chapter I

will call attention to only one more way of increasing the value of things we buy to eat. It is perhaps the most important of all methods--one which points the way to many large fortunes.

Once when I crossed the Atlantic westward on a German steamer the supply of eggs, calculated for nine or ten days, gave out on the fourth because nearly everybody on board was ordering them constantly. They were the best eggs I had ever eaten. The head steward, on being questioned, explained that they came from a farm where a special kind of feed was given to the hens. The farmer had fed that Flavor into the eggs.

At once it flashed on me that great and profitable industries might be built up along that line and I wrote an article about it for _The Epoch_. That was more than two decades ago. At that time there was not the same interest there is now in dietary questions. More recently, the Department of Agriculture has taken up the matter and in several of its bulletins reference is made to experiments in feeding both unpleasant and pleasant flavors into food.

At the North Carolina Experiment Station, in 1909, hens were fed for two weeks on onions, the result being so strong an onion flavor in the eggs that they could not be used. A week after discontinuing the onions, the hens again laid eggs of normal flavor.

Milk and butter are similarly spoiled when the cows eat wild garlic or quantities of turnips. Everybody knows, too, that some kinds of ducks are not fit to eat because of the fish they live on. In Egypt a locust diet makes poultry unfit to eat, and sometimes there are in our markets chickens that are unobjectionable except for an insect tang which mars their flavor. Pork from pigs fed on garbage is spoiled by a worse tang.

On the other hand, most animal foods can be improved by feeding desirable flavors into them. Grouse are best in blueberry season, and the flavor of all game varies with its feed. Kongo chickens fed on pineapples are said to be a morsel fit for the gods. Belgian partridges owe their excellence to the beetroot they feed on.

Mexican pigs are often fattened on bananas. They must make prime pork. In the chapter on England I noted that it is chiefly the excellence of the feed (skim milk and barley) that determines the superior flavor and commercial value of Wiltshire bacon.

In the good old times, before our forests were destroyed, the beechnut was the principal food for swine.

"The hogs which are fattened by eating the beechnut and acorn produced a species of pork of a peculiar and very highly prized flavor," writes Dr. Wiley. "The celebrated hams and bacons of the southern Appalachian ranges were produced from the variety of hogs known as the razor-backs fattened on mast, namely, the chestnut, beechnut, and acorn." Yams (belonging to the sweet-potato class) also help to flavor these southern pork products.

The ham and bacon which made Virginia beloved of epicures helped also to make the neighboring Baltimore one of the country's gastronomic centers. In the days when canvasback ducks and diamondback terrapin were abundant Baltimore was the gourmet's headquarters. There were terrapin palaces in those days, in Baltimore and Philadelphia, as now there are lobster palaces in all our large cities.

It has been stated frequently that the canvasback and redhead ducks and the diamondback terrapin owe their superior flavor to the food they have in common, the so-called wild celery, which grows in abundance in Chesapeake Bay. Now, this "wild celery" is no celery at all; it botanical name is _valisneria_. A correspondent of the Philadelphia "Ledger" has, moreover, cast doubt on the claim that it is the _valisneria_ grass that so agreeably flavors these birds and turtles. He found the ducks feeding greedily on the seeds of a species of pondweed, _potamogeton pectinatus_. Tasting these seeds he found a distinct flavor of celery and became convinced that it was this and not the _valisneria_ that gave the bird its peculiar flavor. The point ought to be settled by scientific experts, for if this sportsman is correct in his surmise, the efforts that are being made to breed and multiply these ducks need not be confined to Chesapeake Bay, as that pondweed is also abundant along the big lakes which separate us from Canada.

Why should not farmers cultivate this weed in ponds and improve the flavor of the ordinary domestic duck? The flavor imparted by the _potamogeton_--or the _valisneria_--is so rich that when a canvasback is cooked it needs no dressing, not even salt.

An American consul in Mexico calls attention to the fact that the rivers and lagoons of that country "literally swarm with turtles." "The wastes of water hyacinth are simply alive with them." These turtles, he says, are fat and fine of flesh and under careful handling would give a good return to the man who undertakes to ship them to the United States. "There is a small swamp turtle called the 'pochitoque,' which is of extremely fine flesh and flavor. It is found in great numbers in the swamps and lands that are annually overflowed in the State of Tobasco and is _very similar and quite equal to the famous diamondback turtle_. This also could be readily shipped to northern markets. It is not quite so abundant as the river turtle, but would find ready sale at fancy prices in view of the diminishing supply of the diamondback."

In these days, when there is so much complaint about all trades and occupations being overcrowded, it is strange that no one should have the sagacity to see the commercial value of catering to the demand for fine turtles. Sea and pond farming of all kinds holds in it a greater promise of wealth than all the world's mines. Terrapin-growing will be one of the great industries of the future.

It is worth noting that the old Roman epicures already had their ponds for rearing fishes of superior flavor as well as aviaries for feeding flavor into birds. Nero's fish pond was discovered in 1913. Lucullus and Apicius had aviaries in which thrushes and blackbirds were fattened for their tables on a paste made with figs, wheaten meal and aromatic grain. But such things were only for the very rich. What we want, and will get if we insist on it, are delicacies for the million.

Most if not all animal foods can be improved by feeding desirable flavors into them. In Farmers' Bulletin No. 200 the well-known poultry expert, T. F. McGrew, says that those who grow turkeys for a fancy market give them chestnuts and celeryseed during the last few weeks of fattening. Such feeding, he adds, imparts _a flavor which makes the meat worth from nine to twelve cents a pound more_ than that of ordinary turkeys. Yet "_to grow the best is quite as easy and but little more expensive than to grow the poorer grades, and the profit gained is almost double_."

Could the commercial value of Flavor be more triumphantly demonstrated? If the best costs but little more to produce than the poorest, why not cater to the million and make millions? Why pay so much attention to breed when, as another expert, S. M. Tracey, attests (Farmers' Bulletin No. 100), "management and feed are more important than breed"?

We have over a hundred varieties of chickens, but the best of them, improperly fed, are not so good to eat as inferior varieties that have had the right kind of feed during the last two or three weeks. That hogs, too, and other animals, need to have fancy feed only a few weeks to give them a flavor that commands a high price, is a matter of extreme importance from an economic point of view.

Producers of meat--and other foods--would make much more money if, instead of offering the poorest that people will buy at the highest price, they supplied the best at the lowest price. Other merchants discovered this truth long ago.

FARMERS, MIDDLEMEN, AND PARCEL POST.

Thousands of families in Germany and France have been able for years to indulge in the luxury of getting daily pats of fresh butter, as well as new-laid eggs, freshly-killed chickens, and succulent vegetables straight from the farmer's garden, thanks to the parcel postman. We, too, now have a parcel post and many look on it as a means of lowering the cost of living. It is that, no doubt; but it is more important from another point of view: it enables those who are fastidious as to what they eat to dodge the greengrocer who tries to foist on them farm produce which is not fresh and flavorsome; as well as poultrymen who refuse to heed the demand for fresh-killed fowls.

New plans for bringing the consumer into direct contact with the producer are discussed in the press every other day, and there is a great deal of talk about "eliminating the middlemen." Some of these undoubtedly ought to be ousted. There is no need of having four kinds of them--transportation agents, wholesalers, jobbers, and retailers. Some of these could be dispensed with, especially those who speculate in food products. To make war on retailers is an excusable proceeding, because of their frequent extortionate charges; yet we could not get along entirely without them. Not all of us can deal directly with the farmer, and those of us who do so are sure to find some day that he has sold his last turkey or his last head of lettuce--and then we have to fall back on the grocer or the butcher. Without the latter, where would we get some of our meats? If he is honest and knows his business, as he usually is and does, he is a specialist in the judging, handling, and cutting of meats. For this knowledge, and for the opportunity he gives us to buy any kind of meat we want at any time, he deserves to be paid, and well paid.

The chief trouble about the retail middlemen is that there are too many of them. They declare that there are more failures in their trade than in any other, and no wonder. In the fierce struggle for existence they resort to all sorts of tricks to deceive customers--an evil of which enough has been said in these pages.

If one-half of these retailers could be transferred to the country, to become growers of food instead of distributors, there would be few failures and the cost of living would be reduced. There is no doubt whatever that the ever-rising price of foodstuffs is due chiefly to the alarming increase in the number of consumers, with a corresponding decrease in the number of producers.

## Particularly unfortunate is the disinclination of farmers to raise

vegetables and small fruits for the market, or even for their own tables in many cases. "Western Canada," we read, "presents the peculiar anomaly of a wonderfully productive agricultural country importing most of its food products." Special efforts were made during 1911 "to awaken the farmers to the value of mixed farming," but without much success.

The same trouble exists in the United States, even in regions where the soil is less adapted for the growing of wheat by the mile than in Western Canada. Yet it has been proved again and again that much more money can be made by intensive methods on small farms than by growing grain on a large scale. It was this discovery that led to the decrease in the acreage of wheat grown in California and Oregon.

"I have made a careful study of the conditions of agriculture in the Santa Clara, San Jose and Sacramento valleys, and I am irresistibly led to the conclusion that the great ranches must be broken up into small holdings before permanent prosperity can come to the farmers of the Pacific Coast," remarks Professor Isaac Roberts, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, in an admirable little book published by the Orang Judd Company. It is entitled "Ten Acres Enough," and is just the book for those who feel inclined to leave the overcrowded cities and lead a busy but prosperous life in the country.

[Illustration: Chinese Canal]

To realize what could be done to increase this country's natural resources, read Professor F. H. King's article in the "National Geographic Magazine" for October, 1912, describing China's wonderful system of canals for transportation, drainage, irrigation, and fertilization, with the aid of which a population of 400,000,000, tilling a region not a third as large as the United States, has subsisted for thousands of years.

We need not go as far as China, however, for a good example. The market gardens of Paris, to which reference was made in