They are not placed first upon the list of vegetables in this work because they are especially nutritious. The potato holds seventy-five parts of water and eighteen of starch out of one hundred. The remaining seven parts are - albuminoids, one and a half; organic acids, one and one-fifth; dextrine, two parts; fat nothing and one-third; cellulose, one part; minerals, one part.

He who esteems potatoes to be the rod and staff of life may ponder the analysis and extract what comfort he can from it.

Nor are potatoes to be classed among the most digestible of vegetables. Starch and water in certain combinations clog the alimentary organs, and unripe potatoes irritate them. A diet of the favorite tuber is not wholesome for young children, and the laboring man, though a fool in the matter of dietetics, speedily learns that he must combine meat or milk with them if he would retain strength of muscle and integrity of bone.

So firmly rooted in the average intellect is the belief that this vegetable deserves the high rank it holds upon the national bill of fare, and in the affections of housewife and those to whom she ministers, that an article entitled "The Tyrant Potato," published in a leading periodical three years ago, drew down upon the writer of that and of the present protest a storm of dissent, and even personal vituperation, conveyed by private letters, newspaper paragraphs, and resolutions drafted by food conventions.

The Tyrant Potato was not assailed ignorantly or flippantly, and after further studies of its properties, its works, and its ways, the utmost concession that is now made to popular prejudice is in the declaration that since people will make potatoes nine-tenths of their vegetable diet, it is essential to the national digestion that the ninety-three parts of water and starch be cooked in such manner as shall render the edible as palatable and as little hurtful as is practicable when the constituents are not to be ignored.