Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1886 — Potatoes. [ARTICLE]

Potatoes.

There is a frequently quoted but most fallacious rumor floating around that bread is the staff of life. Believe me, it is all veritable nonsense; simply another concoction of the wheat speculator. To bo sure, if you use the term in its broadest meaning, to include crackers, sweet-cakes, and slap-jacks, as well as the commodity that is sliced off the loaf, there is probably more bread used than any other item in the world’s bill of fare; but for good sustaining assistance- there is no better prop on which limping humanity can lean than the invigorating potato. It is most palatable, capable of infinite variety in its preparation, and exhilarates but never inebriates, possessing none of tha qualities of a “sourmasli” even when served in the form in which it usually accompanies roast beef. The nature of the potato is most itnobstrusive, there is nothing in the wide world so immensely serviceable that has received so little commendation: however, its modesty bespeaks its merit * We must acknowledge the potato is not a pretty thing to look upon. Its form is not comely, its color hot aesthetic, and its skin is hough add lumpy; wash it clean of the dirt off its native homo and it does not gain much. Son/e things, like certain varieties of wild flowers, are not pretty as a single specimen, yet when, you get a number of them together they are quite handsome, but the potato has not even this advantage, for a heap of a thousand potatoes is no more beautiful than a lone solitary tuber. But take them when they are prepared for ouar use, when we find them on the tablo cracking open, white as snow, full of steaming nourishment, they are lovely to the eye aird savory to the palate^. Only give the potato a little seasoning, a little luxurious cream, and a good stirring up, and the richness, the pleasure it can confer is unrivaled. The potato is the - symbol of plain, substantial, useful, but homely, people. Their unobstrusiveness may teach you more fortunate ones how your homely brothers and sisters feel. You may leai-n from the potato that there aro thousands of inen and women, unattractive in appearance, uncouth in speech, and awkward in manner, whose hearts are rich in goodness and whose* lives are a perpetual unfolding benefaction to those around them. They only need a little stirring up, a little developing, a little investigation, and their repaying qualities are found to be unequaledc —Chicago Ledyw. A little management may often evade resistance, which a vast foree might vainly strive to Overcome. Satire is a gloss in which the beholder aees everybody's faee hut liis own, “7