious forces which — we scarcely yet know how — give colour 

 to Nature. They were produced in the very youth of the world, and have 

 been stored until now in the earth's recesses. 



The lady clad in Mauve or Magenta, modern though these colours be, 

 walks abroad, into the sunshine of to-day, in tints produced by that same 

 orb, ages before Eve, the mother of mankind, had been taught to clothe 

 herself in the vegetable beauties of the Garden of Eden* 



THE POTATO AND ITS COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



The potato products, and their economic uses, and the industries they 

 evoke, are more extensive than may be generally supposed by those who 

 have considered this tuber only as it appears in its edible form 

 at our dinner-tables; and the preparation and application of many of 

 its subsidiary products are not so generally known as might be desirable. 

 Of all our root crops, none is more valuable than the potato : it furnishes 

 nutritive food to man and beast, and is one of the most important contri- 

 butions to the Old World which the discovery of the New gave. 



It is considered by political economists, next to wheat, of the greatest 

 importance as human food; leaving out of view the circumstance that, in 

 times of scarcity, it affords food fully three months earlier than the cereal 

 grains. As compared with wheat, its nutritive properties are compara- 

 tively low ; yet one acre of potatoes gives more food for man than two 

 acres of oats. The potash and the soda present in the potato are con- 

 sidered to form important elements in its adaptation to nutrition, as a 

 source of supply of those substances to the animal economy. Approaching 

 as it does somewhat closely in its composition to rice and the plantain, 

 which constitute the food of large masses of the human race, the potato 

 is yet superior to these in nutriment. 



* From the ' St James's Magazine.' . 



