• t date stamped below 
 
 2^ of4^ 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 ;LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
 
 READERS ON COMMERCE AMD INDUSTRY 
 
 HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 BY 
 FRANK GEORGE CARPENTER 
 
 AUTHOR OF carpenter's GEOGRAPHICAL READERS 
 
 4090 
 
 NEW YORK . CINCINNATI • CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
 
 BOOKS BY 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER 
 
 IFntro&uction to ©eocjrapb^ 
 
 AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE CHILDREN 
 
 (3eograpbfcal IReaDece 
 
 NORTH AMERICA 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 ASIA 
 
 AFRICA 
 
 AUSTRALIA AND ISLANDS OF THE SEA 
 
 TRcaDers on Commerce an5 ITnOustrig 
 
 HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 HOW THE WORLD IS CLOTHED 
 : ,f4QW THE; jVj'ORLD IS -HOUSED 
 
 '«'.*' ' ■" c.' '..I Ccipf iiiGf^i;, 1^47,; BT{ ■; • ■ 
 
 ' • • >RANk b;' Carpenter. 
 
 CARP. WORLD IS FED. 
 E. P. 22
 
 365 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book on Foods is the first of a series upon the great 
 
 tf) industries of the world. Its purpose is to give the children 
 
 ^ a knowledge of the production and preparation of foods, 
 
 \ and to show how civilization and commerce grew from 
 
 man's need of foods and the exchange of foods between 
 
 the different nations of the earth. 
 
 The author takes the children on personally conducted 
 rx tours to the great food centers of the world, to the markets 
 ^ of exchange, to the factories, the farms, the forests, and 
 the seas. 
 
 Together they visit the great wheat fields of our own 
 
 and other lands. They follow the grain to the mills and 
 
 from the mills to the markets. They go through the corn 
 
 .1 belt of the United States and learn the size and value of 
 
 ^ our corn crop. They visit the rice countries of the world 
 
 and learn how this grain, which forms the bread of a large 
 
 s part of the human race, is grown and prepared for the 
 
 '^ market. 
 
 They go to a western cattle ranch and aid the cowboys 
 in a "round up." They follow the cattle to a great pack- 
 ing center, where they inspect the stock yards and observe 
 the killing and shipping. They also learn how pork is 
 packed for shipment to all parts of the world. They live 
 for a time with the shepherds in Australia and New Zea- 
 land, and visit the factories to observe the handling and 
 freezing of mutton. 
 
 Visits are paid to dairy countries, and the manufacture 
 of butter and cheese is explained. The children go to the 
 poultry yards of the world and are shown how chickens, 
 
 3
 
 4 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 ducks, geese, and turkeys arc reared, and what an impor- 
 tant part of our national income our egg industry produces. 
 
 They are taken with the fishermen of different lands to 
 the great fishing grounds to observe how salmon and other 
 finny creatures are caught and prepared for the markets. 
 
 Several interesting trips are taken to the. vegetable 
 gardens of the world, and the children learn that many 
 vegetables have histories and have long held important 
 places in furnishing food for man. 
 
 Journeys are made to orchards and vineyards when 
 apples, peaches, berries, oranges, pineapples, bananas, and 
 grapes are ripe, and the luscious fruit is picked and eaten 
 fresh from the trees and vines. Also tours are made to 
 the lands of the olive, date, and fig, and the children taste 
 the many other curious fruits of tropical lands. 
 
 With the author they take passage on a steamer at New 
 York and sail to the warm coffee lands of Brazil. Here 
 they watch the picking of the coffee beans and the differ- 
 ent processes used in the preparation of the coffee of com- 
 merce. They then make a flying trip to Japan to see how 
 tea is picked, dried, and boxed for shipment. 
 
 A peep is next taken into the World's big sugar bowl, 
 and the children learn how the chief commercial sugars 
 are made from beets or sugar cane. 
 
 This Food Reader is, to a large extent, the result of the 
 personal observations of the author. Many of the descrip- 
 tions were written on the ground, and great care has been 
 taken to make every part of it as accurate and up to date 
 as possible.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 
 4- 
 
 5- 
 6. 
 
 7- 
 8. 
 
 9- 
 lo. 
 II. 
 
 12. 
 
 13- 
 
 14. 
 
 15- 
 16. 
 
 17- 
 18. 
 19. 
 20. 
 21. 
 22. 
 
 23- 
 24. 
 25. 
 26. 
 27. 
 28. 
 
 Introduction . . ' . 
 The Bread of the World —Wheat 
 How our Wheat is Marketed 
 The Wheat of Other Lands . 
 Flour ...... 
 
 The World's Great Corn Patch 
 Rice ...... 
 
 Other Grains which Feed Millions 
 On a Western Cattle Ranch . 
 A Visit to a Great Packing Center 
 Hogs and Pork Packing 
 
 Mutton 
 
 Milk, Butter, and Cheese 
 
 Dairying in Other Lands 
 
 Poultry — Chickens, Ducks, Geese, and Turkeys 
 
 Wild Animals used as Food . 
 
 Rabbits, Squirrels, and Game Birds 
 
 Fish in General .... 
 
 Salmon ..... 
 
 Oysters ..... 
 
 Lobsters, Shrimps, Crabs, and Other Shellfish 
 
 Sea Food of Other Lands 
 
 Turtles, Frogs, Snails, and Lizards 
 
 Vegetables ..... 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Important Vegetables used for Food 
 In the Gardens of Other Lands 
 Odd Foods from Trees and Vines
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 29. General View of our Fruit Industry 
 
 
 
 225 
 
 30. Apples ........ 
 
 
 
 229 
 
 31. Peaches 
 
 
 
 237 
 
 32. Apricots, Pears, Quinces, Cherries, and Plums 
 
 
 
 243 
 
 33. Grapes • • 
 
 
 
 248 
 
 34. Berries 
 
 
 
 25s 
 
 35. Oranges, Lemons, Limes, Pomelos, Citron, etc. 
 
 
 
 259 
 
 36. Pineapples and Bananas . . . 
 
 
 
 267 
 
 37. Olives and Vegetable Oils .... 
 
 
 
 274 
 
 38. Dates and Figs 
 
 
 
 281 
 
 39. Some Other Tropical Fruits .... 
 
 
 
 287 
 
 40. Nuts 
 
 
 
 290 
 
 41. Coffee 
 
 
 
 297 
 
 42. Tea ........ 
 
 
 
 308 
 
 43. Cacao — Chocolate and Cocoa 
 
 
 
 317 
 
 44. Tobacco ....... 
 
 
 
 323 
 
 45. Where the Sugar Cane Grows 
 
 
 
 328 
 
 46. Beet Sugar. Maple Sugar, and Honey • 
 
 
 
 338 
 
 47. Salt 
 
 
 345 
 
 48. Spices and Other Flavoring Plants 
 
 
 
 352
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD 
 IS FED 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 
 
 WE start to-day upon a series of travels which will take 
 us all over the earth. Our object is to learn about 
 the foods of the world and how they are used by man. In 
 our journeys we shall visit the farms of many nations and 
 see how the crops are raised. We shall go into the orchards 
 and pick apples, oranges, and other fruits fresh from the 
 trees. We shall penetrate the wilds to hunt the game 
 which man eats ; and we shall even look into the seas 
 and study the fish, oysters, and other animals which live 
 under the water. 
 
 As we go on with our travels, we shall see ships and cars 
 carrying food from place to place ; and, in the markets, 
 we shall watch the exchanges of one thing for another. 
 This will show us the commerce of the world as it affects 
 our eating; while the work on the farms and in the 
 orchards and the factories will show us the great indus- 
 tries which have grown up in raising food and preparing 
 it for use. Indeed, all our journeys are to be along the 
 lines of industry and commerce. They will deal with the 
 world at work and the world of trade. 
 
 We all know that man is an animal, and, whenever we 
 miss our meals, we realize that he is a hungry animal. Men 
 
 7
 
 8 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 seldom work except to satisfy their wants ; and their wants 
 along food lines are such that they devote the greater part 
 of their lives to supplying them. Indeed, the story of the 
 growth of the easier ways of satisfying these wants forms a 
 large part of the history of civilization. Ages ago men ate 
 their food raw. If they killed a wild animal, they tore it to 
 pieces and devoured it. Some savage tribes do this to-day. 
 The Australian aborigines, for instance, know but little 
 about cooking, and a part of their food is worms, which 
 they dig from the trees and eat raw. The Abyssinians 
 eat raw meat, and there are other Africans who live 
 largely upon roots, wild vegetables, and fruit. Some of 
 these people are not much better than the savages of 
 the distant past. 
 
 It was some time before men learned that food is better 
 when cooked. How they found out we do not know. 
 It may have been like the discovery of roast pig by Bo-bo, 
 the Chinese boy, as told by Charles Lamb. Bo-bo was the 
 son of the swineherd, Ho-ti, and, as you may remember, he 
 accidentally set fire to his father's house, in which some little 
 pigs were kept. The house burned to the ground, and 
 the pigs were roasted. Bo-bo felt one of the sizzling car- 
 casses to see if it might not still have life ; and, as it burned 
 his fingers, he thrust them into his mouth. His pain turned 
 to delight as he got his first taste of the juicy cracklings 
 which adhered to them. He told Ho-ti, and, as the story 
 goes, the two burned down house after house to get more 
 roast pig. They were arrested, and at their trial some of 
 the roast was given to the judge. A few days later the 
 judge, having bought some little pigs of a neighbor, burned 
 his own house. Others did likewise, until a sage discovered
 
 INTRODUCTION , g^ 
 
 that a pig could be roasted on an ordinary fire, and after 
 this, roasting became common throughout the nation. 
 
 However true this story may be, we know that roasting 
 was the first stage of food preparation, for it is common 
 among all savage tribes. The next discovery was proba- 
 bly baking. Holes were made in the ground and hned 
 with stones. Fire was then built, and when the stones 
 were red-hot, the food, wrapped in leaves *or skins, was 
 there covered up to be cooked. Such bake ovens are 
 common to-day in the islands of the South Seas, and 
 dressed pig or other animals are thus deliciously cooked. 
 
 The savages of Africa cook hippopotamus and elephant 
 meat in stone-lined pits made red-hot by fire ; and a deli- 
 cious morsel to them is an elephant's foot placed in such a 
 pit and allowed to remain until done. 
 
 Boiling and steaming food came later. Our Indians 
 sometimes cooked in this way, and one tribe of them, the 
 Assiniboins, were known as the stone boilens, because they 
 boiled their food with red-hot stones. Having killed a 
 buffalo, they took off its skin and so fitted it into a hole in 
 the ground that it was perfectly tight'. They next poured 
 water into the skin and placed pieces of the buffalo meat 
 within it. Then, having made a fire near by, they heated 
 great stones red-hot and tumbled them into the water. In 
 time the water boiled, and the meat was cooked. 
 
 There are places on the earth where nature herself fur- 
 nishes plenty of boiling water and steam. The Yellowstone 
 Park, for instance, has boiUng springs in which one can place 
 a basket of eggs and have them cooked hard or soft, accord- 
 ing to the time they are left in, and into which one can drop 
 fish and bring them out ready to eat. In the Hot Springs
 
 lO 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 region of New Zealand there arc pools of water which are 
 always boiling, and also many wide cracks where the steam 
 pours forth from the ground. Here Mother Earth does 
 the cooking. The natives have steaming boxes with only 
 network of ropes for a bottom. They put the food into 
 
 Here Mother Earth does the cooking. 
 
 the boxes and set them over the steam holes or cracks. In 
 a short time the food is cooked quite as well as in our own 
 steamers. 
 
 In one way or another, as time went on, the people of 
 the world learned more about cooking. Their desire for 
 different kinds of food and more food led them to trade 
 with each other. Each learned what the others had dis- 
 covered as to food getting, food keeping, and food manu- 
 facturing. They began to exchange foods ; and through 
 such exchanges, grew up what we call civilization and 
 especially commerce. 
 
 Our food now comes from all parts of the world,
 
 INTKUDUCnON II 
 
 and our dinner tables have articles upon them which 
 were brought thousands of miles for our use. The tea 
 we drank to-day may have been picked by a Chinese 
 boy or girl last year, and the sugar in it may have come 
 from cane raised in Cuba. The coffee was grown on 
 bushes in southern Brazil, and, if we could follow the 
 pepper back to its home, we might find half-naked little 
 brown boys of Java or Sumatra playing among the vines 
 on which it grew. If the loaf of bread could tell its story, 
 it might speak of vast fields of golden wheat beyond the 
 Great Lakes ; and the roast beef, only a few weeks ago, 
 was part of an animal which galloped over the Texas 
 prairies, with a cowboy behind it. 
 
 Every meal we eat, in fact, has been brought to us from 
 many parts of the earth, and the people who furnished it 
 are probably eating some things supplied by us. In this 
 way the whole world is working for you and me, and we, 
 in turn, are working for every nation which buys the things 
 we make or raise to sell. 
 
 It is thus through commerce that food is carried all over 
 the world, from the places where each kind can be raised 
 the cheapest, and sold for money in exchange. As we 
 proceed with our travels, we shall see that almost every 
 locality produces some things better than others, so that a 
 continual exchanging goes on, and cars and ships are always 
 moving this way and that, carrying food products from 
 country to country, and from place to place. 
 
 We ship quantities of food abroad every year and com- 
 pete in the markets of the world with all other nations 
 which have similar things to sell. In our travels we must 
 study this globe as a workshop and as a vast retail store.
 
 12 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 We must learn not only what we ourselves produce to eat 
 and sell, but also what other nations raise and what they 
 have to sell in competition with us. We want to know 
 which nations are our chief customers and what they send 
 back to us in money or goods in exchange. 
 
 2. THE BREAD OF THE WORLD — WHEAT 
 
 BREAD is used more than any other food by civilized 
 man. The Bible calls it the staff of life ; and raising 
 the grains which supply it is one of the world's chief indus- 
 tries. The principal grains are wheat, corn, oats, rye, bar- 
 ley, and rice. In our country more wheat and corn are 
 used than any of the other grains. In some parts of 
 Europe the people eat a black bread made of rye, and in 
 others they live largely upon ground oats. In Asia and 
 Africa some of the natives make bread of millet and in 
 some countries rice forms the chief food, being cooked 
 whole, or ground to a flour for bread or cake. 
 
 All these grains are the seeds of different grasses. They 
 are called cereals, from Ceres, who was worshiped by the 
 Romans as the goddess of the harvest. Each grain grows 
 best in certain places and climates. Some grains thrive 
 better in the United States than anywhere else. We raise 
 more wheat than any other nation and more corn than all 
 the rest of the world put together. Our total crop of 
 cereals for one year sometimes weighs ninety million tons 
 and is worth fifteen hundred million dollars. The product 
 is so enormous that we cannot realize it. 
 
 Let us take our pencils and see what it would amount
 
 THE BREAD OF THE WORLD — WHEAT 
 
 13 
 
 to if it were loaded upon freight cars, joined end to end in 
 one long train. We shall suppose that each car holds 
 twenty tons, and that it will take forty feet of space on 
 the track. Dividing the 
 ninety million tons by 
 twenty gives us four and 
 a half million, the num- 
 ber of cars required to 
 carry the grain ; and mul- 
 tiplying that number by 
 forty, the number of feet 
 to each car, shows us 
 that the train would 
 reach to a distance of 
 one hundred and eighty 
 million feet from its 
 starting point. Now five 
 thousand two hundred 
 and eighty feet make a 
 mile ; and, dividing by 
 that, we find that our 
 train of grain would have 
 to be more than thirty- 
 four thousand miles long, 
 or long enough to reach 
 around the earth at the 
 Equator and leave 
 enough cars over to fill three continuous tracks from New 
 York to San Francisco. 
 
 A large part of such a train would be loaded with wheat, 
 and that part would be more valuable, in proportion to its 
 
 Heads of wheat
 
 14 FOODS : OR HOW TEiE WORLD IS FED 
 
 length, than any other. Wheat forms the chief food of 
 about one third of the human race. It is the principal 
 breadstuff of civilized man ; and it has been used for food 
 so long that no one can tell who the first wheat eaters 
 were. We know that the Egyptians raised wheat in the 
 valley of the Nile about the time that the Pyramids were 
 built, for on the tombs near by are paintings of men reap- 
 ing and threshing the crop ; and we find wheat mentioned 
 as food again and again in the Bible. 
 
 Mills for wheat grinding and ovens containing loaves of 
 baked bread were found when the city of Pompeii was 
 uncovered. That city had been buried by the lava and 
 ashes of Vesuvius only a few years after Christ was born. 
 At that time, we know from this discovery that the Romans 
 were eating wheat. The Chinese have a tradition that wheat 
 came to them direct from Heaven. They say that their 
 ancestors were growing it more than four thousand years 
 ago; and to-day it is one of the grains planted by the 
 emperor when he starts the spring plowing for his nation. 
 
 Wheat has always been one of the chief foods of modern 
 Europe. It was brought to America by our forefathers. 
 George Washington was a noted wheat farmer in his day ; 
 he had a mill at Mount Vernon and exported flour to the 
 West Indies. 
 
 As time went on, wheat was raised by our pioneers on 
 the new lands farther west. For a while New York 
 produced a great part of the crop. Then Ohio, Kentucky, 
 Illinois, and Michigan became the chief wheat states, and, 
 a few years later. King Wheat drew on his seven-league 
 boots and crossed the Mississippi. He trod northward and 
 conquered Minnesota and the Dakotas, which are now
 
 THE BREAD OF THE WORLD — WHEAT 1 5 
 
 amongst our richest grain-growing states, and then marched 
 over the Rocky Mountain plateau and extended his realm 
 to California, Oregon, and Washington. 
 
 Our wheat is of many varieties, each of which grows 
 best in certain localities. In some kinds the kernels are 
 white and in others red or amber. Some wheat grains are 
 large, others small ; some are heavy and some light. The 
 most of the wheat of the upper Mississippi Valley is spring 
 wheat ; that is, it is planted in the spring and harvested in 
 the fall. In other parts of the country winter wheat 
 grows better. Such wheat is planted in the fall and har- 
 vested in the early summer. Spring wheat is excellent for 
 bread making, and it yields more bread to the barrel of 
 flour than winter wheat. The winter wheat contains more 
 starch ; it also makes good bread and is especially desira- 
 ble for pastry. 
 
 In some parts of the United States we raise a hard 
 wheat which looks somewhat like barley. It is called 
 durum and is excellent for macaroni. It grows upon 
 our high, dry lands, where other varieties do not thrive. We 
 raise much of it for our own use and ship a great deal to 
 Italy, southern France, and other countries, where macaroni 
 largely takes the place of bread. 
 
 To-day wheat is grown in many parts of the United 
 States. The bulk of the crop comes from the north cen- 
 tral part of our country, and in some of the states it is 
 the most important crop. Our wheat yield varies greatly 
 according to the season. In one year we have produced 
 more than one thousand million bushels, enough to furnish 
 ten bushels to every man, woman, and child in our land. 
 We are growing at the present time more wheat than
 
 i6 
 
 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 any other nation, more than we can consume, and so much 
 that we send a vast deal to other peoples in different parts 
 of the world. 
 
 Much of our wheat in the Eastern and Central States is 
 grown on small farms. Each farmer has one or more 
 fields of five, ten, or perhaps fifty acres in wheat, and other 
 fields devoted to other crops. In parts of Washington, in 
 
 Wheat districts of the United States. 
 
 the valley of the Red River, which runs between Minne- 
 sota and the two Dakotas, and in parts of western Canada, 
 as well as in some other regions, the soil is so good for 
 wheat that many farmers raise nothing else. In such 
 places wheat is raised on a vast scale, a single estate em- 
 ploying hundreds of horses and men. There is a ranch in 
 North Dakota, for instance, which contains seventy thou- 
 sand acres, and in California a field of forty square miles 
 was once planted in wheat. That field was so large that one
 
 THE BREAD OF THE WORLD — WHEAT 
 
 1/ 
 
 man would have to work steadily for sixteen years to pre- 
 pare it for planting, if he did it in the old-fashioned 
 way ; and it would require the labor of many years 
 more for him to sow and harvest it all, if this were 
 possible. Such farming, however, is easily accomplished 
 Dy modern machinery. The planting is done by a small 
 army of men with plows and drills, and the harvesting 
 
 Sulky plow. 
 
 by several hundred steam reapers and threshers, each 
 of which may harvest seventy-five acres in a day. 
 
 But we shall see this better in the wheat fields them- 
 selves. Let us suppose that we are on one of the big 
 farms of the Red River Valley. It is so large that we 
 could ride about it for days and not see it all. It is man- 
 aged like a great factory. It has hundreds of men working 
 in companies, with foremen over them. It has offices 
 where the books are kept, blacksmith shops where the 
 machinery is repaired, and great stables for its horses.
 
 i8 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Some of the fields contain five hundred acres or more. 
 At planting time forty or fifty men move across a field, 
 each driving a sulky plow. Each sulky has from three to 
 six horses to pull it; it has two plows below it which cut 
 two furrows as it goes. After the plowing is finished, 
 .other men ride behind upon disk harrows which grind the 
 earth fine, and behind them come others driving machine 
 drills which drop the wheat into the soil. These drills are 
 long boxes filled with wheat and mounted upon wheels. 
 
 Steam plow. 
 
 Each has a row of holes in the bottom, from which slender 
 tubes run down to the ground. Each tube will let out the 
 grain just as fast as it is needed ; and behind each tube is 
 a little plow, which follows and covers the grain as it drops. 
 A long Hne of such drills will soon plant a great field. 
 Sometimes traction engines take the places of horses in 
 doing this work. One great engine will draw a line of 
 plows, with harrows behind them, and still farther back the 
 drills which .sow the seed.
 
 THE BREAD OF THE WORLD — WHEAT 19 
 
 On a farm like this the work goes on systematically. 
 The overseers keep every man moving. The brown sod 
 is turned, and the black soil covers the wheat. Each grain 
 is laid away in its little nest in the ground. It soon 
 sprouts, and, by and by, the farm is covered with what 
 looks like green grass. This grows rapidly, aided by the 
 rain and the sun. Within a few months it is as high as 
 your waist. Now each green stem bursts out at the top 
 into a head filled with seeds. The seeds are soft and 
 milky at first. They grow harder and harder as the wheat 
 ripens, and after a while the tall green stem turns to pale 
 yellow. It becomes more yellow as the sun continues to 
 shine upon it, and the seeds of grain in the head turn 
 yellow, too, inside their yellow husks. Now the heads be- 
 gin to bend over, and the farmer knows they are ready for 
 harvest. 
 
 The wheat is ripe at the time of our visit to this great 
 farm in North Dakota. On all sides of us, as far as our 
 eyes can reach, the golden grain is rising and falling 
 under the wind like the waves of the sea. We have been 
 riding for days on our horses, with wheat on both sides of 
 us ; and we might go on for days to come, seeing nothing 
 but wheat, wheat, wheat. In many places they have 
 begun to harvest the crop. We can see the smoke from 
 the steam threshing machines rising here and there over 
 the grain, and the long lines of reapers, drawn by horses, 
 which are cutting it off close to the ground and binding it 
 for the threshers. On several of the farms we have 
 passed were machines moved by steam engines, which 
 thresh the wheat as they cut it and put it into sacks 
 ready to be carried to the elevators or cars. In other
 
 20 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Long lines of reapers. 
 
 places only the heads of the wheat are cut off and 
 threshed, the straw being left on the field. 
 
 Threshing machine. 
 
 Our method of harvesting is far different from that 
 employed in other parts of the world. On some Russian 
 farms the grain is still cut with sickles and scythes, just 
 as it was in old Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs ; 
 while on others our modern machinery is used. In some 
 wheat countries the grain is threshed out by laying it 
 on the hard ground or barn floors and pounding it with 
 sticks and flails, as was done long ago in different
 
 THE BREAD OF THE WORLD— WHEAT 21 
 
 parts of our country. In Turkey and along parts of the 
 lower Danube the wheat is trodden from the husks by 
 laying it on threshing floors and driving cattle or horses 
 over it. The feet of the animals press the grain out, 
 and the powdered straw, or chaff, is thrown by hand into 
 the air against the wind to clean it. The wind carries 
 away the chaff, and the wheat drops to the ground. In 
 China wheat is often so winnowed, the threshing being 
 done by boys who ride blindfolded buffaloes about over 
 the straw. 
 
 With such methods, it would be impossible to harvest 
 our enormous wheat crop. We must have machinery to 
 take the places of men and animals ; and we are continu- 
 ally inventing new things by which steam does more and 
 more, and man less and less. One of our large threshers 
 will do the work of hundreds of buffaloes or oxen, and of 
 thousands of flails. Indeed, a single threshing machine 
 sometimes hulls out more than one thousand bushels of 
 wheat in a day. The ripe wheat pours into it, like a great 
 golden river ; the husks, chaff, and straw are torn off 
 and carried away in another stream ; while the clean 
 white grain flows out through pipes at the sides so fast 
 that it keeps several men busy holding the bags, that 
 all may be caught. In such places the wheat is often 
 not bagged at all. It falls into the wagons, which carry 
 it to the elevators or grain storage houses at the rail- 
 road stations, or direct to the cars, which transport it in 
 bulk to the vast elevators of the milling centers, markets, 
 or ports. 
 
 In handling a crop like this, machine labor is always 
 cheaper than hand labor ; and every effort is made to
 
 22- FOODS: OK lloW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 reduce the cost by reducing the work of man. It has been 
 estimated that it took nineteen times as much hand labor 
 to produce a bushel of wheat before our planting, reaping, 
 or threshing machines were invented as it does now. An 
 equally great, or greater, saving is made in the machinery 
 by which we transport the grain to the seacoast and across 
 [the water to other countries. It is largely by our ma- 
 chinery that we are able to compete successfully with the 
 other nations, who raise and handle their wheat in the more 
 expensive, old-fashioned ways. 
 
 3. HOW OUR WHEAT IS MARKETED 
 
 WE have left the wheat fields and are following the 
 grain to the markets. Every town we pass through 
 has its elevator, where the grain is stored until it can be 
 sent off by train. The ungainly building rises high above 
 the rest of the landscape. There are wagons about it and 
 loads of wheat waiting for storage. 
 
 The railroad tracks are filled with cars, and long trains 
 of wheat are continually moving on toward the east and 
 the south. Some are bound for the flour mills of Minne- 
 apolis, and some for the Mississippi River, down which 
 the grain will float in huge barges to the Gulf of Mexico, 
 on its way to South America or Europe. Other trains 
 are moving toward the head of Lake Superior, where 
 the steamers will carry the grain on down through the 
 Great Lakes to Chicago and Buffalo, and from Buffalo 
 by the Erie Canal to New York. Some of the ships will 
 not go to Buffalo, but will pass through the Welland
 
 HOW OUR WHEAT IS MARKETED 
 
 23 
 
 Canal to Lake Ontario and by the St. Lawrence River 
 out to the Atlantic and across to Europe. A vast deal 
 of wheat goes east by rail from Chicago, and another 
 great quantity from the wheat fields of the Mississippi 
 
 Every town has its elevator. 
 
 Valley to New York and our other Atlantic ports, and 
 thence on to Europe. 
 
 During the wheat harvest this grain pours into almost 
 every one of our great shipping centers. It flows from 
 the farms to the railroads, and from the railroads to the 
 lakes and rivers, and on to the oceans. Much winter 
 wheat goes to St. Louis for export or to be made into 
 flour. Both spring and winter wheat flow into Chicago 
 and New York. On the Pacific Coast the streams of
 
 24 
 
 FOODS: OR now THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 golden grain move from the fields into San Francisco, 
 Portland, or Puget Sound, and there divide, a part being 
 redistributed for home consumption, and another great 
 part going in some of the largest ships of the world to 
 Japan, China, Siberia, and the islands of the Pacific. 
 Some of this crop is unloaded to feed our cousins in 
 
 Pacific Coast wiieat stored in bags. 
 
 Hawaii, and a small portion goes by way of Hong Kong to 
 the Philippine Islands. Much of our Pacific Coast wheat 
 is stored in bags, and at harvest time these are piled up at 
 the stations by thousands. 
 
 Our wheat traffic is so enormous that it is almost impos- 
 sible for one to appreciate it. As we have already learned, 
 our crop in a single year sometimes amounts to more
 
 HOW OUR WHEAT IS MARKETED 25 
 
 than one thousand million bushels ; and it is usually more 
 than seven hundred million. Every bushel must in some 
 way or other be taken from the fields to the markets. If 
 one year's crop were loaded upon wagons and hauled by 
 two-horse teams at a ton to the load, allowing each wagon 
 and its horses about thirty feet on the roadway, it would 
 require a wagon train more than one hundred and twenty 
 thousand miles long to carry it all. We can easily figure 
 how many times such a train would extend around the 
 world and what an army of wagons it would make if it 
 were stretched back and forth across the United States 
 between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. 
 
 But what becomes of this mighty wheat crop ? We 
 need the greater part of it for ourselves. We require 
 almost five bushels per year for every man, woman, and 
 child in our country, and this demand must be supplied 
 before we can think of shipping wheat abroad. It takes 
 about five hundred million bushels of wheat for our own 
 needs, and this amount goes to our mills to be ground 
 into flour. 
 
 In addition, we have to save a great deal for seed, and not- 
 withstanding this, we have somewhere between one hundred 
 and two hundred million bushels, and even more in good 
 seasons, left for export to the different nations of Europe, 
 Asia, South America, and Africa. This part of our crop 
 is sent abroad both as grain and as flour. 
 
 Let us stop a moment and think what the carrying of 
 our wheat to these distant countries means. A bushel of 
 wheat weighs sixty pounds, or as much as many a ten-year- 
 old boy. It makes quite a big bundle ; and, if one should 
 be asked to carry it upon his back to any place a hundred
 
 26 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 miles from his home, he would want a large sum. But 
 most of our wheat m.ust be taken more than a thousand 
 miles by train to the seacoast, before it can start on its 
 long ocean voyage. It must be transported so cheaply 
 that it can compete with other wheat in the world's mar- 
 kets, and so cheaply that the people of other nations, the 
 most of whom earn less than we do, can afford to buy it. 
 
 This would not be possible unless almost the whole of 
 the work could be done by machinery. The cost of carry- 
 ing it on trains and vessels has been made so small that a 
 bushel of wheat is sometimes taken from New York to 
 Liverpool for as little as two cents, and it may be carried 
 on the railroad from Chicago to New York for five cents, 
 or even less. The loading and unloading is done with but 
 little hand labor. Indeed, the grain is hardly touched by 
 man after it leaves the wheat fields, until it reaches the 
 land of the consumer. 
 
 We stop at one of the ports to take a look at the eleva- 
 tors through which the grain passes on its way from the 
 cars to the ships. These buildings are wonders of modern 
 machinery. They are as tall as a twelve-story house. 
 ■ Some of them look like great barns ; others are groups of 
 steel bins surrounded by brick walls ; these are fireproof 
 and have no crevices. Above the tanks, or in the top of 
 one of the elevators, is the hoisting and other machinery 
 which moves the grain in and out. 
 
 There are many elevators at every great wheat-shipping 
 center, and all together they will store vast quantities of 
 grain. Our wheat crop is harvested within a few weeks, 
 and much of it must be stored for a time before it can be 
 sent on to the market. Some of the elevators are so big
 
 HOW OUR WHEAT IS MARKETED 2/ 
 
 that each will contain several million bushels at a time, 
 and their machinery is such that one can load and unload 
 many thousand bushels per hour. At Port Arthur, Canada, 
 is an elevator which holds seven million bushels of wheat, 
 or enough to supply bread a whole year for a city of fifteen 
 hundred thousand people. 
 
 The grain is brought to the elevator in bulk. It is taken 
 from the cars in steel buckets fastened to a belt, which carry 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^'. 
 
 
 1 
 
 — liiir"*^^ 
 
 Vi^ati f) H ' 
 
 i 
 
 Iwk 
 
 ^hIH^I^DhH^B^^H 
 
 iT' 
 
 If III 1 ^^^1 
 
 
 t. 
 
 '^— 
 
 ' ' ' ' f^l Av 'i liHrTn 
 
 
 
 The great Port Arthur elevator. 
 
 it to the top of the elevator and there empty it into great 
 bins. When a bin is full, the weight of the grain is registered 
 by machines, a door in its bottom opens, and the grain 
 pours out through pipes into the tanks or storage rooms 
 below. From the bottom of these storage places there are 
 long spouts or legs which can be thrust into the hold of a 
 steamer. When the spouts are opened, the grain pours 
 through them until the ship is full. The vessel is un- 
 loaded by buckets on belts, and the machinery is such that 
 a great steamer holding two hundred thousand bushels can 
 be unloaded within three hours.
 
 28 FOODS : OR HOW lilE WORLD IS FED 
 
 4. THE WHEAT OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 THIS morning we shall go outside our own country and 
 see what other nations compete with us in raising 
 wheat to sell. Our wheat lands are extensive, but they are 
 by no means the only ones upon earth. The wheat crop 
 of the whole world usually ranges between two and three 
 
 billion bushels per annum, 
 varying greatly according as 
 the seasons are good or bad. 
 u •^ — REST OF WORLD Of this amouut, about four 
 
 The world's wheat crop. ^^^^^ ^^^ produced OUtside 
 
 the United States. During a recent year, when our crop 
 was over seven hundred million bushels, Canada pro- 
 duced about ninety million bushels, and the whole North 
 American continent eight hundred and forty-seven million. 
 In that year Europe raised almost twice as much, and Asia 
 just about one half as much, as the United States; while 
 South America, Africa, and Australasia, combined, had 
 about as much wheat as the continent of Asia. 
 
 In Europe the black plains of central and southern 
 Russia and the plain that slopes to the North Sea and the 
 Baltic produce most of the wheat, although a great deal 
 comes from the valleys of the Danube and the Po. The 
 chief wheat-growing states of Europe are Russia, France, 
 Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Roumania. In 
 South America the most of the wheat comes from the 
 Argentine Republic, although Chile, Uruguay, and south- 
 ern Brazil are wheat raisers. Canada is rapidly advancing 
 as a grain-growing country, and it has vast areas between
 
 THE WHEAT OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 29 
 
 the Great Lakes and the Rockies which will produce excel- 
 lent wheat. It now grows many millions of bushels annu- 
 ally, and it may some day be one of our principal competi- 
 tors in the wheat markets of Europe. 
 
 In Asia the chief grain fields are in India and in Asiatic 
 Russia. Northern China gives a small share of the 
 
 product, and in time southern Siberia may be one of the 
 chief wheat countries of that part of the world. An excel- 
 lent hard wheat is grown in Algeria ; and other wheats 
 are raised on the highlands of southern Africa ; while 
 Australia and New Zealand are both producers of excel- 
 lent wheat. Indeed, wheat is the most important of all 
 crops in the temperate parts of the globe. It is a world 
 crop and has a world market, to which most of the more 
 important wheat-raising countries send a part of their grain 
 for sale. 
 
 The market for our wheat is best among the highly 
 civilized nations. It forms the chief food of Europe, 
 North and South America, and Australasia. It is fast
 
 30 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 growing in favor in many parts of Asia and Africa, and 
 we are now sending wheat and flour by the ship load to 
 China and Japan. 
 
 The chief wheat market of the world, however, is Europe. 
 Almost every nation of that continent uses wheat ; and, al- 
 though Europe grows more than half of all the wheat of the 
 world, she annually buys hundreds of millions of bushels 
 to fill her own bread basket. Some of the European coun- 
 tries, such as Russia, Austria-Hungary, and those along 
 the lower Danube, produce more than they need. France 
 and one or two other countries have just about enough for 
 their needs ; but in the other localities much of the food 
 must come from outside, the people finding it more profita- 
 ble, owing to the advantages they have through their mines 
 and other resources, to engage in manufacturing or in 
 raising other things to sell. Great Britain, although she 
 once exported wheat, does not now yield enough to supply 
 her people with bread for three months of the year. She 
 has become a vast factory and brings in the greater part 
 of her food from abroad. It is the same with busy little 
 Belgium, who, owing to her coal and iron mines, can make 
 more by manufacturing than by farming ; and it is fast 
 becoming so with Germany, who buys more and more 
 wheat every year. The bread of Holland, Switzerland, 
 and of Norway and Sweden largely comes from other 
 nations ; and the same is true of Spain, Italy, and Greece. 
 These European countries all together annually require 
 four or five hundred million bushels of wheat in addition 
 to what they raise themselves ; and this, must come from 
 other nations, or their people would suffer. 
 
 The chief wheat buyer of the world is the United King-
 
 THE WHEAT OF OTHER LANDS 3 1 
 
 dom of Great Britain and Ireland. To meet her demand 
 for wheat and flour, in a single year, almost two hundred 
 million bushels of grain are sometimes required. She uses 
 so much that she fixes the price of wheat in the world's 
 markets, each of the chief wheat-raising nations sending a 
 large part of her surplus to England. That country is by 
 far our best customer. She buys several times as much 
 wheat and flour of us as of any other country, our chief 
 competitors being Russia, India, Canada, and Argentina. 
 
 But let us take a flying trip to some of the other wheat 
 lands of the globe. We need not worry about the season. 
 This grain is so widely scattered that it is sown and reaped 
 somewhere every month, all the year round. In June, 
 when we are harvesting it in California and our Southern 
 States, the harvest is going on in Turkey, Spain, and south 
 France. In July, when we reap it in the states farther 
 north, it is also falling under the knives of Canada, Ger- 
 many, France, Switzerland, southern Russia, and the basin 
 of the Danube. In August it is harvested in Holland and 
 Denmark, Great Britain, Poland, and in western Canada 
 and the Dakotas ; while in September and October the 
 same work goes on in the Scandinavian Peninsula and in 
 northern Russia and Scotland. 
 
 One would naturally think that the harvest must now 
 stop, during the cold months of our winter and spring. But 
 we remember that the seasons change as we cross the 
 Equator, and that the lands south of it have summer when 
 we have winter. In November the wheat is ripe in Peru 
 and South Africa; in December, in Burma and northern 
 Argentina; and in January, in lower Argentina, Chile, and 
 Australasia. In February and March it is harvested in
 
 32 
 
 FDOUS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 east India and middle and upper Egypt; while in April 
 the natives of lower Egypt, Asia Minor, and Mexico are 
 reaping it, as are also, a month later, those of central Asia, 
 China, and Algeria. 
 
 But let us suppose that we have left the United States 
 and are traveling through the great plain south of Moscow. 
 
 We are in the granary of 
 Russia, in the midst of 
 one of the chief farming 
 populations of the globe. 
 How different from our 
 bread lands at home ! 
 There are no fences 
 marking the fields; there 
 are no houses or great 
 barns standing alone on 
 the landscape, but, in- 
 stead, collections of 
 thatched huts which 
 straggle along each 
 side of an unpaved road, 
 each such collection 
 forming a farm village. 
 The people here do not 
 live on their farms, but 
 in these villages, and 
 go out from them to work in the fields. Many of the lands 
 are owned, not by individuals, but by all the people of a 
 village in common. They go out together to plant or har- 
 vest the crop. A man is chosen as the overseer of each 
 working party, and the women and girls labor side by side 
 
 Russian sowing wheat.
 
 THE WHEAT OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 33 
 
 with the men and boys. After the crop is gathered, it is 
 divided, a portion being stored away in the village granary 
 for seed or to provide against famine. 
 
 In most parts of Russia the farming methods are so poor 
 that, although the land is good, the average yield of wheat 
 is only about ten bushels per acre. The earth is little 
 
 Reaping wheat in Asiatic Russia. 
 
 more than scratched by the plow, and the grain is cut with 
 sickles or scythes. In other places modern machinery 
 has been introduced, plows like our own are fast coming 
 in, and reapers and threshers of American make have 
 taken the places of the old-fashioned harvesting tools. 
 This is so even in the Caucasus, Siberia, and other parts of 
 Asiatic Russia, camels sometimes being used to drag the 
 reapers through the ripe grain. The extent of the Russian 
 wheat lands is enormous, and the crop is such that vast 
 quantities of it are shipped abroad. Most of the Russian 
 peasants eat bread made of rye. With the new and better 
 
 FOODS — 3
 
 34 
 
 KOUDS : OR HOW IHE WORLD IS FED 
 
 methods of farming, Russia will probably produce more 
 and more wheat for the markets of Europe. 
 
 Our next trip is on the continent of Asia. We are in 
 cast India, a land which, in good seasons, produces almost 
 one twelfth of the wheat crop of the world. The grain is 
 grown chiefly on the high plateaus and especially in the 
 
 Reaping with knives in east India. 
 
 far northern parts of the country, where the winters are cold. 
 It is raised mostly upon small farms, the average holding of 
 all India being less than five acres. Here the farmers 
 are black or dark brown, and many of them wear turbans 
 while at work in the fields. Most of them live in villages 
 of huts built of mud or sun-dried brick, and go out to 
 their work. Some own their own lands, but more are 
 tenant farmers, and millions work on the farms for a few 
 cents a day. It is their low wages and their few wants that 
 enable the east Indians to compete with us in the wheat 
 markets of the world.
 
 THE WHEAT OF OTHER LANDS 35 
 
 Their methods of farming are rude. Their plows are so 
 light that they often carry them to the fields on their 
 shoulders; and they cut the grain with sickles and scythes. 
 It is then threshed out with oxen and winnowed in 
 the wind. In some parts of India the wheat farms are 
 irrigated. Such lands usually produce excellent crops, 
 although the average for all India per acre is less than 
 that for Russia or for any other of the world's great wheat 
 countries. 
 
 In Argentina the wheat farms are largely along the 
 eastern riv^ers, or where the crop can be cheaply shipped 
 to the Atlantic. Much of the country is flat, and it has 
 railroads which give the farms easy access to the ports. 
 The Rio de la Plata is a wide and deep waterway, up 
 which the grain steamers sail for many miles, to load 
 wheat for the markets of Europe. Let us suppose we have 
 left New York and sailed across the Equator, to the 
 Rio de la Plata, and up that mighty river and on into 
 the Parana to the city of Rosario, on its west bank. We 
 have passed wheat fields ever since we entered the river, 
 and we might steam for many miles farther on with wheat 
 on both sides all the way. Here it is piled up in great 
 stacks of bags, ready for shipment; there they are thresh- 
 ing by steam ; and farther on modern reapers, made in 
 America, are cutting the grain. 
 
 Rosario is the chief wheat market of Argentina. It is a 
 large city, built upon high bluffs above the Rio de la Plata, 
 with great warehouses of galvanized iron bordering the 
 edge of the river. Most of the wheat is bagged at the 
 farms, and the cars carry it to the edge of the bluffs, 
 whence it is dropped down into the holds of the vessels
 
 36 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 through great iron chutes, bag following bag so fast that 
 they look like a procession of live animals galloping down 
 to the hold. 
 
 The wheat crop of Argentina is stored largely in bags. 
 We shall see great piles of bags covered with canvas, as 
 we ride through the fields from station to station. There 
 are little mountains of them at the ports, and, where the 
 wheat is threshed, they are sometimes stacked up on 
 platforms, awaiting the time when they can be carried to 
 the train. 
 
 Hauling wheat lo the cars. 
 
 As we go on, we see men hauling the wheat to the cars. 
 What immense carts ! There is one with wheels twice as 
 high as our heads. It has sixteen great bullocks hitched 
 to it, and it creaks and screeches as they drag it over the 
 road. There are eighty bags of wheat in that load, and it 
 weighs more than six tons. By and by elevators and 
 better means of transportation will probably be adopted. 
 
 The Argentine RepubHc is comparatively new as a
 
 FLOUR 37 
 
 wheat-growing country, and its methods of cultivation and 
 marketing are rude and wasteful. The climate is such 
 that the stock can feed out of doors all the year round, 
 stables are not needed, and barns and granaries are not 
 used for storing the crop. The most of the wheat farm- 
 ing is done by Italians who have settled in Argentina and 
 who live in miserable mud huts called ranchos. They 
 raise wheat chiefly, working hard during the planting and 
 harvesting seasons and doing little the rest of the time. 
 They plow with oxen, horses, or mules ; every one in the 
 family, boy or girl, who is old enough, going out to help 
 with the crop. The boys ride the plow horses and, at 
 harvest time, help in cutting and threshing the grain. 
 
 oiiHc 
 
 5. FLOUR 
 
 WE have come to Minneapolis to learn how wheat is 
 turned into flour. This is the chief flour-making 
 city of the world. It is situated on the Upper Mississippi 
 River, at the falls of St. Anthony, not far from the wheat 
 lands of the Red River Valley. Walking down to the 
 river, we can see the waters below the falls boiling and 
 seething as they rush onward on their long journey to the 
 Gulf of Mexico ; and near them the vast tile tanks for 
 storing grain, and the mammoth mills which are working 
 away, day and night, grinding it into flour. The Missis- 
 sippi River, at this point, has such a volume that its falls 
 create a power equal to that of many thousand horses all 
 pulling at once, and this water, passing into turbine water 
 
 46900
 
 38 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 wheels, gives a part of the power that moves the machinery 
 of these mighty mills. 
 
 Minneapolis began to make flour for sale only about 
 half a century ago, and it now grinds more than any other 
 city in the world. Some of its mills produce several 
 thousand barrels in one day ; it has one which grinds 
 fourteen thousand barrels every twenty-four hours, and 
 five which all together grind more than five million bar- 
 rels in one year. We shall appreciate what this means 
 
 hLj^l^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 'p'i^^^^^^l 
 
 k 
 
 WH|Tnff 
 
 ^^^^sl 
 
 
 
 
 Minneapolis flour mills. 
 
 when we know that a barrel of flour is about the average 
 amount consumed by one man in a year in the United 
 States; and that these five mills annually grind enough 
 flour to supply bread for all the people of any one of our 
 states — with the exception of New York, Pennsylvania, 
 and Illinois — and a large amount for export besides. 
 
 But Minneapolis, while the largest, is by no means the 
 only milling center of our country. Great quantities of 
 wheat are ground in New York, Milwaukee, St. Louis, 
 Kansas City, Chicago, Toledo, Indianapolis, Superior, and 
 Ouluth. There are smaller mills scattered here and there
 
 FLOUR 39 
 
 through the various states ; so that all together we have 
 more than thirteen thousand mills which are grinding 
 flour. We produce in ail much more than a hundred mil- 
 lion barrels of flour a year. We grind far more than we 
 can eat ; and we ship our surplus to nearly every country 
 of Europe and to many places in Asia, South America, and 
 other parts of the world. 
 
 Before going into one of these great Minneapolis mills, 
 let us look at the rude methods by which flour was made 
 in the past, and by which it is ground in some of the less 
 civilized countries to-day. In the beginning man probably 
 ate his grain raw. A little later he found that he could 
 chew it more easily if it were soaked in water or pounded 
 or mashed in a mortar of wood or stone. After a while he 
 discovered that it tasted better cooked, and he began to 
 crush or grind it and make bread and cakes. The first 
 grinding was probably by pounding, or by rolling one 
 stone about upon another, crushing the grain which lay 
 between them. 
 
 At first the stones were turned by men or women, later 
 by cattle and oxen, and later still by water. As time went 
 on, the stones were improved ; and, for many generations, 
 the most of the grinding of the world was done by mill- 
 stones with roughened surfaces, one resting upon the 
 other, the grain entering through a hole in the top stone. 
 Such mills are common in Asia to-day. They are largely 
 used in Japan, China, and India, and also in Arabia and 
 in parts of Asia Minor. In northern China the author has 
 seen two women grinding wheat at a rude mill of this 
 fashion, and in the city of Canton he has watched men 
 pushing the top stones round and round by long poles
 
 40 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 fastened at right angles to them. In Holland the wind- 
 mills make the stones go round, and where the Danube 
 River runs through the wheat fields, there are floating 
 mills so anchored that the current moves the great wheels 
 which turn the stones. 
 
 Grinding with stones was common all over the world 
 until a little more than a generation ago, and as milling 
 
 grew more and more 
 profitable, some estab- 
 lishments had so many 
 stones that they pro- 
 duced hundreds of bar- 
 rels of flour in one day. 
 The flour, however, was 
 not so good as that 
 we now make ; and, 
 although the meal was 
 bolted and sifted, and 
 the refuse ground and 
 bolted and sifted again 
 and again, a great deal 
 of the flour was left in 
 Grinding with stones in Africa. ^^g b^an and middlings. 
 
 Then separating machines were invented, by which more 
 and more flour was secured. The wheat was mashed to a 
 powder between rolls of porcelain and cold steel and was 
 so treated that all the pure flour in it was saved by this 
 method, and more, cheaper, and better flour was produced 
 than ever before. These inventions created a revolution in 
 milling. They have been adopted in all the flour-making 
 centers of our country ; they are used largely in Budapest,
 
 FLOUR 41 
 
 the Hungarian capital, which has so many flour mills that 
 it might be called the Minneapolis of Europe ; and also 
 in Canada, Argentina, and, indeed, in most parts of the 
 civiHzed world. 
 
 In order to understand flour making, as it is carried on 
 to-day, we must examine carefully the wheat kernels from 
 which flour comes. They are so small that we can hold 
 hundreds of them in one hand. They are yellow in color 
 and exceedingly hard. Take one and crush it with a stone 
 or bite it in two. The inside is white, and the taste some- 
 what like starch. Put a few grains into your mouth and 
 chew them. They are soon crushed to a mass which, 
 after chewing, becomes waxlike or sticky. The starch has 
 been swallowed, and the waxy substance that remains is 
 nearly all gluten. Every grain of wheat contains starch 
 and gluten, and these are the valuable parts ground out 
 for flour. 
 
 Suppose we slice one of these little grains in half and 
 place it under a microscope. We can now see that it is a 
 mass of white cells with a wall of yellowish cells about 
 them, inclosed in several coats or layers of husks. The 
 inside cells are starch, and those next them are gluten, 
 while the outer layers of husk form the bran. That 
 pear-shaped section at the lower end of the grain is 
 the germ ; and it, like the bran, is not good for flour. The 
 flour cells contain the starch and gluten, some of which are 
 also found in the bran. The object of milling is to sepa- 
 rate the bran and the germ from the cells of starch and 
 gluten, and to reduce the latter to the soft white flour of 
 which we make bread. 
 
 But let us go into that great mill over there and see for
 
 42 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 ourselves. We walk through room after room and from 
 story to story. There are but few men about, for every- 
 thing is done by machinery, and the grain is hardly touched 
 by man from the time it goes in from the elevator until 
 the flour pours out into the well-marked barrels, which are 
 
 Interior of flour mill. 
 
 rolled upon the cars to start on their journey to different 
 parts of the world. 
 
 The first process is cleaning the wheat. It is so treated 
 that the bad kernels are taken out, the dirt and other seeds 
 blown away, and the good grains so rubbed with brushes 
 and washed by strong currents of air that not a particle of 
 dirt is left on them. 
 
 The wheat is now ready for grinding, and it goes in con-
 
 FLOUR 43 
 
 veyors to the top of the mill, where it is automatically 
 weighed and started down through the rolls. The first 
 grinding is done between rolls of steel which are slightly 
 corrugated or grooved. Here the grains are broken, and, 
 as they pass on through other rolls, they are ground 
 or mashed finer and finer. After each grinding, the 
 meal is run through a machine which separates the 
 flour and the bran. It is bolted or sifted through silk 
 cloth again and again, and finally it goes through the mid- 
 dlings purifier, which sucks it through a sieve of fine silk, 
 taking out what is left of dust and bran and making the 
 middUngs — which, by the old methods of milling, were 
 practically lost — the most valuable part of the flour. Still 
 another milling is required to remove the germ, and, after 
 that, another to make the flour perfect. In all, the wheat 
 passes through six grindings before it is ready to be sold 
 for bread making, and its particles are cleaned and sorted 
 again and again. 
 
 In addition to these large mills, we have many smaller 
 ones scattered over the country, some of which grind not 
 only wheat, but also corn, oats, rye, and buckwheat. The 
 grain that is ground by such mills is largely supplied by 
 the farmers of the neighborhood, and much of their grind- 
 ing is for the purpose of furnishing food for stock. Grist 
 milling, as this is called, is a great industry, although, 
 owing to the better facilities of the large mills, the number 
 of smaller mills is rapidly diminishing from year to year. 
 We have all together about twenty-five thousand flour and 
 grist mills in the United States, and they turn out a product 
 the value of which annually amounts to hundreds of 
 millions of dollars.
 
 44 FOODS: oi< now 'I'lIK WOKI.I) IS I'Kl) 
 
 6. Till-: WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 
 
 W¥. have left the wheat fields and are now traveling 
 through the corn belt of the United States. We 
 have ridden through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and, cross- 
 ing the Mississippi, are going on the railroad northand south 
 through Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. The corn 
 is just ripening, and the country is covered with tall stalks 
 of green, tinged with yellow, above which golden tassels 
 are swayed by the winds. 
 
 Here and there we leave the cars and ride out through 
 the inelds. The corn rises high above our heads, and some 
 of the stalks are so tall that when we stand upright in the 
 saddle we cannot reach to their tops. We get down from our 
 horses and walk along the rows. We are in a great thicket 
 of stalks, each of which has wide green leaves growing 
 out from the joints all the way up. Almost every stalk 
 has one or two ears wrapped in light yellow husks, with 
 yellow, red, or green silk at the end. We pluck one and 
 pull off the husks, and a great golden ear, containing hun- 
 dreds upon hundreds of grains of ripe corn, appears. We 
 rub the grains off with our hands, and have before us the 
 Indian corn, or maize, of commerce. 
 
 Now take up one of the grains and bite it in two. Its 
 inside is white and starchlike. When we put it under the 
 microscope, we shall see that it is made up of many little 
 compartments, each filled with cells ; and that there are 
 thousands of cells in one grain. Each cell contains starch 
 and other matter good for food. Indeed, corn is con- 
 sidered one of the very best of foods. We eat it ourselves ;
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 
 
 45 
 
 and it is consumed to such an extent by cattle and hogs 
 that it forms the basis of our vast packing-house product, 
 enabling us to supply meats not only for ourselves, but 
 to ship large quantities to other nations all over the 
 world. 
 
 We have already learned the magnitude of our wheat 
 crop. Our corn crop is much bigger and is even more 
 
 Corn districts of the United States. 
 
 valuable than our wheat crop. Corn thrives better in the 
 United States than" anywhere else. It is grown all over 
 the eastern half of this country, although the larger part 
 of our crop is raised in the states before named. We 
 produce all together more than four fifths of the corn 
 of the world. We raise more than twenty-five hundred 
 million bushels in one year, and the crop in the United 
 States has amounted to as much as three thousand million 
 bushels.
 
 4.6 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Three thousand million bushels ! 
 
 The amount is so enormous that we cannot comprehend 
 it. If we could load it on two-horse wagons, as we did our 
 wheat, putting forty bushels of shelled corn in a wagon, 
 and allowing each wagon and the horses that draw it 
 thirty feet on the roadway, the line of teams to haul our 
 corn would have to be more than twice as long as that 
 required for our wheat. Indeed, the corn would fill the 
 wagons of a continuous train about four hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand miles long. Such a train would 
 reach seventeen times around the world ; and, if we could 
 bridge the air and start this train on its way from the 
 globe to the moon, it would cover the two hundred and 
 forty thousand miles which lie between us and the moon, 
 and still leave a train of corn wagons long enowgh to reach 
 seven times around our globe. 
 
 Our corn crop is worth far more to us than is our cotton 
 or our wheat crop ; and its value is several times that of all 
 the gold aiid silver we take out of the earth in one year. It 
 is worth so much that it makes a great difference to every 
 one whether the crop is good or bad. If it could be sold 
 as a whole, at the lowest farm price in a good season, it 
 would bring in over fifteen hundred million dollars, or more 
 than enough to give fifteen dollars a year to every man, 
 woman, and child in our country, or about seventy dollars 
 to every family. 
 
 But I hear one boy say. How does that affect me ? I 
 live far away from the corn belt, and my people have not 
 sold one bushel of corn in all their lives. Yes, but the 
 money from the corn affects you, nevertheless. It goes 
 into all branches of industry, commerce, and trade. The
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 47 
 
 farmers who raise corn buy the things produced else- 
 where. Some of the corn money finds its way to the 
 mills which make cloth, to the tailors who make clothes, 
 and to the merchants who sell them. The price of at least 
 one bushel of corn is required to buy a shirt, and of twenty 
 bushels to buy any suit of man's clothing. Corn money 
 pays for a large part of everything the farmers use. It 
 is with corn money that many of them purchase their 
 wagons, sleighs, furniture, carpets, books, pianos, bicycles, 
 and watches ; little Johnny's first boots, and Mamie's new 
 bonnet. 
 
 Some of the corn money goes to the railroads which 
 carry the corn to the market and bring the goods back to 
 the farmers. The foundries which make the steel rails get 
 some of it, as do also the woodsmen who cut the ties for 
 the track, the machinists who build the engines, and the 
 miners who dig the coal which runs them. The same is 
 true of the bookkeepers, the clerks, the teamsters, and 
 others all over the country who are more or less engaged 
 in business and trade ; so that it is almost impossible to 
 find a place where this corn money does not go. Corn is 
 also fed so largely to cattle and hogs that the prices of 
 meats rise and fall as the corn crop promises to be good or 
 poor. Indeed, the world of commerce is so ruled that the 
 welfare of any body of men affects that of all the others. 
 
 But let us return to the cornfields and examine further 
 this wonderful grain. Indian corn, or maize, as it is some- 
 times called, is a native of our continent. It was unknown 
 in Europe until America was discovered. Columbus found 
 the Indians eating it, and it was he who took the first 
 grains to Europe. These were planted in Spain, and from
 
 48 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW 11 IK WORLD IS FED 
 
 there the grain spread to other parts of that continent, and 
 eventually to Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Corn is now 
 raised in Spain, Italy, southern Russia, and lower portions 
 of the Danube Valley. It grows well in Egypt and on the 
 highlands of South Africa. Some is raised in Argentina, 
 Peru, and Bolivia, and smaller quantities in parts of Asia 
 and Australasia. 
 
 North America, however, is the great corn continent. 
 This grain is raised in Mexico and Canada, and, more and 
 
 better than anywhere 
 else, in the United 
 States. It requires 
 a well-drained rich 
 sandy loam which 
 does not bake when 
 the season is dry. It 
 must have many long 
 hot days and warm 
 nights ; in fact, just 
 such a soil and climate 
 as are found in most 
 parts of our country, 
 and, at their best, 
 in the seven states 
 known as the corn 
 belt, through which 
 we have been travel- 
 ing. Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Texas, 
 Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky, each yield more than one 
 hundred million bushels of corn every year, and all together 
 they produce more than one half t'v^ corn of the world. 
 
 In a cornfield.
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 49 
 
 As we ride onward through one big corn patch after 
 another, the farmers tell us how the grain is planted and 
 reaped. The fields are plowed in the spring, and in May 
 the kernels of corn are dropped, either by machinery or 
 hand, in hills or drills three or four feet apart. If the seed 
 is planted in hills, these are so arranged that the crop can 
 be plowed either way. In a few days the grain sprouts 
 and makes its way through the soft mellow soil. At first 
 it looks much like grass, but as the summer advances it 
 grows taller and taller, and its leaves and stalks grow 
 larger. It is plowed several times, and the weeds are kept 
 down. Then one ear grows on the side of each stalk, or 
 two ears, one on either side of the stalk, and at the top the 
 tassel appears. 
 
 After a season of about four months the grain ripens 
 and is ready for cutting. On small farms this is done by 
 hand, the men going through the fields with great sword- 
 like knives, called corncutters. They chop down hill after 
 hill, cutting the stalks off near the ground and letting 
 these fall back into their arms until each man has an arm- 
 ful. They then carry the stalks to the shocks and stand 
 them in a framework which is formed by bending some 
 of the uncut hills of stalks and tying them together. They 
 place armful after armful in such places, until at last the 
 whole field is cut, and the corn stands on end in big, round 
 shocks, each of which is tied tight near the top. The 
 slanting sides of the shocks protect the ears somewhat 
 from the rain and the corn soon becomes thoroughly dry. 
 
 The shocks are left in the field for some time and are 
 then pulled apart, and the husking begins. This is usually 
 done by hand, the men pulling the husks off the ears, which 
 
 FOODS — 4
 
 50 FOODS: (^R IKHV THF WORLD IS FED 
 
 they tliri)\v in piles on the ground. Sometimes the farmer 
 boys and girls meet together to help each other husk. 
 Such parties are called husking bees. They are great fun, 
 especially when one of the party finds a red ear of corn, 
 which is supposed to give him the right to kiss the sweet- 
 
 Harvesting corn in Illinois. 
 
 est girl of the party. When the corn is all husked, it is 
 taken in wagons to the granary or to the market for sale. 
 The most of that sold is shelled from the cob. The corn 
 of commerce is always shelled corn. After husking, the 
 stalks are again put up in shocks, or carried to the barn, or 
 stacked up for feed for cattle, sheep, and hogs. 
 
 On the larger farms much of the work is done by 
 machinery. The plows are ridden by men, a number of 
 rows being dropped and covered at the same time. The
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 
 
 51 
 
 tilling is by cultivators which will plow several rows at once ; 
 and the reaping is with machines which cut many hills and 
 bind them. There are also machines which husk the corn 
 as they cut it ; and some which tear the stalks and leaves 
 to shreds, so that the cattle can more easily eat them. 
 
 One of the most important things in corn raising is that 
 the right seed be chosen. Our corn lands, on the average, 
 
 Cutting corn by machinery. 
 
 the United States over, produce more than twenty-five 
 bushels per acre, but in some places they produce from 
 fifty to seventy-five, and even one hundred, bushels per 
 acre, upon large tracts. One of the largest yields of corn 
 ever produced on one acre was in South Carolina, where 
 the crop was two hundred and thirty-seven bushels. 
 
 Now it has been found that if the best seed is used, the 
 crop can be greatly increased ; and many believe that if 
 such seed were used all over our country, our enormous
 
 52 
 
 FOODS : OR MOW THI-: WORLD IS FED 
 
 corn crop might be doubled. The people of the corn 
 states realize this, and every farmer tries to have the best 
 
 seed. He saves the finest ears 
 of his thriftiest plants and grows 
 seed from them. He selects the 
 best of this corn and plants it 
 again, finding that his seed grows 
 better and better year after year, 
 and that by such improvements 
 he can vastly increase his crop. 
 
 In the corn states through 
 which we are traveling, the 
 farmers' boys study seed corn ; 
 and many of them have httle 
 corn patches of their own in 
 which they try to raise better 
 corn than their fellows. In 
 some communities there are seed- 
 corn associations which offer 
 prizes of from three to twenty- 
 five dollars each for the best 
 ears of seed corn. The boys 
 bring their samples to these 
 associations to be judged, and 
 the one who has the best gets 
 the prize. There are thousands 
 of boys in Illinois, Iowa, Mis- 
 souri, and other states who are 
 raising corn in this way. 
 As we travel on through the corn belt, we see the impor- 
 tant part that corn holds in providing meat for our tables. 
 
 Good ear ot corn.
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 53 
 
 Every farmer has a large number of cattle and hogs. He 
 feeds the most of his corn on the farm and sells it as pork 
 or beef, in the shape of fat live stock. A pound of corn as 
 corn is worth only a fraction of a cent. But when it has 
 been turned into beef or pork, it can be sold for several times 
 that much, and at the same time the farm be enriched by 
 the manure of the animals. On this account, the most of the 
 corn crop is fed in the regions where it is raised, the ani- 
 mals grinding it up, as it were, into meat. We pass train 
 load after train load of fat cattle and hogs on our way 
 through the corn states. They have been sold by the farm- 
 ers and are now being taken to Omaha, St. Louis, Kansas 
 City, Chicago, and other great meat-packing centers. 
 
 In fact, we consume the greater part of our corn crop at 
 home. Not one bushel in twenty is shipped abroad. We 
 use corn for many things and especially for food, grinding 
 it into meal for bread, mush, and cakes. We have break- 
 fast foods made of it, and also hominy and cornstarch. The 
 most of our alcohol comes from maize, and the grain forms 
 the basis of whisky, also of cologne and other perfumeries. 
 From it comes glucose, a thick white sirup which is used 
 largely on our tables and for making candies, as well as 
 for adulterating molasses and honey. 
 
 Another valuable product of Indian corn is starch. We 
 saw, through the microscope, the starch cells that each 
 kernel contains. There are so many of these cells that 
 corn makes more and better starch than any other cereal ; 
 and, for this reason, we have great factories which supply 
 all we need of this article, as well as large quantities of it 
 for shipment abroad. 
 
 The process of starch making is interesting. The grains
 
 54 FOODS: OK HOW THE WoKI.D IS !■ KD 
 
 are placed in great tanks of copper, wood, or iron, each of 
 which will hold a thousand bushels at one time. A mix- 
 ture of sulphuric acid and boiling water is now let in. 
 This softens the grains, and they are then ground or 
 crushed to a pulp, in order that the germ and other parts 
 maybe separated from the starch. They are ground again 
 and again, run through rubber rollers, and the pulp is car- 
 ried out upon shakers or copper sieves, and afterward upon 
 sieves of fine silk, so that the starch is finally taken up by 
 the water, and the germ and other parts of the grain are 
 freed from it. 
 
 The starch is again washed, to make it more pure, and 
 then allowed to settle. It is dried in kilns or furnaces and, 
 after passing through a variety of machines, is ready for 
 use to stiffen our dresses or shirts, to size paper, and for 
 other purposes. Starches intended for cooking must be 
 purer and whiter than those used for clothes washing, and 
 they require special treatment. 
 
 Starch is also made from other grains, such as rice ; and 
 we have seen that it forms a large part of our wheat. It 
 is also found in the potato, the sweet potato, and cassava. 
 Indeed, the most of the starch of Europe is made from 
 potatoes. 
 
 The germs and refuse of the grain used in starch making 
 are carefully saved. They are dried and ground to a fine 
 meal which contains a large percentage of oil. The oil is 
 pressed out and sold for various uses. The cake which 
 remains after the oil has been pressed out is excellent 
 stock food, and a great part of this product is shipped to 
 Europe to feed cattle. 
 
 The leaves and stalks of the corn have a great feeding
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CORN PATCH 55 
 
 value. They are usually known as corn fodder and are 
 fed everywhere to horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep. Our 
 crop of corn fodder weighs more than our hay crop by 
 many millions of tons. 
 
 Corn husks are used for mattresses. The outer portions 
 of the stalks, ground to a pulp, make a strong writing paper, 
 and the pith is employed in the manufacture of varnish, 
 gun cotton, and other high explosives. The pith is also 
 used in the construction of our war vessels. It is packed 
 between the hull and armor plates of these vessels, to 
 keep them from sinking if they should be pierced by a 
 shell from the enemy. It is so porous and spongy that 
 when the water flows in, it swells rapidly and fills up 
 the hole. 
 
 In addition to this field corn, used for grain and meal, 
 we have other varieties of maize which form a large part 
 of our food. Nearly every American garden has its patch 
 of sweet or sugar corn for roasting ears, and perhaps a 
 row or so of popcorn, from which come the hard flinty 
 grains that burst out white as snow when held over the 
 fire. These varieties are grown in the same way as field 
 corn. The sweet corn is eaten, however, when the grains 
 have just formed and their milky juice has not hardened. 
 The husked ears are boiled or roasted, and then eaten or 
 canned for use during other parts of the year. We have 
 built great canning factories to put up such corn. The 
 work in these factories is done by machinery. There are 
 machines for removing the silk, others which will cut the 
 grains from the cobs at the rate of four thousand ears per 
 hour, and still others which will fill twelve thousand cans 
 in a day.
 
 56 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 7. RICE 
 
 WK must keep our eyes open this morning, for we are 
 on the other side of the globe from America. We 
 have come to Asia to learn about rice, a grain which is eaten 
 by every civilized people, and which takes the place of bread 
 
 with a large part of the human 
 race. The Chinese Uke rice 
 better than wheat, and all 
 Oriental peoples esteem it the 
 best of foods. We have seen 
 that America is the chief corn 
 continent because it has just 
 the soil and climate best fitted 
 for that crop. For the same 
 reason Asia might be called 
 the rice continent. Parts of 
 it have just the conditions 
 needed for raising excellent 
 rice, and therefore Asia pro- 
 duces more rice than any other of the great land divisions. 
 Indeed, it raises many times more than all the rest of the 
 world put together. 
 
 The grain thrives in the rich wet soil about the mouths 
 of rivers, in low valleys, and in flooded plains. The south- 
 ern and eastern portions of Asia are largely made up of 
 hot river bottoms and low-lying plains, cut by streams 
 which furnish ample water to irrigate the crop. These 
 cHmatic and surface features are especially marked in 
 British and Farther India, and also in the central and 
 
 The Chinese like rice.
 
 RICE 57 
 
 southern portions of China. Rice also grows well in cer- 
 tain mountainous islands of the tropics, where the rainfall 
 is heavy and the streams furnish water for irrigation ; in 
 Java, for instance, where the sides of the mountains are 
 terraced for rice ; and in Japan, where their lower slopes 
 are spotted with rice fields, the water from above flowing 
 from level to level down to the rice which grows on the 
 plains. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that Asia raises so large a pro- 
 portion of the rice crop of the world, the grain grows in al- 
 most every warm country. It thrives in the lowlands of our 
 South Atlantic and Gulf States, in swampy parts of south- 
 ern Europe, and in the delta of the Nile, It is produced in 
 abundance in the Phihppines, in Sumatra, Ceylon, Mada- 
 gascar, and Mauritius, and also in Hawaii and many other 
 islands of the Pacific. It is raised in the West Indies and 
 in the tropical lowlands of Central and South America. 
 
 Like wheat, rice is one of the oldest of grains. It is 
 supposed to have originated in India ; and it was eaten by 
 the Chinese thousands of years before Christ. It began 
 to be cultivated in Europe, in the marshy lands about 
 Venice, shortly before America was discovered, and it was 
 brought to the United States about two hundred years 
 later. Our first seed rice came from Madagascar. In 
 1694 a ship from that island, which had been driven out of 
 its way by a storm, landed at Charleston, South Carolina. 
 Its captain had a sack of unhusked rice with him ; and, 
 upon leaving, he gave it to Thomas Smith, who was then 
 the governor of the state. The seed was distributed. It 
 was planted in low swampy places, and a large yield of ex- 
 cellent rice was the result. The farmers learned about this
 
 58 
 
 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 crop. Those who had the right soil bagan to plant rice, 
 and in a short time it became one of the chief crops of 
 
 South Carolina and 
 Cicorgia. Later it was 
 grown in Louisiana, 
 Arkansas, Texas, and 
 California, which 
 states now produce 
 most of our crop. 
 
 Our rice is larger 
 and better colored 
 than that of Asia, 
 and it commands 
 a high price. There 
 are as many varie- 
 ties of rice as of 
 potatoes or apples. 
 There is a wild rice which grows in southern Asia, an 
 upland rice which requires no irrigation and can be raised 
 in the mountains, and there are many irrigated varieties 
 which produce the rice of commerce. Some rices have 
 small grains, and some large ; some are white, and some 
 red ; some are scented, and some not. The nations which 
 largely live upon rice know the different kinds, just as we 
 know the best coffees or teas ; and each rice commands its 
 own price in the markets. 
 
 As we go on with our travels, we shall observe that rice 
 is not a cheap food. It costs so much that in many parts 
 of India, China, Japan, and other countries of Asia the 
 poorest people cannot afford to eat it ; and they live upon 
 the seeds of millet, sorghum, rye, and barley instead. We 
 
 Sheaves of Louisiana rice.
 
 RICE 59 
 
 shall see that more work is required to produce rice than 
 any other cereal ; so much that the price of the grain must 
 be high in order to pay for the labor of producing it. 
 
 Let us visit some of the rice regions. We start in 
 Japan. The lowlands are a patchwork of fields not bigger 
 than our gardens, each walled with a little embankment 
 about a foot high, upon which grass and wild flowers are 
 growing. Some of these fields are covered with water, and 
 plants that look like grass are growing in them. The sun 
 is now at its brightest. It makes the water sparkle like 
 diamonds, and the green grassy rice plants stand out like 
 sprays of emeralds upon it. Higher up are other patches 
 of green rice, and the hillsides are everywhere terraced, 
 so that the whole looks like an inclined plane of wide 
 irregular steps of mirrors or silvery water spotted with 
 green. 
 
 In some of the patches the rice is higher than in others ; 
 here the water has been drawn off for the time, and there 
 the dry ground is being prepared for planting. See that 
 field with the quaint little brown men, women, and chil- 
 dren working in it. Each wears a hat hke a butter bowl ; 
 the women have on gowns of blue cotton, and the men and 
 children are half naked. They are digging up the ground 
 with mattocks and smoothing it off for the crop. 
 
 Now let us go on up the hill to where that family is 
 planting the sprouts. We may take off our shoes, if we 
 will, and wade in and help. The field has been flooded, 
 and the water comes halfway to our knees. The rice 
 planters are wading ; they are bending over, reaching 
 down under the water, and setting the green, grasslike 
 sprouts, raised in the seed beds, deep in the mud.
 
 6o 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Rice is grown in the water, and it must be kept flooded 
 the greater part of the time until it matures. This ne- 
 cessitates a system of canals or other means of irrigation. 
 In many places in Japan and China men are always pump- 
 ing water for the rice fields. They raise it by hand from 
 one level to another in buckets or baskets ; they run water 
 wheels with their feet, and they drive animals about, turning 
 wheels to which jars are attached. In the Philippines, 
 
 Setting out rice sprouts in Japan. 
 
 Java, and in large parts of southern Asia huge ungainly 
 water buffaloes drag the plows and harrows through the 
 mud ; and in some places such animals are blindfolded 
 and made to turn wheels which elevate the water from 
 the streams to the fields. 
 
 After the rice sprouts are set out, the cultivation has 
 only begun. Water must be let on and off from time to 
 time, the rice be weeded again and again, and when at last
 
 RICE 
 
 6l 
 
 it has turned a bright yellow, it must be gathered, pulled 
 off, and husked before it can be made fit to cook. 
 
 Let us suppose ourselves in the Philippine Islands 
 when the rice is ready for harvest. We are in the wide 
 valley north of Manila, on the island of Luzon. It is cut 
 up by rice fields, but here the rice is ripe. Instead of the 
 green young plants we saw in Japan, the fields are of a 
 rich, golden yellow. The grain has been watched for days 
 
 
 
 
 Plowing for rice in the Philippines. 
 
 by the boys and girls ; and some of the fields have scare- 
 crows in them, and others strings stretched across them 
 which can be shaken to frighten the birds. 
 
 We stoop over and examine the ripe grain. It is much 
 like barley or rye, and it stands quite as thick on the 
 ground. Each stem has headed out into a number of 
 seeds, tightly inclosed in bright yellow husks. 
 
 Over there are some of our little brown cousins reaping.
 
 62 rOODS : OR IlOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The party is composed of men and women, each of whom 
 holds a small knife with which the rice stalks are cut 
 one by one. When an armful has been cut it is tied up 
 in a sheaf and laid on the ground. . By and by the 
 sheaves will be carried home to the granary, and the rice 
 got out from time to time, as required by the family ; 
 or, it may be husked in the fields and shipped to the 
 market. 
 
 
 
 prjk 
 
 
 \ Ji^fm 
 
 Filipino rice harvesters. 
 
 In the chief rice-raising countries this harvest is an im- 
 portant event. At its beginning the natives often have 
 picnics, and in some places, such as Java, they erect little 
 temples in the fields to the goddess of the harvest. Each 
 temple is about as big as a pigeon house ; in it is placed 
 the usual offering, consisting of an tgg, some fruit, a bit of 
 sugar cane, and a dish of cooked rice. 
 
 But even when 'the harvest is over, the rice is by no
 
 RICE 63 
 
 means ready for food. The paddy, which means the grains 
 with the husks on, has to be removed from the straw. In 
 many countries this is done by drawing the grain over saw- 
 shaped knives, so that the heads are pulled or cut off. The 
 rice must now be husked out before it will be ready for 
 use. The husks are not loose in rice, as in wheat, barley, 
 and oats ; they stick as though glued to the grain, and 
 they must be pounded or ground off. 
 
 This is done differently in the various parts of the world. 
 The rice used by the natives of many countries for their 
 own food is stored in the sheaf, or paddy, and cleaned as 
 it is needed ; while that sold in the markets of the world 
 is more often cleaned and polished by machinery in rice 
 mills, which have been built for this purpose at the chief 
 rice-exporting centers. 
 
 The natives of Asia husk rice in all sorts of ways. Here 
 in the Philippines and in Java, as well as in many other 
 places, they pound the husks off in mortars of stone or 
 wood hollowed out for the purpose. They are also flailed 
 off or trodden off by animals and men on threshing floors ; 
 and sometimes in mortars, by rude machines worked by 
 water. In most places the chaff is taken out by throwing 
 up the mixture of husks and rice against the wind, so 
 that the refuse is blown away, and the clean rice caught 
 in a basket or allowed to fall to the ground. Indeed, 
 nearly every country has its own way of cleaning this grain. 
 
 It is different with the mills which prepare the rice for 
 the markets ; they are much the same everywhere. We 
 can see them in Saigon, Cochin China, in Bangkok, Siam, 
 at Bombay and Calcutta in India, and also in Rangoon, the 
 chief exporting place for the rich rice fields of Burma.
 
 64 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Let US suppose that we have sailed up the Bay of Bengal 
 and into the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, to visit one of 
 the rice mills of Rangoon. It is a large building on the 
 banks of the river, where the paddy can be easily landed 
 from the boats and the cleaned rice loaded on the steamers 
 for Europe. The manager, who acts as our guide, is an 
 
 Japanese hulling rice in hand mills. 
 
 Englishman, but the workmen are brown-skinned Burmese, 
 naked to the waist, and with cloth turbans tied around their 
 heads. 
 
 The mill is run by steam, and it is filled with modern 
 machinery. We watch the paddy as it passes through one 
 set of millstones after another, until the husks are torn off 
 and the rice comes out clean. We observe that the stones
 
 RICE 65 
 
 are carefully set, that they may not injure the white grains. 
 The husks stick so tightly, however, that the grain is rough 
 when it comes out. It must now be smoothed for the 
 market. Think of polishing grain as one polishes silver 
 or gold ! That is what is done with almost all the rice we 
 eat. The grains are thrown by machinery, again and 
 again, upon rollers covered with sheepskin, until each is as 
 bright and clean as a new silver spoon. The rice is now 
 ready for the markets, and it is bagged for shipment. In 
 the older rice-raising countries much rice is eaten un- 
 polished, and it is said that polishing the grain rubs off 
 much of its nutritious and appetizing qualities. 
 
 The United States has the finest of milling machinery 
 for threshing, cleaning, and husking rice ; and it also has 
 machines for planting and cultivating it. Our fields are 
 irrigated, where it is necessary, by steam pumps, some 
 stationary, and some floating on flat boats or lighters. We 
 use sulky and gang plows to break up the ground, cut-away 
 and disk harrows to smooth it, and machine seeders to put 
 in the grain. We reap our rice with harvesters and thresh 
 and clean it by steam. In this way we are rapidly increas- 
 ing our rice crop ; we are now raising all we consume, 
 and are exporting millions of pounds to other parts of 
 the world. 
 
 In our Asiatic journeys we have had rice served in one 
 way or another at almost every meal. It is usually eaten 
 boiled or steamed and is seldom ground up for flour and 
 made into bread or cakes. It is often served with a highly 
 seasoned curry and, in Japan, with dried fish and a sauce 
 known as soy. The Chinese and Japanese make rice beer 
 and rice wines. Chinese boys, on New Year's Day, pop 
 
 FOODS — 5
 
 66 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 rice as we pop corn ; and we learn that the two grains 
 taste much the same. 
 
 Rice is also used to make starch. The inner skin of 
 the husk and the dust from cleaning, as well as the straw, 
 are fed to stock. The husks are often used for packing 
 breakable articles; and in Japan the straw is woven into 
 bags and wrappers which take the place of our goods 
 boxes. From it the everyday hats, shoes, or sandals of 
 the common people are made ; it forms the rain shawls, 
 which take the place of our waterproofs, and the shoes 
 for horses and oxen, which are tied on with straw strings. 
 
 The rice crop is quite as important to many of the 
 Asiatic countries as our wheat or corn crop is to us. 
 In China a large part of the taxes are paid in this grain, 
 and in Japan the god of good fortune is a jolly little fat 
 man, named Daigoku, seated on bags of rice. As we 
 have passed through the country, we have seen him in 
 almost every store and in the home of every poor man we 
 have visited. 
 
 8. OTHER GRAINS WHICH FEED MILLIONS 
 
 IN addition to wheat, corn, and rice, several other ce- 
 reals are raised, which are used as food by many millions 
 of people. In parts of Europe barley and oats are favorite 
 breadstuffs. The poorer classes in Germany, Austria, and 
 Russia use rye flour as the people of the United States 
 use wheat. Rye and barley, when growing, look much 
 like wheat ; and oats resemble the other three, save that 
 their grains head out in little branches, instead of in one 
 long head.
 
 OTHER GRAINS WHICH FEED MILLIONS 
 
 67 
 
 
 All these cereals have long been used by man. Barley 
 was grown in China more than six thousand years ago, 
 and it formed one of the food stuffs of the early Egyptians, 
 Greeks, and Romans. The oat is prehistoric, but rye 
 seems to be of a later origin. Oats were grown by the 
 Romans, though not by the 
 ancient Greeks, nor, as far as 
 we know, by the Egyptians. 
 Caligula, the Roman emperor, 
 is said to have fed his horses 
 on golden oats ; but as the 
 grain is yellow, the color alone 
 was probably referred to. 
 
 Barley, rye, and oats are 
 raised and harvested much 
 like wheat. They are cheaper 
 than wheat ; for they will 
 grow upon poorer soils and in 
 a greater variety of climates, 
 thriving in and north of the 
 wheat belt. Barley will grow 
 farther north than almost any 
 other cefeal. It is raised in 
 Alaska and Iceland, and also as far south as Algeria and 
 Egypt. The Norwegians use it for bread, and it is also 
 used in brewing beer and as feed for horses in the United 
 States and Europe. If we should become sick during our 
 travels, the doctor might tell the nurses to feed us barley 
 broth. Pearl barley is nourishing and is often used as 
 a thickening for soups. 
 
 The world's crop of barley annually amounts to more 
 
 Oats.
 
 68 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Barley. 
 
 than one billion bushels, of which we, in the United States, 
 produce a comparatively small part. Our best barley is 
 grown in California, and we raise more in 
 that state than in any other ; Iowa, Min- 
 nesota, and Wisconsin coming next in 
 order. Our barley crop sometimes amounts 
 to more than two hundred million bushels. 
 If we were attending school in Germany 
 or Russia, and should take our lunches 
 with us, the sandwiches would probably 
 be made of slices of rye bread. The bread 
 would be dark brown in color ; were it of 
 the German variety known as pumper- 
 nickel, it would be almost black. The 
 common bread of many European countries 
 is made of rye flour. The armies of northern Europe 
 use it, and also the poorer classes of Austria, 
 Germany, Russia, Norway, and Sweden. It is 
 nutritious, and the people like it quite as well as 
 wheat bread. 
 
 The most of the world's rye crop is grown 
 upon the great sandy plain which crosses Europe 
 from the North Sea into Central Russia, sloping 
 down to the Baltic ; and more of it in Russia than 
 anywhere else. The rye crop of the United 
 States is comparatively small. We produce only 
 from forty to fifty million bushels a year; our 
 best rye states being Wisconsin, Michigan, and 
 Minnesota, after which come Pennsylvania, New 
 York, and Indiana. We use the grain somewhat for bread, 
 but more for stock feeding. 
 
 \i 
 
 \ 
 
 Rye.
 
 OTHER GRAINS WHICH FEED MILLIONS 
 
 69 
 
 Oats are raised in the United States chiefly as a food 
 for domestic animals, although they are being eaten more 
 and more by man in the shape of oatmeal. In Scotland 
 oatmeal porridge is one of the most common articles of 
 diet, and oat cake and oat crackers are much liked. Oats 
 are excellent for all kinds of stock, and they are used 
 for stock feeding in many parts of the temperate zone. 
 
 The world's crop of this grain is enormous. It is greater 
 in amount than that of any other cereal, exceeding wheat 
 
 Harvesting oats in the United States. 
 
 or corn by several hundred million bushels every year. 
 Our own crop of oats is often about half as big as our, 
 corn crop, and it is always greater in bulk than our 
 wheat crop. Russia now competes with the United 
 States as the world's chief oat producer ; next in order 
 come Germany and Canada. Our best states for raising 
 oats are Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North 
 Dakota, and Ohio. 
 
 All the grains we have so far examined are the seeds of 
 various kinds of grasses. We have one grain from a 
 plant which might be called a sister or cousin of the snake
 
 •jQ lOoDS: OR HOW rilh; \V()RLU IS FED 
 
 weed or clock weed. It is of an odd shape, looking more 
 like a miniature beechnut than a wheat or corn kernel. It 
 has a black coat, but is white within, and when ground up, 
 it becomes a grayish white flour, which is used to make 
 griddle cakes. This grain is buckwheat, and the cakes are 
 buckwheat cakes. No doubt most of us have eaten them, 
 served with butter and maple molasses. Buckwheat can 
 be grown on the poorest of soils. It thrives in the temper- 
 ate zones and is produced chiefly in the United States 
 and in some parts of Europe. 
 
 It is wonderful how many seeds are used for food. 
 Every locality seems to have one or more seed grains. Far 
 up in the Andes Mountains near Lake Titicaca, on the high 
 plateau of Bolivia, where oats and wheat will not mature, 
 there is a little plant known as quinua (ken-wah), the seeds 
 of which form an important food of the Indians of that 
 region. They are not much larger than the head of a pin, 
 but the people make a mush of them and eat it with milk. 
 As one travels over the world, he finds the natives of 
 distant lands living largely upon grains which we feed 
 only to sheep, horses, cattle, and hogs. This is especially 
 so of the millets, which grow in large quantities in many 
 parts of the world. Indeed, it is said that more of the 
 human race live upon millet than upon any other cereal. 
 East India consumes more millet than all other grains put 
 together. There are vast numbers of poor people in 
 northern China who cannot afford rice, who grind up 
 millet for bread and mush. Millions of bushels of millet 
 are raised in Japan, and in Bokhara, Turkey, and Persia. 
 It is also one of the chief foods in Upper and Lower Egypt, 
 the Sudan, and in parts of South Africa.
 
 OTHER GRAINS WHICH FEED MILLIONS 
 
 71 
 
 The millets belong to the family of grasses, and chiefly 
 to such branches of that family as have smaller seeds than 
 oats, wheat, or barley. One of the most common millets is 
 known as the fox-tail, its long fat bushy head being shaped 
 like the tail of a fox. This kind often grows as tall as rye, 
 or taller. Fox-tail millet is largely used in our country. 
 It is raised in China, having been 
 grown there for more than four 
 thousand years. So many seeds 
 of this millet have been found in 
 the remains of the lake dwellers 
 of Switzerland that we believe 
 it was used as food when those 
 people lived. This was during 
 the Stone Age, a period when 
 man had not yet learned to make 
 metal tools, and cultivated the soil 
 almost exclusively with implements 
 of stone and wood. 
 
 In the United States the barn- 
 yard millets are largely grown for 
 hay, and similar kinds are used in 
 India and in other parts of Asia 
 for food, the seeds being parched or boiled with milk. 
 
 In addition to these millets, there are larger kinds 
 which we know by other names. In northern Africa 
 a large seeded millet is called durra and in the West 
 Indies, Guinea corn. Almost all of us see millet straw 
 at home every day, and many of our girls have probably 
 swept with such straw again and again. I refer to the 
 millet of which our brooms are made. This is called 
 
 Fox-tail millet.
 
 72 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WOKl.D IS VKD 
 
 broom corn. It grows as tall as corn, but branches out 
 into many stiff straws at the top. Its seeds are found at 
 the ends of these straws, and from the straws brooms are 
 made. Broom corn will grow on any soil 
 and in any climate in which Indian corn can 
 p be successfully produced. Certain varieties 
 have been cultivated for different purposes 
 in India, China, and parts of Africa for 
 "^^'i^^lP^ some centuries, but the United States, Italy, 
 ** "''"'^ '' "^ France, and Germany are the only countries 
 which produce it solely for broom straw. 
 
 Sorghum and Kafir corn 
 are other large millets re- 
 lated to Indian corn. Kafir 
 corn thrives in South Africa, 
 where it has long been culti- 
 vated by the Kafirs, from 
 whom it derives its name. 
 It is used as food for both 
 man and beast. Sorghum is grown in 
 Egypt and in many parts of Asia for its 
 seed, which is ground up to make bread. 
 All millet seeds are cheaper than wheat, 
 but they will not make good flour ; there- 
 fore the civilized nations use them for 
 stock. In our country Kafir corn and 
 sorghum are raised for forage, and sor- 
 ghum is raised also for the sweet juice of its stalk, 
 which is squeezed out and boiled down into sirup 
 much like sugar cane, as we shall see farther on in 
 our travels. 
 
 Sorghum. 
 
 Kafir corn.
 
 ON A WESTERN CATTLE RANCH 73 
 
 9. ON A WESTERN CATTLE RANCH 
 
 WE are up early this morning. The sun is just peep- 
 ing above the eastern horizon ; but the long low- 
 wooden building where we have slept over night is already 
 alive with rough-looking men. They are in their shirt 
 sleeves, their trousers are tucked into their high boots, and 
 most of them have cruel spurs on their heels. Each man 
 has a saddle, a bridle, and a long rope in his hand. They 
 are cowboys, and we are with them on one of the great 
 cattle ranches of the far west, making ready for the 
 round-up of to-day. 
 
 We have come to this region to see something of our meat 
 industry. By "meat" is meant the flesh of cattle, pigs, and 
 sheep; the word "game" being used for the flesh of wild 
 animals; and " poultry " for that of chickens, geese, ducks, 
 and other domestic fowl. Meat is eaten by man all over 
 the world ; and in our country it forms a large part of his 
 daily food. It is much dearer than grain, and nations are 
 often considered rich or poor according to the amount of 
 meat their people can afford to eat. In this respect our 
 nation is one of the richest of all. We raise so much 
 meat that every man, woman, and child of us can have 
 some daily and still leave enough to export a large quantity 
 to Europe and other parts of the world. 
 
 Almost every farm in the United States rears some cattle, 
 hogs, and sheep, so that we have a vast number of such 
 animals. Indeed, I should not like to have to count them 
 all. It is enough to know that if the drove could be 
 stretched out in double hlc, it would belt the globe several
 
 74 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 times at the Equator and leave enough animals over to 
 make more than another living, bellowing, bleating, grunt- 
 ing, baaing, belt around the globe, from pole to pole. 
 
 Of these animals the most important, as far as the meat 
 is concerned, are the cattle and hogs. The cattle are the 
 most important of all. They are worth about as much as 
 all the rest of our farm animals put together, including 
 not only the hogs, sheep, and goats, but also the horses and 
 mules. We had so many cattle at the time of our last 
 census that if they could have been gathered together 
 in one great drove and divided equally amongst us, there 
 would have been several such animals for every family in 
 the United States. Of this vast drove, the greater part 
 was in the corn regions. Large numbers were on farms 
 in other sections of the country, and millions were grazing 
 on the plains where we now are. 
 
 Just east of the Rocky Mountains, running north and 
 south from Canada to Texas, there is a wide strip of land so 
 high and dry that it is not good for farming, except where 
 the few streams give water for irrigation. The moisture 
 is so squeezed from the winds of the Pacific Ocean, as they 
 blow over the cold mountains, that only enough rain is left 
 to produce a thin grass. This comes up in the spring and 
 is cured, as it stands, by the hot sun, as the summer goes 
 on, furnishing a food upon which cattle can live all the year 
 round. In some other parts of our country one or two 
 acres will give enough grass for a cow or an ox. On these 
 high plains the grass is so thin that it often takes fifteen or 
 more acres to feed a single animal, so that the cattle are 
 widely scattered, and but few can feed in one place at a 
 time.
 
 ON A WESTERN CATTLE RANCH 75 
 
 Nevertheless, there is enough grass on these plains to 
 support a great cattle-rearing industry. Men have brought 
 vast herds to the plains, and they live here with their cow- 
 boys watching their stock. They usually establish their 
 homes near a stream, having a blacksmith shop, stables, and 
 corrals for ponies, and lodging and eating houses for the cow- 
 boys, or rather cowmen, who take care of the cattle. Their 
 food and other supplies are often brought hundreds of miles 
 from the nearest railway station, in canvas-covered wagons, 
 and the cattle, when ready for the market, are driven to the 
 railroad, whence they go east on the cars. It is on such a 
 ranch that we shall suppose ourselves to be at this time. 
 
 We step outside the house and look about over the wide 
 dreary plain. The ground is flat, and we can see for miles 
 on each side. The earth is covered with dry dusty grass. 
 Here and there two or three cattle are feeding. Near by 
 we hear the neighing of horses. The sound comes from 
 the corral or yard over there. See, the cowboys are bringing 
 the ponies. There are two hundred of them. They come 
 kicking and jumping. There are enough for the cow- 
 boys, as well as one for each of us. 
 
 Now we are mounted and are galloping over the 
 plains. The foreman has divided the party and given 
 each man his own work to do. We circle about, driving 
 the cattle, which feed in little groups or singly, here and 
 there, to the center. There are also cowmen from other 
 ranches about the country doing the same, so that by noon 
 thousands of cattle are gathered together. 
 
 We eafdinner, supplied by the cook's wagon, sitting flat 
 on the ground, and then take fresh ponies which have 
 been brought from the corral to aid in the round-up.
 
 76 
 
 Ff^oDS- (m now THE woKi.n is fed 
 
 The inirposc of the round-uii is to divide the cattle 
 amoiii;- their owners and to mark every one of the calves 
 with a brand. In this great ranching country there are no 
 fences. The most of the land belongs to the government, 
 and cattle may be grazed anywhere, provided they can 
 have water. The lands along the streams are usually 
 
 Cowboys at dinner. 
 
 owned by the ranchmen, who, having the water, in this 
 way control large tracts of dry country. 
 
 The animals thus run wild ; they stray far from their 
 homes and get with other cattle, so that it is only by mark- 
 ing them in some way that a man can keep track of his 
 own. This is done by branding or burning a letter or 
 other mark into the skin of the animal when it is a calf. 
 After that the brand will stay as long as the animal lives. 
 The round-ups are to bring all the cattle together, in order 
 that each man may pick out his own, and every one have
 
 ON A WESTERN CATTLE RANCH 
 
 n 
 
 his calves, born since tiie last round-up, branded with his 
 own mark. 
 
 The cowboys are now in the saddle, and the work is 
 beginning. How noisy it is ! The bulls are bellowing, the 
 cows lowing, and the calves bleating for their mothers. The 
 cattle are stamping and pushing this way and that. The 
 air is filled with dust made by the stock and the ponies. 
 
 A round-up. 
 
 The cowboys circle round and round, keeping the great 
 drove together. Now they ride in and pick out their own 
 stock, selecting the animals by the brands upon them. By 
 and by the cattle are separated, and the branding begins. 
 
 Some of the crew have built a fire at one side, and in 
 this they are heating long irons red-hot. Men with lassos 
 are getting out the little long-legged calves. They ride 
 about among the cattle chasing the calves. When one darts 
 for the open, a cowboy gallops after him, and, with a sweep- 
 ing throw, sends his rope in such a way that it catches the
 
 78 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 calf around the hind legs. The well-trained pony stops 
 short and braces itself ; for the lasso is tied to its saddle. 
 The calf tries to run and is pulled by the rope to the 
 ground.- It is now dragged to the fire. One of the brand- 
 ing party grabs it by the ears and sits down on its neck. 
 Another pulls out one of its hind legs, so as to make the 
 
 Branded with the brand of its mother. 
 
 skin tight; while a third takes the red-hot iron from the 
 fire and quickly presses it upon the live flesh. There is a 
 smoking, hissing, and sizzling, as the iron burns through 
 the hair deep into the skin. From now on the hair will 
 not grow on that spot, and the calf will be marked to the 
 end of its days. The branding takes but a moment, and
 
 ON A WESTERN CATILE RANCH 79 
 
 the calf is then loosened and runs off to let its mother 
 console it by licking the wound. The ownership of the 
 calf can easily be told from its mother ; the cows know 
 their own calves quite as well as our mothers know us, 
 and at the round-up each calf is branded with the brand of 
 its mother. At the same time a record of the act is made 
 in the stock book of the ranch. 
 
 We watch them branding other calves in the same way. 
 The work goes on for days, the cattle being carefully 
 guarded at night, until at last all are branded, and each 
 man has his own. 
 
 What we have seen is but one feature of the great 
 industry of providing beef for our tables. We might 
 spend weeks on the plains, observing something new every 
 day. We would be interested in selecting the cattle for 
 shipment, in driving them to the stations, and in riding 
 with the stock to Omaha, Kansas City, or Chicago. 
 
 Such ranching is largely carried on in Montana, Wyo- 
 ming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. There 
 are also many cattle in Oklahoma and in some parts 
 of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, In Texas much 
 of the stock-grazing country is composed of lands belong- 
 ing to the state, which have been set aside for the support 
 of the public schools. They are leased by the year or ten 
 years to cattle men for only a few cents per acre, but there 
 is so much of this land that it brings in a vast sum. 
 
 One of the largest cattle ranches of the world is in 
 Texas. It would take us more than a week to ride on 
 horseback from one end of it to the other ; for it is more 
 than two hundred miles long, and ten miles wide, and all to- 
 gether is larger than the whole state of Connecticut. The
 
 So 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW TllK WORLD IS FED 
 
 company which owns this land obtained it in an odd way. 
 Texas wanted a new state house, and the men who have 
 since made this ranch offered to furnish the money and 
 build it if the state would grant them this land. Their 
 offer was accepted, and the state house was built. Their 
 land has so increased in value that the undertaking has 
 proved to be a very profitable one. They have put wire 
 
 On a western ranch. 
 
 fences about the ranch and are grazing more than one 
 hundred thousand cattle upon it. 
 
 There are many other large ranches throughout the 
 west, where the lands belong to private parties, and nof^ 
 to the state or government. Such ranches are often 
 fenced with wire, and some of them have the top wires of 
 the fence so fixed that they can be used for telephoning 
 from one part of the estate to the other. A big ranch is 
 managed like a great store or factory, a careful account 
 being kept of everything. The cowboys work under 
 foremen, and the cattle are carefully watched from the 
 time they are born until they are ready to be shipped to 
 the markets.
 
 ON A WESTERN CAITLE RANCH 8 1 
 
 As we ride over the plains, cattle rearing seems an easy 
 business, and we find ourselves wishing we could be ranch- 
 men or even cowboys. We watch the skill with which the 
 men ride their bucking, kicking ponies, and we delight in 
 the races and jollity at the round-ups. If we should stay 
 long, however, we might find that the stockman's life is 
 by no means all fun. He must be out in the snow, watch- 
 ing the cattle to see that they are not lost or do not starve 
 in the storms and blizzards. He often has to ride all day 
 and to sleep out in the open air ; and there are sometimes 
 prairie fires, when both cowboys and cattle must run for 
 their lives. To guard against the spread of such fires, wide 
 roads are sometimes made across the prairies or around 
 the ranches. 
 
 There is also danger of losing the cattle by diseases and 
 by wolves, panthers, and other wild animals. The little 
 prairie dogs dig holes in the ground, where they live in 
 prairie dog villages with their little dog families. They 
 eat up the pasture ; for twenty dogs will consume as much 
 grass as one sheep. They are sometimes killed by the 
 cowboys, who drop poison into the holes. Rattlesnakes 
 make their homes in these holes; and if one of the cattle 
 steps in, it may be bitten by a snake, or may break its leg 
 before it gets out. 
 
 Although millions of cattle are reared on these ranches, 
 we must not suppose that they form the chief meat supply 
 of our country. Many more animals are kept on farms 
 than on ranches. The great corn belt raises far more 
 beef than any other part of our country ; and the animals 
 reared farther west are often brought to the corn states to 
 be fattened before they are shipped to Omaha, Chicago,
 
 82 l-OODS : UK HUW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Kansas City, or other meat-packing centers. Some are 
 sent in fast stock express cars to the Atlantic seaboard, 
 whence they are shipped to Europe. They are carefully 
 treated on the cars and steamers. One man has charge 
 of a certain number of animals, and stays with them all the 
 time, to sec that they get plenty of water and feed; so that 
 when they land they will be in good condition for sale. 
 
 This business is so great that cars and ships are built 
 especially for it. We have palace stock cars for cattle, and 
 long trains of them are always moving from the farms to 
 where the meat packing is done. We have ships to take 
 live cattle across the ocean to Europe, but this business is 
 decreasing, and the most of our meat is exported either in 
 cans or as fresh meat, killed here and sent abroad in cold 
 storage. 
 
 Indeed, our meat industry is so important that the great- 
 est of care is taken in rearing" fine stock and in transport- 
 ing it to the places where it is consumed. There are some 
 breeds of cattle which will produce more and better beef 
 than others, and our ranchmen and farmers are always 
 trying to get the best stock. 
 
 There are in the world about one hundred different 
 breeds of cattle. Some are large, and some small; some 
 are especially good for meat, and others for the rich milk 
 they produce. In India there are cattle with great humps 
 on their backs, which some of the people worship, and 
 which others use as draft animals and for food. The 
 best of all kinds of modern beef cattle come from England 
 and elsewhere in northern Europe. We have imported 
 many such cattle, and they now form a large part of our 
 stock.
 
 ON A WESTERN CATTLE RANCH 83 
 
 The first cattle brought to America came with Columbus 
 to the West Indies in 1493. Some of their offspring were 
 taken to Mexico, whence they spread northward and became 
 the forefathers of the Texas cattle of to-day. Others were 
 brought by the Spaniards to Florida. Later still a great 
 many fine cattle were brought from England and Holland 
 to Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and other colonies. 
 From that time until the present we have been improving 
 our cattle by importations from European countries, par- 
 ticularly from England and Holland, these two countries 
 being the homes of some of the best dairy, as well as beef 
 cattle, in the world. 
 
 No other country exports so much meat as the United 
 States. In the year ending June 30, 191 6, we sold al- 
 most two hundred and eighty million dollars' worth of meat 
 to foreign countries and in addition about eight hundred 
 thousand Hve cattle. We sent many cattle and hundreds 
 of millions of pounds of beef to the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, which is our principal customer. 
 The chief other countries which furnish meat to Europe 
 are Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina ; but 
 all of these, except Canada, furnish more mutton than beef, 
 and the Canadian exports largely consist of the bacon for 
 which that country is noted. 
 
 There is a considerable shipment of cattle in Europe 
 from one country to another ; and in South America they are 
 largely exported from Peru, Chile, Argentina, and southern 
 Brazil. At many of the ports of that grand division the 
 shipping facilities are poor, and the cattle are loaded and 
 unloaded in slings, and sometimes they are raised into the 
 ships by ropes attached to their horns.
 
 84 
 
 FOdDS: OR IIOW 11 IF. WORLD IS FED 
 
 lo. A VISIT TO A GREAT PACKING CENTER 
 
 WE have come from the West to Chicago with a load 
 of fat cattle, to see how they are turned into meat 
 for our tables. Our train had troughs of fresh water 
 fastened to each side of the cars, for drink on the way, and 
 we traveled at a high rate of speed, in order to reach the 
 
 Union Stock Yard... Chicago. 
 
 market in the shortest possible time. We rode in the ca- 
 boose, a rough sleeping car at the rear of the train, with 
 the cowboys who fed the stock and looked them over at 
 every stop to see that all were well. 
 
 Upon arriving in Chicago we came direct to the Union 
 Stock Yards, in the heart of the city ; and here we are now, 
 in the biggest cattle market and the chief meat-packing 
 center of the world. Our beeves are already unloaded,
 
 A VISIT TO A GREAT PACKING CENTER 85 
 
 and they will rest in the feeding pens for twenty-four 
 hours before they are offered for sale. 
 
 But let us learn something about meat packing, or the 
 industry which relates to the killing of cattle, hogs, and 
 sheep, and the fitting of their flesh for food or for sale in 
 our markets, or for shipment to other parts of the world. 
 Meat packing is one of the largest businesses of the United 
 States. A vast capital is invested in it, and its product in 
 one year has amounted to almost eight hundred million 
 dollars. It employs thousands of people at the packing 
 centers, and thousands more in our towns and cities to 
 handle the meats. The products are so widely distributed 
 that it requires a vast number of cars and ships to carry 
 them ; there is hardly a provision store in our country 
 which does not sell some of them ; and there are few of 
 our people who do not consume, in one shape or another, 
 some of the animals, thus killed, every day. 
 
 We have already learned how cattle were first brought to 
 this country. Some of those imported by Sir Ralph Lane 
 from the West Indies, in 1610, were considered so valuable 
 for breeding that it was forbidden to slaughter them on 
 pain of death, and others which arrived later were carefully 
 cared for. The stock throve, and as time passed on there 
 were plenty for killing. The farmers raised their own 
 meat, and drovers brought live animals to the towns 
 and cities and sold them to the butchers. As the 
 pioneers moved westward, they took cattle with them, 
 and Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky soon became stock- 
 raising centers. 
 
 At finst the meat was eaten only where it was killed. 
 Each town had its slaughter houses, and all fresh meats
 
 86 1(K)1)S: ok now lllK WORLD IS FEU 
 
 were prepared by the local butchers, just as is done in out- 
 of-the-way places all over our country to-day. Then men 
 began to cure pork for shipment to other localities ; and, in 
 the middle of the last century, Cincinnati, which at that time 
 was the center of our corn belt, had a large business in 
 killing hogs and sending cured pork by the Ohio and 
 Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, and around by sea to 
 our Atlantic ports. 
 
 As railroads were built, the packing industry increased. 
 Pork was then shipped in every direction, and meat pack- 
 ing extended westward, with the growth of the country, 
 until, at about the time of our Civil War, it had become a 
 great industry in Chicago. Later still, with the develop- 
 ment of the corn belt, packing centers sprang up at St. 
 Louis, St. Joseph, Kansas City, and South Omaha. But 
 Chicago, all the while, held its own and steadily increased 
 its business, until now it is the chief pork-packing center 
 of the world. 
 
 Long before this, however, the industry had been 
 widened so as to include all sorts of fresh meats. At the 
 beginning the only meat packed was that which could be 
 dried or salted. Beef treated in this way was put into 
 barrels and shipped to our eastern markets, and from them 
 it was sent on ships all over the world. Then it was dis- 
 covered that if meat were kept in very cold rooms, it not 
 only could be preserved fresh for a long time, but it would 
 be better for eating when taken out, than it was when freshly 
 killed. It was also found that all meat could be better cured 
 if it were properly chilled first. Artificial methods of re- 
 frigeration or cooling were then invented, and these inven- 
 tions form the basis of the great meat-packing industry of
 
 A VISIT TO A GREAT PACKING CENTER 
 
 87 
 
 to-day. By them meat can be killed throughout the year 
 and carried fresh in refrigerator cars all over the country. 
 Even in the hottest weather it can be taken to the sea- 
 board and carried in cold rooms across the ocean to 
 Europe. Meat so stored will stay fresh for days, weeks, 
 and months ; so that when it reaches the dinner tables of 
 
 Cold storage beef in a packing house. 
 
 our country or of Europe it is just as good as when it was 
 killed in Chicago. We are now sending several hundred 
 million pounds of fresh beef yearly across the Atlantic ; 
 and most of the fresh meats eaten in our own towns and 
 cities come from animals killed some days before in our 
 great packing centers. 
 
 Let us take a walk through the stock yards. They are 
 in the heart of Chicago, but we seem to be in a city of
 
 88 FOODS: OR now lllK WORLD IS FKD 
 
 animals rather than of men. The air is filled with the 
 bellowing of steers, the lowing of cows, the bleating of 
 calves, the baaing of sheep, and the shrill squealing of 
 pigs. There are thousands upon thousands of these ani- 
 mals all about us ; great droves of them are being taken 
 out of the cars ; and tens of thousands are moving this 
 way and that, on their way to be sold or killed. 
 
 We climb to the roof of a tall building at one side, and 
 look down. Pens filled with cattle, hogs, and sheep reach 
 far out on all sides. The pens are arranged along streets 
 which cross one another at right angles ; and we are told 
 that there are twenty miles of such streets. The city has 
 its own sections and wards, each with its own class of four- 
 footed citizens. There is one section devoted to cattle. It 
 has several hundred beasts in each pen. Farther over is a 
 section of sheep, where thousands of woolly creatures are 
 bleating and baaing ; and here at our feet is an army of fat 
 porkers, some contentedly grunting and others squealing 
 like mad. 
 
 Notice the pens. Each has a trough for water and an- 
 other for food. There are miles of such troughs and 
 many miles of drainage and water pipes. The water for 
 the stock comes from artesian wells, driven twelve hundred 
 feet down into the ground, far below the level of Lake 
 Michigan ; and the food is the best that can be procured. 
 See the railroad tracks which extend out on each side. 
 There are one hundred and fifty miles of them in and about 
 the stock yards. Those long trains coming in are bring- 
 ing new animals, while those going out contain refrigerat- 
 ing cars, carrying the meats and other packed products 
 to all parts of the country.
 
 A VISIT TO A GREAT PACKIXG CENTER 
 
 89 
 
 These buildings in the center, which rise high over the 
 pens, are where the rulers of this city live. They form 
 the exchange where the stockmen and packers come to- 
 gether to buy and sell the four-footed citizens. These 
 men handle tens of milHons of hogs, cattle, and sheep 
 every year. The animals in the pens are changed daily. 
 Those we see now will be dead by this time to-morrow, and 
 another horde will have taken their places. Those hogs 
 
 Cattle being driven to the pens. 
 
 down in the street are on their way to be slaughtered, and 
 the wild-eyed oxen which are surging this way and that, 
 just below us, will all be killed before nightfall. 
 
 The chief selling time is in the morning. Then the 
 streets are filled with cattle, hogs, and sheep, being driven 
 by men from one place to another. Some of the drovers 
 are on horseback and some on foot. How they yell at the 
 beasts and crack their great whips ! The agents of the
 
 go FOODS: OR HOW TllK WORLD IS FED 
 
 big packing houses are moving about, looking over the 
 stock. They buy at a glance ; and the sellers jot down 
 the purchases in their notebooks and are paid later on. 
 After the selling hours are over, the animals are weighed, 
 and then taken off to the great meat factories or to other 
 pens to await their time to be slaughtered. 
 
 We go down and walk about the stock yards and 
 then enter one of the packing houses near by, follow- 
 ing some beeves about to be killed. The animals are 
 driven up an inclined roadway to the upper stories, so 
 that gravity ma}' be used in handling the product, and 
 the meat be ready for shipment when it again reaches the 
 ground. 
 
 We go ahead to where the killing is done. As the 
 cattle come up, they are inclosed in a pen, about which, 
 on a platform, a bare-armed man walks, holding a long- 
 handled hammer. Only a few animals are let in at a time, 
 and the pen is so small they are jammed close together. 
 The man strikes them on the head one by one a single 
 blow with the hammer, killing them instantly. As the 
 cattle in the pen fall down, the floor drops a little, and 
 they roll out on to the cement pavement below ; and the 
 floor goes back, for the slaughter of others. 
 
 Each of the dead animals is now hooked by the hind 
 leg to a pulley and raised, head downward, to a wheel, which 
 runs on a track overhead to the other departments of the 
 factory. As it goes on past man after man, each does 
 something to help fit the carcass for beef. One butcher 
 cuts the throat to let out the blood, which must be saved to 
 make fertilizer; others clean the carcass; and others take 
 off the skin, hoofs, and horns, all of which are saved for
 
 A VISIT TO A GREAT PACKING CENTER 
 
 91 
 
 oil, glue, leather, or some other useful thing, — not an ounce 
 of the animal goes to waste. 
 
 When the carcass is ready for beef, it is divided along 
 the backbone, making two sides, in which shape it is sold. 
 It is now not more than twenty minutes since the steer 
 was killed, but it has already passed through the hands of 
 
 Canning beef 
 
 about twenty men. The meat has yet to go through many 
 other processes before it will be ready for eating. If it is 
 to be canned, it travels to the departments where it is 
 trimmed, cooked, and sealed up in tin cans, each of which 
 has a bright-colored wrapper pasted upon it. 
 
 If the beef is to be sold fresh, it first slides along on over-
 
 92 FOODS: OR IIoW llIK WORLD IS FKD 
 
 head trolley tracks into a great refrigerating chamber, so 
 large that it will hold ten thousand sides of beef at one 
 time, and so cold that the temperature is just above freez- 
 ing. There it remains forty-eight hours, and becomes 
 chilled through and firm to the touch. It next travels on 
 a track down to the ground floor, where it is cut into 
 quarters and loaded into cold storage cars, which will take 
 it to the butchers of Boston, New York, or other cities 
 or towns. The meat is hung upon hooks from the ceil- 
 ing of the cars, and the cars, when loaded, are shut tight 
 and not opened until they reach their destination. 
 
 If the meat is to be shipped across the Atlantic, it is 
 transferred, at the ports to which it is sent by rail, to the 
 cold storage chambers in the holds of the steamers. From 
 seven to twelve days are required to carry it o\'er the ocean ; 
 and it is sold as fresh meat in Europe about three weeks 
 after it leaves Chicago. 
 
 II. HOGS AND PORK PACKING 
 
 AS we passed through the corn belt, we saw something 
 of the hog industry of the United States. About 
 one third of our corn crop is used to make pork, and 
 although hogs are raised everywhere, the corn belt pro- 
 duces more pork than any other part of our country. 
 In 1916, the Department of Agriculture estimated that the 
 United States had more than sixty-eight million hogs. If 
 they had been equally divided, there would have been 
 more than three hogs to every family, including a sucking 
 pig for each of the babies.
 
 HOGS AND PORK PACKING 
 
 93 
 
 These pigs are of such enormous value that if all the 
 gold that is taken out of the earth in any one year could 
 be coined, it would not be enough to pay for the pork 
 products we make in that year. We raise more hogs 
 than any other country. Germany and Brazil come 
 next, but our product is greater than that of both those 
 countries combined. We raise all the pork we need for 
 
 One third of our corn crop is used to make pork. 
 
 ourselves and supply a vast quantity to other nations 
 in different parts of the world. In 1914 we exported 
 more than a billion pounds of pork and other hog prod- 
 ucts, and received, therefor, more than one hundred 
 million dollars in money. We shipped a great deal to 
 England, France, Holland, Germany, and other parts of 
 Europe ; we sent some to Africa, and also to Australia, 
 Asia, the West Indies, and South America. Our pork is 
 eaten in Alaska and in the Philippine Islands ; and there is
 
 94 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 scarcely a great steamship which crosses the ocean that 
 has not some of it on board. 
 
 Pork is raised, however, by nearly all nations. The hog 
 seems to be a native of most parts of Europe and Asia. 
 He came to this continent with our forefathers, and has 
 grown as rapidly in number as have his human owners. 
 He is now found throughout North and South America. 
 In Canada he eats field peas ; in Cuba and in other islands 
 of the West Indies he thrives on palm nuts; in the Philip- 
 pines, Samoa, and Guam on cocoanut meats; and in parts 
 of the Chinese Empire on sweet potatoes and chestnuts. 
 
 In no other place, however, is pork packed in such vast 
 quantities as in Chicago. This city does such a big busi- 
 ness in hogs that it is sometimes called Porkopolis, or the 
 city of pork. A larger proportion of the meat packing 
 about the Union Stock Yards, where we have been in- 
 specting cattle and beef, is devoted to hogs and pork 
 products, and the very establishment in which we saw the 
 cattle killed also slaughters hundreds of hogs every hour. 
 
 The managers tell us that pork packing is quite as 
 interesting as beef packing, and we ask to be shown 
 through this branch of the factory. We first go to where 
 the hogs are brought in fresh from the cars, on their way 
 to be slaughtered. They have not rested twenty-four 
 hours to cool off, as the cattle had, before being slaugh- 
 tered, and they look hot and tired. Some are so fat that 
 they cannot move fast, and all are grunting and squealing 
 as the drovers force them this way and that. The first 
 process is cooling them off. This is done by sprinkling 
 them with ice water, giving each a cold bath before 
 killing.
 
 HOGS AND PORK PACKING 95 
 
 After this, the hogs move onward to a great solid wheel 
 which stands upright with chains fastened here and there 
 on the rim. As each hog comes in, a chain is attached to 
 one of his hind legs, and, as the wheel revolves, he is slowly 
 raised, kicking and squealing, from the ground. The hogs 
 follow each other closely ; so that there is a continuous 
 
 Pork packing in Chicago. 
 
 line of squealing porkers always moving from the floor 
 to the ceiling. As each hog nears the top, he is auto- 
 matically taken off the wheel, and hung, head downward, 
 on a hook which slides on a sloping rail. This takes him 
 on to the butcher, who cuts his throat. A little later the 
 carcass is dropped into a tank of steaming hot water, 
 and then dragged up to a tower, where the bristles are
 
 96 FOODS: OK now TlIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 scraped off by machinery, and the pork conies out pink 
 and white. 
 
 The carcass is now raised to a hook, and, hke the beef, 
 is carried on an overhead track to be dressed and cut up 
 for the market. It has to move rapidly, for there are liun- 
 dredsof other carcasses behind it, and thousands must pass 
 over this track in the course of a day. As it goes by the 
 workmen, each docs his part ; one cuts it in halves, one 
 trims off a bit here, another a bit there ; and within twelve 
 minutes it passes into the refrigerating room, where it 
 hangs for two days. 
 
 After this the pork, now cold and stiff, is taken out and 
 started on another journey on the trolley rail. It goes to 
 the chopping block, where the sides are cut into halves, the 
 hams going one way, and the shoulders another. 
 
 If we follow these halves, we shall find that the work of 
 cutting has only begun. The pieces are divided again and 
 again. Such of the meat as is to be eaten fresh goes into 
 the refrigerating cars, and is shipped to the markets all 
 over the country. That which is to be cured — and this is 
 usually nine tenths of the hog — is cut into different shapes. 
 The hams, shoulders, bacon, and some other cuts are 
 salted or put in pickle to be cured. They often remain 
 there for several weeks, after which they are taken out 
 and smoked in great ovens, where thousands of hams, 
 tongues, dried beef, and bacon are cured at one time. After 
 smoking, the hams and bacon are put up in canvas, for 
 shipment to the markets. 
 
 The other parts of the hog are treated by various meth- 
 ods, each part being prepared for some kind of food. Saus- 
 age is made of the trimmino-s from the hams and the cuts
 
 HOGS AND PORK PACKING 97 
 
 from the butchers' benches and the killing rooms; the 
 meat being chopped, mixed, and stuffed by machinery. 
 Spices, pepper, salt, and ginger are put in, and some- 
 times a little potato flour and water. The sausage meat 
 is forced into the skins of the intestines of the hog by 
 great machines, which work so rapidly that they fill about 
 a mile of skins in one minute. The sausages are delivered 
 upon a table, at which stand several men who tie them in 
 links. They are then ready for sale. 
 
 The fat of the hog also forms an important article of 
 commerce. It is known as lard. We ship large quanti- 
 ties of it abroad. It is taken chiefly from the parts of 
 the hog not used for food, the fat being rendered out. In 
 1914 we exported about one hundred and fifty million 
 pounds of lard to the United Kingdom alone. 
 
 In meat packing every part of the animal is saved for 
 some purpose. The workmen tell us they can use all of the 
 ox but its kick, and every bit of the pig but its squeal. 
 The blood of the animals is used to make fertilizer, 
 albumen, and stock feed, and also for sizing paper and for 
 refining sugar. The hides are turned into leather of vari- 
 ous kinds, and the hair into camel's-hair pencils and shoddy, 
 a sort of cloth. The hip bones, horns, and shoulder blades 
 are made into hairpins, combs, and buttons ; the thigh 
 bones into handles for toothbrushes and knives ; while 
 the skulls, jawbones, and teeth are sold to bone burners. 
 Hoofs, and scraps of hides, bones, and horns are made 
 into glue ; while the tails give hair for cushions and mat- 
 tresses. The bristles of the hog are used for brushes of 
 various kinds ; and from the lining of its stomach comes 
 pepsin, which the doctors give us to aid our digestion. 
 
 FOODS 7
 
 9<S FOODS: OK now lllK WORLD IS bKD 
 
 From the fats, soaps of all kinds are made, as well as oleo- 
 margarine, which takes the place of "butter. Some parts 
 of the beef are canned in the form of soup, and from 
 other parts are made the liquid beef extracts which are 
 given to invalids. 
 
 PLven the dirt and refuse are sold as fertilizers, and from 
 other waste is made cyanide of potassium, a chemical of 
 great value in gold mining. Indeed, the by-products of 
 modern meat packing are of such importance that every 
 large factory has a scientific workshop connected with it, 
 where skilled chemists are always experimenting, trying 
 to discover new uses for parts of the animals which once 
 went to waste. 
 
 12. MUTTON 
 
 WE have left the United States and are traveling far 
 south of the Equator, in the southern part of New 
 Zealand. We have come here to learn about raising mut- 
 ton for the markets of Great Britain and Ireland. New 
 Zealand is on the other side of the world from Great 
 Britain, and it is so far south of the Equator that, by way 
 of the Strait of Magellan, it is twelve thousand miles or 
 more from the markets of England. Nevertheless, the 
 modern arrangements for shipping are such that sheep in 
 a frozen state can be carried from New Zealand to Eng- 
 land, and sold there at a lower price than those raised by 
 the British at home. In this way New Zealand mutton 
 comes into direct competition with our enormous meat ex- 
 ports to the United Kingdom ; and as Great Britain is our
 
 MUTTON 
 
 99 
 
 best customer, we are anxious to learn how the business of 
 preparing the mutton of New Zealand for the market is 
 carried on. 
 
 But first, let us glance at the sheep industry of our own 
 country. We raise many million sheep, both for wool and 
 mutton ; and although we have no mutton for export, we 
 have enough sheep and lambs to supply our own markets. 
 Many are slaughtered at Chicago and at the other great 
 
 A New Zealand mutton factory. 
 
 packing centers, and fresh mutton, like beef and pork, is 
 sent to different parts of our country in cold storage cars. 
 Sheep are also killed by the local butchers throughout the 
 United States, so that mutton is found in every market 
 house, and it forms one of the chief meats on our tables. 
 
 Sheep were among the first animals domesticated by 
 man, and they have been raised for ages in nearly all parts 
 of Europe and Asia. Columbus brought some with him 
 to the West Indies on his second voyage, in 1493 ; and 
 later others were imported from Spain to Mexico and
 
 TOO FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Florida. The Mexican sheep grew rapidly and spread 
 northward to our country. There were soon great flocks of 
 them in New Mexico, and later the priests of the Mission 
 Stations in California began to breed them. Indeed, it is 
 said that these missions, in 1825, had more than one million 
 sheep of their own. As early as 1609, sheep were brought 
 from England into Virginia, but the wolves which then 
 infested that region killed so many of them that they in- 
 creased but slowly. Still later some were imported from 
 
 Sheep on a western ranch. 
 
 Holland into New York, and from Great Britain and Spain 
 into New England; these thrived and in time spread 
 throughout the colonies and were taken westward, as the 
 country was settled. 
 
 At present the most of our sheep are reared in the 
 west. Many are to be found in the corn and wheat re- 
 gions, and they are pastured in great flocks on the high 
 dry lands of the Rocky Mountain plateau. In 1916, 
 we had all together about forty-nine million sheep. The 
 three states having the greatest number were Wyoming,
 
 MUTTON lOI 
 
 Montana, and New Mexico, the first having more than 
 four million and the other two more than three million. 
 Next came Idaho and Ohio with about three million each. 
 Oregon followed with two million five hundred thousand 
 and then California with more than two million. 
 
 On the high lands of our western plateau sheep are 
 pastured out of doors all the year round. Like the cattle 
 we saw on the great ranges farther west, they live on the 
 thin grass which has been cured by the sun as it stands. 
 They are herded by shepherds, who live in wagons, with 
 their flocks, far out on the plains. One man and his dogs 
 can guard two or three thousand sheep and keep them 
 from straying. From time to time, some of the flock are 
 shipped east to the markets, or to the corn belt to be fat- 
 tened, and thence on to the packing houses. The meat is 
 treated much like that of the cattle and hogs we have 
 already inspected. 
 
 Sheep are now reared in most European countries and 
 especially in southern Russia, Spain, and the mountainous 
 lands along the Mediterranean Sea. They graze in north- 
 ern Africa as far south as the borders of the Sahara ; and 
 since southern Africa has been settled by Europeans, a large 
 sheep-growing industry has sprung up there. In the wilds 
 of The Sudan are sheep which grow hair instead of wool ; 
 and in Abyssinia and northern China and Mongolia are 
 some with great tails so loaded with fat that they drag on 
 the ground. Sheep thrive on most of the highlands of 
 Asia. They are found in vast numbers in Argentina, 
 Australia, and New Zealand, and also in the Falklands, 
 far south of the Equator. The principal sheep-raising 
 countries are Australia and Argentina, after which come
 
 I02 
 
 K)ODS : (»R HOW THE WORLD IS KKD 
 
 the United States and New Zealand. Australia, how- 
 ever, raises its sheep chietly for wool, while in Argentina 
 and New Zealand the mutton is also an important 
 product. 
 
 Sheep in Australia 
 
 In New Zealand both food and climate are just right 
 for producing fine mutton. The weather is mild all the 
 year round ; there is plenty of rain, and the rich grasses 
 keep the sheep fat. The country is one of high moun- 
 tains, many hills, and deep valleys ; there is good water 
 everywhere ; and turnips, on which the sheep thrive, can 
 be easily grown. We see the woolly flocks feeding as we 
 ride over the islands. They are kept inside fences and are 
 not herded as are our sheep of the Rocky Mountain pla-
 
 MUTTON 103 
 
 teau. The farmers live in comfortable homes near their 
 flocks, and the farming scenes are much like those of our 
 Middle States. 
 
 But stop, where are the barns and the haystacks ? We 
 see none as we look over the landscape. They are not 
 required here. In New Zealand the climate is so mild 
 that the grass keeps green all the year round, and there is 
 little need of putting up hay where the sheep and cattle 
 can always feed out of doors. 
 
 See that flock of sheep eating turnips. The field is 
 green, for they have just been let in, and they are munch- 
 ing the tops. By and by all the green will have disap- 
 peared, and the black ground, with the bare turnips upon 
 it, will look as though it had been sown with new base- 
 balls. The sheep will next eat these, biting away at each 
 turnip, until they have eaten every bit of the root. Some 
 of the farmers dig up the turnips and store them in pits 
 or mounds, and feed them to the sheep as they are 
 needed. 
 
 Now let us visit the factories and see how this far-away 
 mutton is prepared for the tables of London. We choose 
 one at Christchurch, where five thousand sheep are killed 
 every day. It seems rather small after the great packing 
 houses of Chicago, but this is only one of many in the 
 country ; the frozen meat annually shipped selling for mil- 
 lions of dollars. 
 
 We take a carriage at the hotel in Christchurch and 
 ride out to the factory. The buildings are great sheds, 
 surrounded by paddocks filled with sheep ready for kill- 
 ing. Behind them are drying yards, which, at first sight, 
 seem covered with snow, but are really spotted with great
 
 I04 FOODS: OR HOW 11 IK WORLD IS FED 
 
 piles of newly washed wool. This wool has been pulled 
 from the skins of the animals killed for mutton. 
 
 We are first taken to the stock yards, where men are 
 driving the fat sheep up a passageway to the killing de- 
 partment on the second floor. See how quickly they go. 
 Sheep instinctively follow a leader ; and here the leaders, 
 known as decoys, are trained to conduct their fellows 
 to slaughter. Day after day, year in and year out, those 
 old sheep at the head lead the flocks up that passage, step- 
 ping out at the top to go back to lead other flocks to 
 death. 
 
 We follow the sheep into the building, and go with them 
 into the killing room. We are now in a great hall, lined 
 with pens, each of which holds twenty sheep. The pens 
 face a central aisle, where stand the butchers. The sheep 
 die at the rate of ten every minute. 
 
 After killing a sheep, the butcher hangs it upon a hook 
 behind him and strips off the skin. He cuts off the head 
 and washes the body down with hot water. This is done 
 so quickly that in less than seven minutes the sheep is 
 killed, dressed, and ready for freezing. It is now hooked 
 to a pulley, and started by means of a shove ; and the pul- 
 ley, which runs by gravity on little steel tracks, carries the 
 carcass off to the cooling room. From now on it will 
 scarcely be handled by man until it is ready for shipment 
 to Europe. 
 
 We go into the rooms where the carcasses are cooled for 
 forty-eight hours, before they take another trip on pulleys 
 into the cold chamber, where they are frozen, preparatory 
 to their long voyage over the ocean. In this place every- 
 thing is ice cold, and Jack Frost is king. The ceiling and
 
 MUTTON 
 
 105 
 
 the sides of the room have great coils of pipe covered with 
 frost; and we are told that the pipes contain brine kept in- 
 tensely cold by passing through a refrigerating machine ; it 
 reduces the temperature of the room to only a few degrees 
 above zero. The place is full of frozen meat now. The pink 
 and white mutton hangs down from the ceiling in rows of 
 headless sheep, so close to one another they almost touch. 
 
 Slide into the cold storage chamber of a stearaer. 
 
 There are one thousand carcasses in this room, all frozen 
 stiff. We tap one of them, and the sound is like that 
 made by tapping a drum-head. We take it down and rest 
 it on the floor. It is as hard as stone and so stiff that the 
 meat does not bend. It chills our fingers, and we are glad 
 to see it back on the hook. 
 
 We next go into the rooms where the frozen nuitton 
 is stored. The.se are of the same character as the freezing
 
 I06 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 chamber, save that they are filled with sheep carcasses, 
 each inclosed in a bag of white cotton, and these are 
 stacked up like cords of wood. They arc now ready for 
 shipping, and will be taken from here and loaded upon 
 the cars which will carry them to the harbor. There 
 they will be thrown out into trough-like chutes, down 
 which they will slide into the cold storage chamber of a 
 great ocean steamer, not to come out until they are landed 
 in London. 
 
 Many establishments similar to this are to be found in 
 the Argentine Repubhc, a country which also sends much 
 frozen mutton to England. The chief factories of Argen- 
 tina are at the great seaport of Buenos Ayres, and the 
 mutton goes almost directly from the factories into the 
 holds of the steamers. The distance from Buenos Ayres 
 to London is only a little more than half as great as that 
 from New Zealand, but nevertheless, New Zealand exports 
 a larger amount of mutton. In both countries beef also 
 is frozen for the English markets, but Argentina far 
 exceeds New Zealand in shipping frozen beef, although 
 its export of fresh beef to the United Kingdom is far less 
 than ours. 
 
 In the mutton freezing factories the waste is as carefully 
 saved as in our packing houses. The wool is taken from 
 the skins and used to make clothing, and the skins are 
 dried and shipped in bales to the leather markets. The 
 hoofs are used for gelatin and glue, the big bones make 
 knife handles, buttons, and combs, and of the entrails 
 fiddle strings are made. The bones are ground up to 
 feed chickens, and both blood and bones are used as 
 fertilizers.
 
 MILK., BU'lTER, AND CHEESE lO/ 
 
 13. MILK, BUTTER, AND CHEESE 
 
 MILK is one of the world's best foods. It is used every- 
 where, and many different kinds of animals are 
 reared to supply it. In the far northern parts of Europe, 
 along the Arctic Ocean, the Laplanders get milk from the 
 reindeer, and freeze it in blocks to be kept until needed ; 
 in the Deserts of Sahara and Arabia the natives drink the 
 milk of camels and asses ; and in western Asia there are wan- 
 dering Tartar tribes who live largely on mare's milk. In 
 some European countries the goat is the poor man's cow, 
 and on the little island of Malta, in the Mediterranean Sea, 
 thirty thousand goats are kept for their milk. Switzerland, 
 Germany, Austria, and Norway, as well as France, Italy, 
 and Spain, consume goat's milk by the millions of gallons. 
 Some of the people drink it in their coffee, some use it to 
 make butter, and some manufacture it into cheese for ship- 
 ment all over the world. 
 
 Sometimes the milk is delivered direct from the goat, 
 the animal being driven through the streets from house to 
 house, the purchasers watching the goatherd and making 
 him turn his can upside down before he begins, to make 
 sure that there is no water in it. A good milch goat will 
 yield a quart or more at one milking, and it can be milked 
 three times a day. 
 
 But it is not from goats, sheep, camels, or reindeer that 
 the most of the world's milk supply comes. It is from 
 cows, which are kept for this purpose all over the world. 
 We have seen how cattle are reared for meat. We also 
 keep many for butter and cheese. Such animals are known
 
 io8 
 
 FOODS: OR now nil'; world is fi:d 
 
 as dairy cattle, and tlie United States has more of them than 
 any other country on earth. If everybody in this country 
 drank milk, there would be enough to give each of us at 
 least one glass every day. At the time of our last census, 
 we had about eighteen million dairy cows ; and our product 
 of milk, butter, and cheese was so great that dairying was 
 one of the most important of all our industries. 
 
 Jersey cow. 
 
 A good dairy cow is one which turns the most of its food 
 into milk rather than into beef. It should produce at least 
 six quarts of milk every day for three hundred days of the 
 year, or about four thousand pounds of milk in that time. 
 Many of our best dairy herds annually yield more than five 
 thousand pounds of milk for each cow, and there are some 
 cows which give every year ten times their own weight in 
 rich milk. Brown Bessie, the champion Jersey butter cow 
 of the Chicago World's Fair, produced, in ninety days, 
 thirty-six hundred and thirty-four pounds of milk.
 
 MILK, BUTTER, AND CHEESE 
 
 109 
 
 When we visit the dairies, we shall learn that the quality 
 of the milk is quite as important as the quantity. The Jer- 
 sey cow, for instance, gives a- comparatively small amount 
 of milk, but this is so rich that it makes more butter than 
 any other kind. Some fine Jerseys yield twenty-five or thirty 
 pounds of butter a week, and a single cow has produced as 
 much as one thousand pounds in one year. The Guernseys, 
 which, like the Jerseys, originated on one of the islands of 
 
 Red Polled cow. 
 
 the English Channel, have rich milk ; and so have the Ayr- 
 shires, which came from Scotland; and the Red Polls and 
 Shorthorns, which are bred also for meat. Holstein cows are 
 large black-and-white cattle, which originally came from 
 Holland. They yield so much milk that it is not uncommon 
 for a cow to give her own weight in milk in one month, but 
 the milk is not so rich as that of the other breeds above 
 mentioned.
 
 I lO 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Indeed, milk is chiefly valued according to the amount 
 of cream or butter fat it contains. We can understand 
 this by examining a drop or so under the microscope. As 
 we pour the milk out, it looks like a white liquid, and one 
 rtiight suppose it to be wholly liquid, without solid particles. 
 Under the microscope, however, we see that it is a clear, 
 transparent fluid with many minute globules, or little 
 bodies of fat of various sizes, swimming about. This fluid 
 
 Holstein cow. 
 
 is composed of water and the parts of the milk which, 
 although solids when dry, are now dissolved in the water, 
 just as though they were sugar or salt. The globules can- 
 not be so dissolved. They are balls of pure fat, so small 
 that a single drop of milk contains millions of them. In- 
 deed, it is said that if a person tried to count all the bodies 
 in one drop of milk, and should count at the rate of one 
 hundred per minute, ten hours every day, and six days 
 every week, it would take him ten years before he got
 
 MILK, BUITER, AND CHEESE III 
 
 through. The globules average about one ten-thousandth 
 of an inch in diameter, and it would take many of them, 
 placed one on top of another, to equal the thickness of 
 this page we are reading. 
 
 We next take some milk from which the cream has been 
 skimmed, and magnify it. Most of the fat globules have 
 disappeared, and we see one here and there. Now put the 
 cream under the microscope. It seems to be made up of 
 such globules. The little fat bodies are as close together 
 as peas in a bag, and they look like yellow shot piled one 
 upon another. Milk is rich or poor according to the num- 
 ber and size of these minute bodies of fat, and that of our 
 best dairy herds has the most and the largest. 
 
 If we should keep the drop of milk long under the mi- 
 croscope, we should see that the fat drops gradually come 
 to the top. The milk serum, as the fluid itself outside the 
 fat is called, is heavier than these globules, and therefore 
 it sinks. It is altogether a matter of gravity. The heavier 
 milk particles go to the bottom, the light fat ones rise to the 
 top. It is the lightness of the fat particles that causes them 
 to ascend and fill the upper part of the milk, making cream. 
 
 Upon this same principle all kinds of milk buying and 
 butter making depend. The milk serum is not pure 
 water. It contains sugar and casein, as well as a little 
 albumen and some mineral matter, all of which have a 
 food value, as we shall see later on. It is, in fact, more 
 like a sticky sirup than water, and the fat particles cannot 
 make their way rapidly through it. For this reason the 
 cream comes up slowly. 
 
 If milk or cream is beaten or churned vigorously for a 
 time varying according to the temperature, the age of the
 
 113 KOOnS: OR HOW TIIK WORLD JS FKl) 
 
 cream, and the speed ()f the churn, the fat globules unite, 
 forming butter, and separate from the watery serum or but- 
 termilk. This sinks to the bottom and is allowed to drain 
 off ; the butter is then worked, and washed in cold water 
 till all the buttermilk is removed. 
 
 Until recently, cream was gathered from milk by allow- 
 ing it to stand in crocks or pans in a cellar to cool, or in 
 the running water of a spring house. After twelve or 
 more hours most of the yellow butter fat had come to the 
 top and could be skimmed off and churned. Our first 
 dairy factories bought the milk and gathered the cream 
 in this way. Later, the farmers, having skimmed their 
 milk at home, carried the cream to the factories. Then a 
 machine, called a separator, was invented, by which the 
 butter fat could be taken quickly out of the milk ; and it 
 is by means of such separators that cream is now gathered 
 in our chief dairy districts. 
 
 Indeed, it is said that there are more than one million 
 separators in use in our country to-day. They are of all 
 sizes and patterns. In the great dairy factories and on 
 large farms they are moved by water, steam, or electricity ; 
 and in smaller establishments by horses, oxen, and even 
 by dogs, sheep, and goats. Some of the larger machines 
 will take the cream from as much as five hundred gallons 
 of milk in an hour, or from more than eight gallons in one 
 minute. The separator is a whirling machine and skims 
 the milk by contrifugal force. The milk is put into a great 
 steel bowl, held in an iron frame, and whirled round at the 
 rate of from fifteen hundred to twenty-five thousand revo- 
 lutions a minute. It moves so rapidly that one cannot see 
 that the bowl is going at all ; so rapidly that the milk serum
 
 MILK, P.UTTER, AND CHEESE II3 
 
 which, as we have seen, is heavier than the fat, flies out to 
 the walls of the bowl, and at the same time the cream comes 
 to the center. The cream flows out through one pipe, and 
 the skimmed milk through another. In some of the large 
 dairy factories and creameries such separators are kept 
 going steadily, the fresh milk pouring in from a great 
 reservoir, and the cream and skimmed milk flowing out. 
 
 Many of these establishments take the milk from the 
 farmers, run it through their separators, and pay for the 
 cream, the skimmed milk being given back to be carried 
 home for the hogs. In other places the fresh milk is bought 
 outright, and paid for according to its butter fat. The 
 quality is gauged by different instruments, one of the most 
 common being the Babcock milk test. This is a little bottle 
 with a long, slender neck, marked in a very similar way 
 to the thermometer that doctors use for taking one's 
 temperature. A tablespoonful of milk is put into the 
 bottle, together with a little sulphuric acid. The bottle is 
 laid on its side and placed in a machine which whirls it 
 around, throwing the butter fat to the neck ; so that, by 
 reading the figures to which the fat rises, one can tell just 
 what percentage of fat there is in the milk. 
 
 But it is not alone the fat in the milk that we use for 
 food. The milk serum, or pure skimmed milk contains sugar 
 and casein, as well as albumen and some valuable salts. 
 The sugar is sometimes extracted and reduced to a solid. 
 It then looks and tastes like powdered white sugar, al- 
 though not so sweet. You may find it for sale in almost 
 any drug store. It is from the casein that we make 
 curds for cheese ; and the salts are chiefly soda, potash, 
 phosphates, and lime. In one hundred pounds of good 
 
 FOUUS — 8
 
 114 K)()l)S: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 milk there are about eighty-seven pounds of water, four 
 pounds of fat, three and one third pounds of casein and 
 albumen, and seven tenths of a pound of salts. 
 
 Milk forms so large a part of our food that we ought 
 to know just what it contains, and also whether we are 
 getting pure milk and rich milk when we buy it. You 
 may have heard of the bad boy who told the farmer that 
 his best cow had an apple fast in its throat ; and how when 
 the man ran out he found that his pump spout was choked 
 up in that way. Milk peddlers are frequently accused of 
 watering their wares. Even in those countries where the 
 cows are driven from door to door, the man who peddles 
 the milk sometimes has, it is alleged, a rubber bag of water 
 under his coat, with a tube running down the sleeve to his 
 hand, so that when he presses his arm against his side, 
 the water flows in and mixes with the milk as he draws it 
 from the cow. We believe most of our milkmen are 
 honest, and that what they sell will stand the milk test. 
 Good milk should have a yellowish white color and taste 
 sweet and pure. If allowed to stand for some hours, the 
 cream should rise to one eighth or one fifth of the volume 
 of the milk, and when the cream and milk are poured out 
 there should be no sediment, although the milk may cling 
 a little to the vessel. Skimmed milk or poor milk is thinner 
 than whole milk, and is of a bluish white color. 
 
 Let us examine the different branches of our great 
 dairy industry. We have produced in one year about seven 
 billion gallons of milk, of which about two billions were 
 sold as milk, and one hundred and fourteen millions as 
 cream. Three billion gallons of milk were made into 
 butter, twenty-one million gallons were turned into cheese,
 
 MILK, BUTTER, AND CHEESE 
 
 115 
 
 and from a large quantity condensed milk was manu- 
 factured. We made so much butter that year that if it 
 could have been properly distributed, it would have spread 
 at least one loaf of bread for every man, woman, and 
 child in the whole world. Our product of butter was four- 
 teen hundred and ninety-two million pounds. We made 
 
 Milking on a model dairy farm in New Jersey. 
 
 almost three hundred million pounds of cheese, and our 
 dairy products all together were worth about six hundred 
 million dollars. 
 
 This vast industry is carried on in all parts of the 
 United States, but mostly in our Central States, north and 
 south. That region supports nearly two thirds of our dairy 
 cows, the North Atlantic States coming next, with about
 
 ii6 
 
 FOODS: (»R now THK WORLD IS FED 
 
 one sixth of the total number. The chief butter states are 
 Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 
 New York and Wisconsin yield two thirds of our cheese. 
 
 The most of our butter is made on the farms, but enor- 
 mous quantities are produced in factories, where every- 
 thing is done by 
 machinery moved by 
 steam or electricity. 
 In factory churning, 
 a hogshead or more 
 of cream is turned 
 into butter at a time ; 
 the butter is worked 
 by machinery, and 
 is packed in prints, 
 bricks, rolls, or in 
 buckets or casks, 
 for the different 
 markets. 
 
 Another impor- 
 tant branch of this 
 industry is cheese 
 making. Cheese is 
 composed of the ca- 
 sein and fat, most of the other constituents of the milk 
 passing off in the water or whey. Cheese is rich or poor 
 according to the amount of fat it contains. In cheese 
 making the milk is curdled by putting into it a piece of 
 a calf's stomach, called rennet. This makes the milk 
 coagulate, or turn into curds. The whey or water is now 
 pressed out, leaving a solid mass, which is cured and 
 
 Making butter by machinery.
 
 MILK, BUTTER, AND CHEESE 
 
 117 
 
 ripened into the different kinds of cheese. Whey is used 
 for making milk sugar and for stock feeding. Some years 
 ago most of our cheese was manufactured on the farms ; 
 now all but a small part of it is made in the many factories 
 which have been established in our chief dairy states. 
 
 We also have establishments for making the condensed 
 milk which we produce for our home market and for ex- 
 
 After the arrival of the milk train. 
 
 ■ port. From such milk a large part of the water has been 
 evaporated, so that this milk can be kept in cans for a long 
 time. It is used by babies, and also by sick people, and 
 on ships and in other places where new milk cannot be 
 obtained. 
 
 The business of selling fresh milk and cream to the 
 people of our towns is enormous. Each great city con- 
 sumes a little ocean of milk ev^ery week ; and this must be
 
 I 1 8 lUC^DS : OR HOW I'HE WORLD IS FED 
 
 brought daily from the farms and dairies and distributed 
 from house to house. This milk comes to the cities on the 
 cars, often traveling two or three hundred miles before it 
 reaches the consumer. Every railroad entering New York 
 or Chicago has special milk trains, in some of which are re- 
 frigerator cars. Many of these trains arrive in the city at 
 midnight, and the milk is kept ice cold until it can be 
 loaded upon the wagons the ne.xt morning. It is shipped 
 in heavy cans holding from five to ten gallons each. It is 
 then put into bottles holding a quart or a pint each for de- 
 livery. In the dairy regions many of the towns are served 
 by farmers who have milk routes and deliver from door to 
 door. 
 
 »oi»io« — 
 
 14. DAIRYING IN OTHER LANDS 
 
 WE have left the United States and are traveling 
 through the chief dairy countries of Europe. None 
 has as many cows as our country has, but in many of 
 them more butter and cheese for export are made. Our 
 vast product is mostly consumed at home, although we 
 sell some of it in Great Britain and elsewhere. One of 
 the chief butter-exporting countries of the world is Den- 
 mark. It is a low flat land cut up by the sea, not more 
 than twice as big as New Jersey ; but it has excellent 
 pastures, and it rears a number of fat dairy cows. It is, 
 moreover, so near England that it can send its butter 
 there cheaply ; and so much of its butter is shipped to the 
 English market that Denmark is sometimes called London's 
 chief dairy farm.
 
 DAIRYING IN OTHER LANDS 
 
 119 
 
 The Danes are thrifty and intelligent people, and they 
 realize that if one would do a good business from year to 
 year, he must always furnish the best goods of his kind. 
 For this reason the Danish government takes care that 
 only good butter is sent out of the country ; and it has 
 established dairy schools, where the people are taught 
 butter making. The farmers in the different parts of 
 Denmark have clubbed together and built dairy factories, 
 which they manage themselves. Through such establish- 
 ments they buy much of their cow feed at wholesale, 
 including a great deal of our Indian corn and cotton-seed 
 meal. They also join together in exporting their butter, 
 and ship it in sealed cans to all parts of the world. 
 Danish butter is so sweet and so well made that it is in 
 demand everywhere. 
 
 The Dutch, French, and Swiss, and also the Swedes 
 and the Belgians, are good butter makers, producing not 
 only enough for them- 
 selves, but exporting 
 much to other coun- 
 tries. The Russians, 
 until within recent 
 years, made no butter 
 for export ; but few of 
 their common people 
 could afford to use 
 it, and their dairy 
 product was small. A Belgian milk seller. 
 
 Now, delicious butter is made in Finland and in other 
 parts of European Russia, and a dairy industry has been 
 established in western Siberia. The government fosters
 
 I20 
 
 ydODFi: OK now IlIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 this industry. The Siberian butter is put up in barrels 
 and taken on express trains across Russia to the Baltic 
 Sea, where, in fast steamers, it is shipped to the chief 
 European markets. The most of it goes to London, which 
 buys several million dollars' worth of Russian butter every 
 year. 
 
 Shipping Siberian butter to London. 
 
 Other far-away dairy lands are Australia and New 
 Zealand, the butter being carried from them in cold storage 
 chambers over many thousand miles of water before it 
 reaches its consumers. The most of this product goes also 
 to London. Indeed, the United Kingdom is the world's 
 chief dairy market; and it annually imports more than 
 one hundred million dollars' worth of butter and a vast 
 quantity of cheese.
 
 DAIRYING', IN OTHER LANDS 
 
 121 
 
 The best European butter is delicious. In many of the 
 countries it is made without salt, and in France salted 
 butter is looked upon with suspicion, the people thinking 
 the salt is put in to hide some bad taste or other defect. 
 
 In most parts of Europe the cattle are milked in the fields 
 and the milk carried home. In Normandy women drive 
 out to the pastures in little donkey carts, filled with large 
 
 Dutch stable and house combined. 
 
 cans. They go over the fields to where the cows are graz- 
 ing, and milk them as they eat, setting down can after can 
 when it is full, until all the cows are milked. In the mean- 
 time, the little donkey, still harnessed to the cart, has been 
 allowed to graze where he pleases. After the milking is 
 finished, he is caught, and the cans are gathered up and 
 carried to the milk room at the farmhouse. There the
 
 122 
 
 RXJDS: UR HOW TIIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 milk Stands until the cream rises, when the butter is made 
 and put up in small rolls or mottes. On market day each 
 roll is neatly wrapped in a white cloth and packed in a little 
 basket with some long wheat straw to keep it from shaking 
 about. In this shape it is carried to the town market, 
 whence it may go to Paris or to some other large city. 
 The Dutch are among the best dairy farmers of Europe. 
 They blan-ket their cows when in the fields, to protect them 
 from the cold ; in the summer they milk them out of doors, 
 and in winter they sometimes take them into their houses. 
 
 At least, the stables 
 are frequently under 
 the same roof as the 
 rest of the dwelHng, 
 and are kept almost 
 as clean. 
 
 These people are 
 famous cheese mak- 
 ers, producing some 
 varieties, such as the 
 Making Edam cheese. Edam and Gouda, 
 
 which are exported to all parts of the world. An Edam 
 cheese is almost as big as a football, and is always globe 
 shaped. It usually weighs a little more than three pounds. 
 It is a cream cheese, yellow within, but inclosed in a 
 bright crimson coat. 
 
 One of the most common of the cheeses which we import 
 from, Europe is known as the Gruyere or Schweitzer, so 
 called because it is made in Switzerland. The Schweitzer 
 cheese is as big as a carriage wheel and from five to eight 
 inches thick. It is exported to all parts of the world.
 
 DAIRYING IN OTHER LANDS 1 23 
 
 Another cheese which we consume in large quantities is 
 the Parmesan, which comes from Italy. It is made from 
 skimmed milk, and is at its best when three or four years 
 old. Parmesan cheese is very hard. It is white within, but 
 its coat is so treated with charcoal and oil that it shines 
 like jet. It is often grated and used as a thickening for 
 soups, and with macaroni. 
 
 There are many other cheeses, made in different parts 
 of Europe, which are exported to other countries — in all 
 more than one hundred and fifty different kinds. Some of 
 the best of these varieties are made equally well in our 
 country. Indeed, we manufacture nearly all the cheese 
 we consume, and we export to other countries about fifty 
 times as much as we import. 
 
 There is one cheese district, however, that we ought to 
 visit before leaving Europe. I mean the mountainous re- 
 gion about Roquefort, in south-central France, where the 
 sheep-milk cheese of that name is made. Roquefort stands 
 far up on the side of a mountain, its buildings being at- 
 tached to the cliffs. Most of the houses are only one room 
 deep, but they are two, three, and four stories high, looking 
 out over the valley. The mountain behind the town is full 
 of caverns and passages, through which run strong cur- 
 rents of air and streams of ice-cold water. It is in these 
 caves that Roquefort cheese has been cured as long as any 
 one can remember. The caves were known in the days of 
 Charlemagne, and the peasants of this region were milking, 
 sheep for such cheese long before Columbus discovered 
 America. Now the business is controlled by companies, 
 which have added to the caves big stone vaults, through 
 which the air from the mountain caverns is conducted.
 
 124 
 
 FOODS: OR now TIIK \VORI,I) IS FED 
 
 It is the air, moisluie, and cold water of the caverns 
 which give Roquefort cheese its i)cculiar color and taste. 
 It is white or yellow, with streaks of blue mold running- 
 through it, the blue mold coming out on the cheese as it 
 stands in the caves. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of sheep are milked in this re- 
 gion, and each animal gives about a quart of milk a day 
 during the season. The milk sheep are of a breed called 
 
 South American milk, peddler. 
 
 the Larzac. They are white faced, big bodied, long legged, 
 and long tailed. Their tails are never cut, as are the tails 
 of our sheep ; and the peasants say that the longer the 
 sheep's tail, the more and the better her milk. The farmers 
 take the fresh milk to the cheese factories which have been 
 built throughout the surrounding country ; and the new 
 cheeses are carried from them to the caves to be cured. 
 
 In Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, and Italy, other varieties 
 of cheese are made from sheep's milk.
 
 DAIRYING IN OTHER LANDS 125 
 
 South America has many cattle, but they are reared 
 chiefly for meat or for draft. On the Argentine pampas we 
 might visit ranches on which are thousands of cows, and 
 yet find the owners using butter imported in tin cans 
 from Denmark or Switzerland. In many parts of South 
 America cheese is made from cow's milk ; and a bit of 
 cheese with guava jelly is perhaps the most common 
 dessert of that continent. 
 
 Some fine cattle are reared in our little island of Porto 
 Rico. They do not know what hay is, but feed on the 
 coarse grass which, on this island, is green all the year 
 round. In certain islands of the West Indies milk is boiled 
 before it is used ; and in some places salt is put in to keep 
 it fresh. 
 
 Crossing to Asia, we find that the dairy industry of 
 that continent is small. It is most important in western 
 Siberia, where the Russians make butter and cheese 
 for shipment to Europe. Fast express trains carry the 
 dairy products across Russia to the Baltic Sea, where ves- 
 sels are waiting to take them to London. The Chinese, 
 Koreans, and Japanese use comparatively little milk, and 
 in their countries butter is almost unknown. In Tibet, a 
 soup made of butter and tea, boiled with water into a thick 
 fatty broth, is considered delicious ; and in Hindustan a 
 melted butter, known as ghi, is used for cooking and eat- 
 ing. In the Philippines, cows are comparatively few, and 
 in many of the islands good butter and milk are scarce. 
 The milk ])eddlers go about carrying their wares in clay 
 jars, which rest upon poles over their shoulders, using a 
 hollow piece of bamboo to measure it out to the customer. 
 
 In many Asiatic countries the water buffalo, an ugly
 
 126 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 beast with great flat horns and hair much Uke bristles, 
 furnishes milk from which cheese and butter are some- 
 times made. This animal is somewhat like a cow. It is 
 found in the Philippines, in Siam, Burma, the East Indies, 
 and in Kgypt. In Hindustan, Malaysia, Madagascar, 
 and in parts of Africa, there are dairy cattle with humps 
 on their backs ; and in South Africa, Australia, and New 
 Zealand there are many fine dairy cattle, the offspring of 
 animals imported from England. 
 
 oXKo 
 
 15. POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, 
 AND TURKEYS 
 
 THE food we are 
 to consider to- 
 day is amongst the 
 most delicious eaten 
 by man. How many 
 of us have smacked 
 our lips over a juicy 
 young chicken, a fat 
 goose, a duck done 
 to a turn, or that 
 king of the Ameri- 
 can barnyard, whose 
 final throne is our 
 Thanksgiving table, — the great bronze turkey. Fried 
 chicken with gravy, roast goose and apple sauce, roast turkey 
 with cranberries, or stuffed, it may be, with oysters, — he
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKEYS 1 27 
 
 has a poor stomach, indeed, who cannot relish any or all 
 of these. 
 
 These domestic birds are known as poultry. They are 
 reared in vast numbers in all civilized countries, and there 
 are few savage lands which do not have chickens and 
 ducks. In the United States rearing fowls for their meat 
 and eggs is a great industry, from which comes a large 
 part of our national wealth. A chicken is a small thing, 
 it is true ; but the chickens of the United States, when 
 valued at our last census, were worth many million dollars, 
 and the seventeen billion eggs they produced in that year 
 brought more than the product of all our mines of gold 
 and silver put together during the same time. At a cent 
 apiece they were worth one hundred and seventy million 
 dollars. 
 
 We had then five and one half million farms, upon which 
 there were two hundred and eighty million chickens, more 
 than four million geese, three and one half million turkeys, 
 and about three million ducks. 
 
 Suppose Uncle Sam should call them together into one 
 barnyard ! What a noise they would make ! The mil- 
 lions of geese would hiss at us as we walked by 
 them; the ducks would quack in such a chorus we could 
 not hear each other speak ; the turkey cocks would gob- 
 ble as they proudly brushed the earth with their wings, 
 making a sound like a rushing wind ; the crowing of the 
 vast army of roosters would be loud and shrill ; and the 
 hens, in a chorus of two hundred millions, would cluck 
 out the fact that they had laid almost enough eggs to give 
 a dozen to every man, woman, and child upon earth, within 
 the past twelve months.
 
 128 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW TIIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 ^j^- Wc have, in the United 
 
 ^^P» ''^y States, eighty-seven stand- 
 
 ard varieties of chickens, 
 some of which have been 
 j)roduced here, and others 
 imported from different 
 parts of the world. The 
 Brahmas, Langshans, and 
 Cochins come from Asia, 
 and are esteemed espe- 
 cially for their fine meat ; 
 the Dominiques, Leg- 
 horns, Minorcas, and 
 Black Spanish are from 
 Silver Penciled Wyandotte hen. countries along the Medi- 
 terranean Sea, and are especially noted as layers ; while 
 the Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, Javas, and others are 
 largely American products, and are excellent meat and 
 egg producers. 
 
 In addition to these, we 
 have many other useful 
 breeds of fowls which have 
 been brought from Ger- 
 many, Poland, France, and 
 England ; and also some 
 ornamental breeds which 
 are reared for their beauty 
 or odditv. 
 
 The Plymouth Rocks 
 seem to be our most pop- 
 ular chickens for general Buff Cochin rooster. 
 
 ^*^'^
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKEYS 1 29 
 
 purposes. They are hardy, grow rapidly, and are fit for 
 broiHng when from eight to twelve weeks old. They lay 
 large eggs all the 
 year round, and are 
 good sitters and 
 excellent mothers. 
 The Wyandottes and 
 Javas are also liked 
 for the same reasons. 
 Someof our chick- 
 ens of the Asiatic 
 class are very odd- 
 looking. The Buff 
 Cochins have long 
 yellow feathers, not 
 only over their bod- ^^'^® Leghorn rooster. 
 
 ies, but on their legs and feet; and the Light Brahmas 
 grow so large that the roosters often weigh twelve pounds 
 
 or more. The Leghorns 
 are beautiful ; and so are 
 the Black Minorcas and 
 Langshans. 
 
 The ornamental varie- 
 ties of chickens are so 
 strange-looking that they 
 would be regarded as for- 
 eigners in the ordinary 
 American barnyard. The 
 white-crested black Polish 
 fowl has a cap or brush 
 
 English Red Game rooster. of white plumes OH itS 
 
 FO(JDS — 9 
 
 J't-
 
 I30 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 head, although its body is covered with dark-colored 
 feathers ; and the silver Polish hen has a beard. Game 
 chickens, of which there are many kinds, are tall and lean, 
 with short and comparatively few feathers. They are 
 quarrelsome, and the roosters will fight any other roosters 
 that come near them. Bantam chickens are smaller, and 
 they lay small eggs. They are found in many countries, 
 and there are some especially odd varieties in Java and 
 Japan. 
 
 The turkey is a native of our continent. It roamed the 
 forests of North America when our forefathers came ; and 
 
 for a long time in the 
 Central and Southern 
 States the pioneers had 
 no trouble in shooting 
 enough wild turkeys to 
 supply their tables. Now 
 the wild turkey has almost 
 disappeared, but his de- 
 scendants are reared not 
 only all over our country, 
 but in Europe and Asia. 
 The first turkeys which 
 crossed the Atlantic Ocean 
 were taken by the Spaniards from Mexico to Spain. 
 Later, some were carried over to England, and as early 
 as 1 541 roast turkey was there regarded as one of the 
 choicest of dainties. 
 
 Ducks and geese, on the other hand, are natives of both 
 the Old World and the New. We have many wild varieties 
 of these fowls, althou2rh our domestic breeds of them were 
 
 Turkey.
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKP:YS 131 
 
 imported from Asia and Europe. We find geese and 
 ducks frequently mentioned in history, and pictures of them 
 are to be seen on the Egyptian monuments made many 
 thousand years ago. It was the cackling of the geese in 
 the Temple of Juno that once warned the Romans that 
 their enemies were coming, and thus saved the Capitol ; 
 and, in the early ages, geese were reared in great numbers 
 in western Europe and driven slowly down over the moun- 
 tains to be sold in Rome for food. 
 
 There are goose farms in Holland and in Germany to- 
 day ; and in Berlin is a goose market, where tens of thou- 
 sands of these fowls are sold daily throughout the year. 
 The Germans eat more geese, in proportion to the number 
 of people in the country, than any other nation. They are 
 fond of roast goose, and especially of goose-livers, prepared 
 as pate de foie gras. The demand for this dainty is so 
 great that the geese are treated cruelly to supply it. It 
 has been found that the liver becomes unnaturally enlarged 
 if the bird is overfed, and the farmer crams food down its 
 throat long after it has had all that it would otherwise eat. 
 The goose is sometimes kept tied up close to the fire, in 
 order that lack of exercise and heat may aid in its fattening. 
 
 There are ten principal breeds of ducks raised in the 
 United States, among which are the Pekin, Aylesbury, 
 Rouen, Cayuga, and Muscovy. The Pekin is considered 
 the best. It came from China, and has its name from the 
 capital of that country. These birds have white feathers, 
 yellow bills, and lead-colored eyes. They grow large, and 
 their meat is delicious. 
 
 Poultry is so common all over our country that any one 
 can easily learn how the different kinds arc reared and pre-
 
 132 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 pared for the market. The fowls are fed corn, oats, rye, 
 or meal ; and they move about over the fields, scratching 
 out worms and eating insects and other things. Some- 
 times they are sold alive, and at other times the feathers 
 are picked off and the birds cleaned and dressed before 
 
 A duck farm in the United States. 
 
 they are sold. Great numbers of young chickens are put 
 away in cold storage and sold as the demand for them 
 arises. 
 
 But let us look at the poultry industry as it is carried on 
 in some other parts of the world. Our Porto Rican cous- 
 ins have excellent fowls ; and one of the sights of their 
 cities is the poultry peddler, who goes through the streets 
 with a dozen or more live chickens slung over his shoulder.
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKEYS 1 33 
 
 The legs of the birds are tied together, and their loud 
 squawking is mixed with his cry of the prices. The same 
 man may carry several live turkeys under his arms. Each 
 of these birds has its legs and wings bound tight with 
 strings, and it is then wrapped about with palm bark, so 
 that only the tail feathers 
 and the head show out at 
 the ends. 
 
 In Java and the Philip- 
 pine Islands chickens are 
 often brought to the 
 market in wicker crates, 
 with meshes so wide that 
 the birds can poke their 
 heads through ; and in 
 Manila turkeys are some- 
 times driven through the 
 streets and sold, as it 
 were, on the hoof. The 
 Chinese poultryman car- 
 ries his live wares about 
 in two big wicker baskets >^^"^^^ P^^'^''^ ^^""''• 
 
 tied to the ends of a pole which rests upon his shoulder. 
 The baskets arc shaped like half globes, and the birds 
 stand in them and thrust their heads out through the meshes. 
 Other peddlers carry dried fowls, which are as common in 
 China as dried beef is in America. There are packing es- 
 tablishments where ducks and geese are killed, and then 
 split open, cleaned, and dried in the sun. They are then 
 pressed and salted, after which they will keep a long time. 
 The Chinese are famous fowl raisers. They have books
 
 134 FOODS: ok now IllK \V0K1.U IS !■ ED 
 
 about chickens, ducks, and geese, as we have. They use 
 certain foods to make their hens lay better, and they be- 
 lieve that the hens which cackle the least over their eggs 
 lay best. Does not this remind us of a somewhat similar 
 trait in ourselves ? The boy or girl who boasts the most 
 usually does the least work. 
 
 The Chinese seldom eat eggs soft boiled, and some of 
 them think that the best Qgg is one which is many years 
 old. They have a way of pickling and preserving eggs 
 which turns them as black as jet ; and the flavor of eggs 
 so preserved, like that of fruit cake, is supposed to improve 
 as the months go on. 
 
 Along the rivers of southern China there are large duck 
 and goose farms, where the birds are carried in great flat 
 boats from one marshy place to another, feeding on worms 
 and snails, which they dig from the mud with their bills. 
 The author has seen duck boats on the Pearl River near 
 Canton, on each of which lived one or two thousand birds, 
 of all ages and sizes. The owners of the boats were 
 Chinese. They wore big hats, blue cotton gowns, and wide 
 pantaloons, which flapped against their legs as they moved 
 about directing their flocks. The men have such control 
 over the ducks that the latter will go off and on the boats 
 when called. The ducks mind quickly, too, and perhaps 
 the better because the last bird on board gets a sharp 
 blow from the bamboo rod of the herder. 
 
 The Chinese were hatching chicken, duck, and goose 
 eggs in incubating establishments long before we thought 
 of doing so. Now, many of our farmers have great boxes 
 heated by lamps, hot air, or hot water, in such a way that 
 the eggs in them are kept at the same temperature they
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKEYS 135 
 
 would have if under sitting hens. At the end of three 
 weeks the eggs have hatched into little chicks, which pick 
 their way through the shells into the world, ready to be fed 
 and reared for our tables. 
 
 In the Chinese incubating establishments the eggs are 
 placed in baskets filled with heated chaff, and are kept for 
 twenty-four hours in a room warmed with charcoal. They 
 are then carried into another room, not so warm, put into 
 baskets lined with paper, and moved about from day to 
 day. Later still they are wrapped in cotton and laid upon 
 shelves. The heat is so regulated in these rooms that a 
 large number of birds may hatch at one time. During 
 almost the same hour a thousand little bills may pick their 
 way through a thousand pale blue shells, and a thousand 
 soft, yellow, fluffy ducklings voice forth their first baby 
 quacks. 
 
 The duck farmers keep track of such hatchings, and are 
 on hand ready to buy the little ones almost as soon as they 
 are out of their shells. The little ducks are carried to the 
 farms, and at first they are fed on rice water and boiled 
 rice, and clear water is given them to drink. As the duck- 
 lings grow older, they eat other things, and within a few 
 weeks they are ready to take their ride on the duck boat 
 and to forage for themselves. 
 
 The Chinese have ingenious methods for keeping hawks 
 and other birds of prey away from their fowls. The goose 
 or duck herder often has a bamboo whistle fastened to the 
 end of a long whip, so that it makes a shrill noise when he 
 swings it through the air above his head ; and the pigeons 
 of North China have similar whistles so tied to their tail 
 feathers that they make a whirring sound as they fly.
 
 136 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Whistles are also used by the natives of Java to protect 
 their pigeons ; and both pigeons and whistles are regularly 
 sold in the fowl markets of some Javanese cities. 
 
 Pigeons are eaten in many parts of the world. They 
 are usually ranked as game birds ; but they have been 
 domesticated, and in our country, as well as in some other 
 places, large numbers are reared for the markets. They 
 are especially delicious when they are three or four weeks 
 old, at which time they are known as squabs, and bring 
 high prices. 
 
 In the earlier part of the last century, vast numbers of 
 wild pigeons lived in the forests of the Mississippi Valley. 
 They had extensive breeding places, and their roosts cov- 
 ered large tracts of woods. The pigeons were sometimes 
 so many that they broke down the branches of the trees, 
 and the men living near by often went out in parties to 
 shoot them. The men knocked the birds down with poles, 
 stifled them by burning sulphur under the roosts, and even 
 cut down the trees to bring the pigeons to the ground. 
 The birds were eaten both fresh and salted, and were even 
 fed to the hogs. As the country became settled, these 
 wild birds disappeared. 
 
 In addition to the fowls we have already mentioned, 
 there are others of less importance. Guinea fowl are 
 speckled gray birds, about the size of a small chicken, 
 which are reared on many farms for their flesh and their 
 eggs. Peafowl, the males of which are famous for their 
 gorgeous tails, were served at feasts in former times. 
 
 Eggs are used as food in all parts of the world, not only 
 the eggs of fowls, but those of certain birds, fish, and 
 even of reptiles, such as turtles. All eggs are nutritious,
 
 POULTRY — CHICKENS, DUCKS, GEESE, AND TURKEYS 1 37 
 
 but some birds' eggs are so strong in flavor that we do not 
 relish them. This is true of the eggs of the sea fowl found 
 by the thousands on sonie of the islands of the Pacific 
 Ocean. West of Hawaii are desert islands covered with 
 huge eggs of birds. These eggs are collected in wheel- 
 barrows by men, and are taken to the coast to be shipped 
 abroad as fertihzer and for use in certain manufactures. 
 
 Along the Amazon River countless turtles bury their 
 eggs in the sand. The eggs are of about the size of a 
 hen's egg, and are covered with a leathery skin instead of 
 a shell. Each turtle lays more than one hundred eggs, and 
 all together many millions are deposited in a season. The 
 eggs are dug up by the natives and made into turtle oil 
 and turtle butter. 
 
 On the Isthmus of Panama and in some parts of South 
 America the eggs of a great lizard, called the iguana, are 
 greedily eaten. Among the greatest delicacies of our own 
 country are terrapin eggs, served in a stew with the flesh 
 of that reptile. We shall learn about fish eggs when we 
 study the food products of rivers and seas. 
 
 The only egg which holds an important place in industry 
 and commerce is the hen's egg. It ranks amongst the 
 chief animal products as a wealth producer and food stuff ; 
 and rearing hens for their eggs is one of the profitable 
 branches of farming in many parts of Europe. In Den- 
 mark eggs by the millions are gathered for the markets of 
 England. The Danish farmers are so particular to ship 
 only fresh eggs, that the man who puts in a bad egg is 
 fined more than a dollar for each offense. As soon as 
 the eggs are brought in to the shippers, they are tested 
 by placing them upon a tray of wire netting and holding
 
 138 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 them over a bright light. If the eggs are good, the 
 light will shine through them ; but if they are not, they 
 appear dark or muddy. In Russia hundreds of car loads 
 of geese, chickens, and eggs go over the railroads in one 
 year ; and the value of these exports alone amounts to 
 many million dollars. 
 
 In the Korean markets eggs are sold by the stick. 
 They are laid end to end and wrapped around with straw 
 
 A bundle of eggs. 
 
 SO that ten or a dozen form a long bundle. A string is 
 then tied about the straw between each two eggs, and they 
 are thus kept from breaking. 
 
 In our country and in some parts of Europe eggs are 
 brought to the markets in wooden cases with many paste- 
 board compartments, each of which holds an egg. Hun- 
 dreds can be carried in this way in a box without breaking, 
 and car loads so packed are sometimes, sent from one end 
 of our land to the other. 
 
 Our egg industry produces an important part of our na- 
 tional income. The hens of the United States earn for us 
 more than two hundred and fifty million dollars every year. 
 According to the last census they had laid fourteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-seven million dozen eggs within the twelve 
 months preceding, or enough to give every man, woman, 
 and child in our country almost two hundred eggs. 
 
 Almost all our eggs are consumed at home, although 
 in some years we send a few million dozen to England, 
 Alaska, Hawaii, and elsewhere.
 
 WILD AiNlMALS USED AS FOOD 1 39 
 
 16. WILD ANIMALS USED AS FOOD 
 
 THE flesh of wild animals has been a favorite food since 
 the days of Noah's great grandson, Nimrod, who, the 
 Bible tells us, was "a mighty hunter before the Lord." 
 In some countries it forms the chief means of supporting 
 life, and many savages depend almost entirely upon it for 
 food. It was the chief food of the American Indians 
 at the time our forefathers came to this country, as it 
 is of the Indians in the northern parts of our continent 
 to-day. There are races in the Philippines who do little 
 else but hunt; and in South America, Africa, and 
 Australia are savages who depend upon the chase for 
 their existence. 
 
 Long ago game of one kind or another was to be 
 found all over the world. There were birds everywhere, 
 deer and bear roamed the forests, and upon our plains 
 vast herds of buffalo made a noise like thunder, as 
 they galloped along. As the world became settled, 
 the animals disappeared ; some, Hke the buffalo, dying out 
 almost entirely, and others, such as deer and bear, being 
 crowded back into the lands that are still wild. To-day the 
 chief hunting grounds of our continent are in the moun- 
 tains and on the plains of the far north, near the Arctic 
 Ocean. There, where it is too cold for man to live in com- 
 fort, are the caribou, which compare in number with the 
 buffalo of our past, and also numerous moose, elk, and 
 gigantic bear. 
 
 Some of our largest game is found in the Rockies and 
 the AUeghanies ; and the finest wild fowl in the marshy
 
 140 lOODS: OR HOW THE WoRlD IS FED 
 
 lands along the Chesapeake Bay, the South Atlantic Coast, 
 I ho Ciulf of Mexico, and in the lower Mississippi Valley. 
 
 One of the chief wild animals used as food is the 
 deer. With the exception of Australia and South Africa, 
 it is found all over the world ; and the pleasure of hunting 
 it has long been sounded in song and story. Who of us 
 does not remember the bold Robin Hood and his band, 
 who hunted in the forest of Sherwood ; and who has not, in 
 his imagination, smacked his lips over the delights of roast 
 venison, as prepared by that veteran cook. Friar Tuck ? 
 
 Even after England became well settled, the richer 
 people had forests, in which they kept deer for food and 
 the chase ; and there are extensive woods preserved as 
 hunting grounds in Great Britain, and especially in Scot- 
 land to-day. It was Lord Clare, the owner of such a for- 
 est, who sent Oliver Goldsmith a haunch of venison, which 
 brought out his poem describing it. 
 
 '• Thanks, my Lord, for your Venison, for a finer or fatter 
 Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter ; 
 The Haunch was a picture for Painters to study. 
 The white was so white, and the red was so ruddy ; 
 Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 
 To spoil such a delicate picture by eating. 
 I had thoughts, in my Chambers, to place it in view, 
 To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu ; 
 As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, 
 One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show ; — 
 But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, 
 They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in." 
 
 There are more than fifty varieties of deer in the world, 
 and many of them are found on this continent. Our 
 pioneer forefathers hunted deer almost everywhere in the
 
 WILD ANIMALS USED AS FOOD 
 
 141 
 
 woods of the eastern parts of the United States. Some 
 are still to be found in the Alleghanies, in the wilder parts 
 of the south, and in the west, even to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains and beyond. The most common species is the white- 
 tailed deer, which is somewhat smaller than the red deer 
 
 Virginia deer. 
 
 of Europe. We have also elk and moose, which are 
 amongst the largest of the deer species. 
 
 A full-grown elk often weighs a thousand pounds ; and 
 the moose is the largest animal now hunted on our conti- 
 nent. A bull moose stands six feet high or more at the 
 shoulders, and its weight may exceed half a ton ; its head 
 is large, and its antlers enormous. Moose meat is so 
 delicious and moose hunting so delightful, that the 
 animals have almost disappeared from our country, ex- 
 cept in parts of the Rocky Mountain plateau, and in 
 Alaska. They are still found in Montana, and in Ontario,
 
 143 
 
 RKM)S: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Iiritish Columbia, and other wild parts of British America, 
 even to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 Our elk also are rapidly passing away. They formerly 
 fed on the prairies, gathering in the autumn at the foot- 
 hills of the mountains, and feeding there during the winter, 
 after pawing down through the snow to get at the dry 
 grass. At such times they collected together in bands, 
 
 moving about in cora- 
 ])anies of thousands. 
 I^lk meat formed an 
 important food of 
 the Indians, and elk 
 skins were often used 
 lo cover their lodges. 
 Even the common 
 small deer are not 
 easy to shoot. They 
 have a keen sense 
 of hearing, sight. 
 Bull moose. and smell ; and the 
 
 hunter must creep up without noise and be careful to have 
 the wind blowin'g toward him and away from the deer. 
 The animals are very fleet, and can run, trot, and gallop, at 
 great speed. They are good swimmers, and they go into, 
 the lakes and rivers during the summer to free themselves' 
 of flies and other insects. Often they feed near the water 
 at night. One way of hunting them is in boats after dark. 
 The man puts a bright light at the prow, and hides behind 
 a screen of green branches, which he builds up back of 
 the light. His gun is thrust through the screen, and he 
 keeps his eye along the barrel as he slowly moves through
 
 WILD ANIMALS USED AS FOOD 
 
 143 
 
 the water, approaching the deer. The startled animal 
 stands a moment in wonder, watching the hght ; and the 
 hunter aims at his shining eyes, which catch its rays, and 
 thus kills him. 
 
 In Louisiana deer are often hunted with hounds, and in 
 the Alleghanies they are "hounded," or hunted, upon foot. 
 In the Phihppine Islands they are trapped by the Negritos 
 with loops of rattan, so tied to the branches which hang 
 over their paths, that the deer are caught by their horns. 
 The loops have 
 slip nooses which 
 tighten as the ani- 
 mals pull aw^ay, and 
 the little black men 
 shoot them with 
 bows and arrows 
 before they can get 
 loose. 
 
 Until the Great 
 Plains beyond the 
 Mississippi River were settled by white men, there was one 
 huge animal which supplied more food than any other. It 
 was a shaggy beast with an enormous head crowned with 
 short black horns, a woolly brown fur, and a tail and hoofs 
 somewhat like a cow. This animal fed upon the grass of 
 the prairies, and its meat was delicious. It was so large 
 that a bull sometimes weighed almost a ton, and a cow 
 twelve hundred pounds or more. This was the American 
 bison or "buffalo." 
 
 Such an animal, we can easily see, would supply large 
 quantities of food ; and when we learn that it swarmed in 
 
 American bison.
 
 144 HJOUS : OR 11(,)\V THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 countless numbers over the prairies, we can realize how 
 much it meant to the Indians. As long as the buffalo 
 lasted, most of the red men were able to retain their in- 
 dependence. Its meat was their principal food. They 
 dried the beef in the sun, and powdered it into pemmican, 
 in which shape it could be kept for months. 
 
 It is difficult to comprehend the vast extent of this 
 wild meat supply of the past. The buffaloes have dis- 
 appeared from the plains, and only a few hundred of 
 them are now to be found in our government parks and in 
 some of our zoological gardens. At one time they roamed 
 over our continent from Mexico to as far north as the 
 Great Slave Lake, and from the Rockies to the Alleghanies. 
 There were scattered herds on the Rocky Mountain 
 plateau, and some in Pennsylvania and in New York, and 
 even near the place where Washington City now stands. 
 
 These animals moved about in vast herds. As late as 
 forty or fifty years ago, they fed by the millions on the Great 
 Plains. In 1868 a traveler upon the Union Pacific Rail- 
 road wrote that his train passed through a buffalo herd 
 one hundred and twenty miles long. George Catlin, an 
 explorer, who spent the greater part of his life on our 
 western plains, before the destruction of the buffalo, says 
 that these animals were then so many that their bellowing 
 sounded like thunder, and that the Indians killed them by 
 hundreds of thousands for their skins, which they sold to 
 the white traders for a pittance. 
 
 One would not think that such immense herds could be 
 destroyed in a few years ; but buffaloes are dull and stupid 
 in many ways, and they easily became the prey of the 
 hunters. White men shot them for food. Thousands of
 
 WILD ANIMALS USED AS FOOD I45 
 
 them were killed for their tongues, or for a single slice 
 from the hump. The rest of the meat often went to waste. 
 When sold fresh it brought only two or three cents a 
 pound. In 1873 one western railroad alone carried a 
 quarter of a million buffalo robes ; and more than fifteen 
 hundred thousand pounds of buffalo hides were sold every 
 year. 
 
 Bear meat was another game food in pioneer days, and 
 it is still eaten in parts of the Rocky Mountains and in 
 Alaska. Bears are 
 native to the wilder 
 parts of Europe, Asia, 
 North America, and 
 the Andean region 
 of South America. 
 They are not found 
 in Australia, nor in 
 Africa, except in 
 the Atlas Mountains. 
 
 These animals are ^'^^'^ ^^^''• 
 
 bulky and clumsy; but they can move rapidly, neverthe- 
 less, and are dangerous when attacked. They will stand 
 upon their hind feet and, seizing their enemy in their 
 great arms, will give him a crushing hug, while they tear 
 away his flesh with their teeth. They are especially fond 
 of fish, fruit, berries, grass, vegetables, insects, and honey. 
 They usually live in pairs, each family having its home in 
 a cave or dense thicket, whence they go out either by day 
 or by night to forage for food. 
 
 Africa is the chief continent where big game now thrives. 
 
 It is a land of elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, 
 tuuus — 10
 
 146 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 giraffes, zebras, and countless antelopes. It also has lions, 
 leo|)ards, gorillas, and other wild animals which man does 
 not use for food. 
 
 Elephant meat is much prized by the natives, as is also 
 the meat of the rhinoceros and of the hippopotamus. 
 Almost every bit of these animals is eaten, a whole tribe 
 
 African elephant. 
 
 having a feast after a killing. The best parts of the ele- 
 phant are its trunk, feet, and fat, and of these parts, the feet 
 are considered the most delicious. They are cooked in an 
 odd way. A hole is dug in the ground and lined with 
 stones. A fire is then built, and when the stones are red- 
 hot, the ashes and coals are removed and the great foot, 
 having been washed, is placed in it. A few sticks are now 
 laid over the top and green leaves spread upon them, and
 
 RABBITS, SQUIRRELS, AND GAME BIRDS I47 
 
 last comes a thick coating of earth, making a tight cover- 
 ing to this curious bake oven. The foot is left in for 
 several hours, and becomes thoroughly cooked. If the 
 elephant is young, the meat of the foot is so tender that it 
 can be taken up with a spoon. 
 
 Giraffes and zebras are also eaten by the Africans, and 
 antelopes are hunted for food by the whites as well as the 
 natives. Many European sportsmen go to Africa for the 
 purpose of killing the big game which there abounds. 
 
 olOio 
 
 17. RABBITS, SQUIRRELS, AND GAME BIRDS 
 
 WILD birds, rabbits, and squirrels are amongst the 
 most delicious of foods. Roast canvasback duck, 
 broiled quail on toast, squirrel pie, and young rabbit stew 
 — we smack our lips as we think of them. We have heard 
 their praises sung since we were infants, beginning with the 
 rabbit which papa went to hunt for little " Bye O Baby 
 Bunting," and the " Dainty Dish set before the King," 
 containing four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. 
 
 Rabbits are trapped and hunted in many parts of our 
 country. Near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains they 
 increase so rapidly that the people turn out in great parties 
 and drive them from a wide extent of territory into one 
 place, where they kill them by thousands. In Australia 
 the rabbits descended from a few pairs imported from Eng- 
 land have so multiplied that they are now a great pest. 
 There are many millions of these little animals, and, do 
 what they will, the people cannot destroy them. They are
 
 148 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 shot, trapped, and poisoned, but they number more every 
 year ; so that now the farmers have built woven wire 
 fences about the pastures to keep them out, and thus pre- 
 serve the grass for the stock. In New Zealand similar 
 conditions exist, and many thousand wild rabbits are an- 
 nuallv killed there, in order that their carcasses may be 
 
 -'r /' ' 
 
 
 ■ -»■''' "^ K ' 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 \hr . K 
 
 
 A rabbit drive in the west. 
 
 shipped to England. The rabbits are prepared in the 
 frozen meat factories, and are exported, with the fur on, 
 across the oceans in cold storage chambers. 
 
 Hares are like rabbits, only larger. They are found all 
 over Europe, excepting in Ireland, Scandinavia, and north- 
 ern Russia. Canada has a species of polar hare, and we 
 have large hares on our western plains known as jack-rab-
 
 RABBITS, SQUIRRELS, AND GAME BIRDS 
 
 149 
 
 bits. These animals are famous for their speed. They 
 leap over the earth in high bounds, covering as much as 
 fifteen feet at one jump. Like rabbits, they increase rap- 
 idly, and the farmers in certain sections of our country 
 make hare-proof fences to keep them out of the fields and 
 orchards. The people in these sections sometimes have 
 what is called a "drive." All the men, women, and chil- 
 dren gather in a circle about a square mile or more of 
 space, and drive the hares into an enclosure, where they 
 are slaughtered with clubs. 
 
 Squirrels are hunted in many parts of the United States. 
 They are found all over the world, except in Australia, and 
 most abundantly in India 
 and southern Asia. They 
 belong to the same ani- 
 mal family as rats ; but 
 they live in the woods, 
 some making their nests 
 in the ground, and others 
 in hollow trees. 
 
 There are many spe- 
 cies of squirrels. Some ^'^^ '^"'''''''• 
 are gray, some reddish brown, and some black ; some 
 kinds are not bigger than a mouse, and others are as 
 large as a kitten. The most common squirrel in our 
 country is the red squirrel, which is only eight inches long. 
 This little animal is found almost everywhere in our moun- 
 tains. It lives in the trees and subsists largely upon nuts, 
 although it often eats grain, birds' eggs, young birds, and 
 even fruit. The fox squirrel lives east of the Great Plains 
 and in the Southern States. It is quite large, being often
 
 150 KOODS : OR llt)\V THK WORLD IS FED 
 
 a foot or more long. Its color ranges from gray to jet 
 black, and it has a beautiful bushy tail, which is somewhat 
 longer than its head and body. 
 
 The gray squirrel is one of the chief game animals of 
 New England and the North Central States. There is a 
 gray squirrel in California which is noted for its large size 
 and its black tail ; while in the southwestern parts of the 
 United States are chestnut-backed gray squirrels which 
 have tufts on their ears. All these little animals are killed 
 with rifles and shotguns ; but the rifle is preferred, as it 
 carries but one ball, the hunter trying to shoot the squirrel 
 in the head, so as not to destroy the meat. 
 
 Let us now take a look at some of our big feathered 
 game. We have many kinds, the largest of which is the 
 wild turkey. This is much like the tame bird of the same 
 name, and, indeed, it is the parent of the domestic turkey 
 throughout the world. Wild turkeys were once found in 
 all parts of our country, but they have now disappeared, 
 except in the Appalachian Mountains and in the wild lands 
 of the south and the west. They are hunted with rifles, 
 the sportsman often calling them to him with a whistle 
 made of the wing bone of the bird. The call used is an imi- 
 tation of that of the wild turkey gobbler. After the man 
 has gobbled for a while, any wild male turkey that may be 
 near will answer, and, perhaps, lead his flock toward the 
 hunter. Turkeys always go about in flocks, and they have 
 fixed roosting places. Men hide near the roosts, and shoot 
 the birds by the light of the moon. 
 
 Other large game birds common to North America are 
 wild geese and ducks, many of which spend the summer 
 in the cold lands of the north and come south in our au-
 
 RABBITS, SQUIRRELS, AND GAME BIRDS 
 
 151 
 
 tumn, going on farther toward the Equator as the streams 
 and lakes freeze. The Canadian goose, which is the most 
 common, is found in flocks of thousands about Hudson 
 Bay, and even farther north. It forms a large part of the 
 food supply of the Indians and the white fur traders who 
 inhabit those regions. The geese fly southward in such 
 numbers that a flock often looks like a great white sheet 
 spread out in the sky. They feed about our lakes and 
 
 are attracted by means of decoys, or imitation geese made 
 of wood or iron, placed upon the water. The hunters imi- 
 tate the call of the geese and thus get them to light or to 
 stop a moment in their flight. 
 
 We have wild ducks along our rivers and lakes, and also 
 in the marshy lands of the seacoast, and especially in places 
 like Chesapeake Bay. Shooting ducks is great sport. 
 The birds are wary, and the hunters lie down in boxes
 
 152 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 or boats in the marshes, and wait for them to come near. 
 Sometimes the men have blinds or screens of reeds, behind 
 which they He until the birds come near enough to be 
 shot. They also use decoys painted to look like the living 
 ducks that frequent the flats. These little wooden birds 
 float upon the water not far from the blinds ; and when 
 the live ducks come up to make friends with them, bang 
 goes the gun, and the ducks are food for our tables. 
 
 The most famous of all these ducks is the canvasback, 
 a handsome fowl with a head of dark chestnut red, a 
 white back, and a black bill and breast. This duck is 
 especially delicious after feeding upon the wild celery of 
 the Chesapeake Bay. It is sometimes called the king of 
 American ducks, and it commands the highest price in the 
 market. Another delicious duck is the redhead, which 
 may be shot along the bays of our Atlantic Coast and also 
 about the Great L3.kes and in Canada. Other well-known 
 ducks are the teal and mallard, found on our rivers. 
 
 Have you ever eaten a prairie chicken ? Its flesh is 
 excellent, and it graces the tables of many families in 
 our Western States. It is also hunted in Canada. These 
 birds are almost as large as some varieties of the domestic 
 chicken. They live in the open country, building their 
 nests on the ground and laying twelve or fifteen eggs be- 
 fore sitting. Toward winter they gather in vast flocks 
 and may sometimes be seen, even in the half-settled coun- 
 try, seated on the fences and about the haystacks. They 
 are hunted with dogs and are not difficult to shoot. They 
 are a kind of grouse, belonging to a bird family of many 
 species, which are found in different parts of the world. 
 
 Among the most common of our smaller game birds
 
 FISH IN GENERAL 1 53 
 
 is the partridge, sometimes known as the quail. This is 
 found both in Europe and in our country. It is also called 
 the bobwhite, because its whistle sounds like those words. 
 
 The bobwhites live in the grass and the bushes, going 
 about in flocks which make a great whirring noise as they 
 fly. Hunters scare up the birds with dogs and shoot them 
 as they rise. A favorite way of serving quail is upon 
 toast, after broiling them over the coals ; and a fat young 
 bird so cooked is a dish for a king. 
 
 The bobolinks, or reedbirds, are killed by thousands 
 every autumn in the marshes near and along the coasts 
 of our South Atlantic States. They are little birds, one 
 being not much more than a mouthful when cooked, but 
 their flesh is so delicious that great numbers of them are 
 shipped to the northern markets. Snipe are also shot in 
 the marshes. We have other game birds of less value in 
 different parts of our country. 
 
 oXXo 
 
 18. FISH IN GENERAL 
 
 EVER since our forefathers came to America, fish 
 has formed one of our principal foods. When the 
 Pilgrims went to King James for their charter, they told 
 him they wanted to go to the New World "to worship 
 God and catch fish." They did both, and to-day New 
 England fishermen supply the most of the sea food of our 
 P2astern States. They fish not only along our own coast, 
 but they sail to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and 
 elsewhere to ply their trade.
 
 154 
 
 FOODS: (M-l now THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The New Englanders, however, are by no means our 
 only fishermen. In this country ahnost a quarter of a 
 milHon people are engaged in fishing. This industry is 
 carried on all along the Atlantic and the Pacific Coasts, 
 upon the Great Lakes, upon the Mississippi River and its 
 tributaries, and along the shores of southern Alaska. 
 
 A New England fisherman. 
 
 Many thousand vessels are Required for this work; and the 
 product annually sells for more than fifty million dollars. 
 Our fish catch amounts to two thousand million pounds 
 in one year. If it were loaded upon wagons, at a ton to 
 the wagon, each hauled by two mules, just about all the 
 mules in the United States would be required to drag 
 the load.
 
 FISH IN tiENEKAL 155 
 
 Of this quantity, the larger part comes from our New 
 England and Middle Atlantic Coasts. About one tenth 
 comes from the South Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, and an equal amount from the coast streams and the 
 waters of the Pacific Ocean. We annually catch miUions 
 of pounds of salmon in Alaska and about one hundred 
 million pounds of white and other fish in the Great Lakes. 
 
 The fishing industry of Canada is enormous, and so is 
 that of the United Kingdom, Norway, and other European 
 countries, as well as of Japan, China, and many other parts 
 of the world. The oceans, lakes, and rivers greatly aid in 
 the support of man ; and their supplies of food seem to be 
 inexhaustible. Take the herring. It is one of the small- 
 est of our commercial fishes, but, nevertheless, fifteen 
 hundred million pounds of it are eaten in one year. 
 Twenty-five million pounds of cod are annually caught to 
 supply the demand for dried codfish alone. 
 
 We can hardly conceive of the immense quantity of food 
 man annually takes from the lakes, rivers, and seas ; and 
 one might think that in time the fish would all be caught, 
 and the favorite varieties at least disappear, as have the 
 buffalo and some other species of game. 
 
 It is cheering to know that there is no danger of this 
 taking place. As we shall see further on, our government 
 is always planting in our waters such fishes as are likely 
 to give out; and scientists tell us the world's supply of 
 fish is so enormous that there will probably be enough 
 for all time to come. Professor Huxley, for instance, 
 describes the vast shoals of cod found off the shores of 
 Norway which the natives call cod mountains. He savs 
 the fish move along in great masses, often from one hun-
 
 156 FOODS: OR MOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 dred and twenty to one hundred and sixty feet deep ; and 
 he estimates that one such shoal a mile square contains 
 about one hundred and twenty million cod, or enough to 
 give one fish to every man, woman, and child in our land, 
 and leave millions to spare. 
 
 Fish increase rapidly. They yield" eggs in such quanti- 
 ties as would hush the cackle of the proudest hen, could 
 she but know it. Bertram, in his book " The Harvest of 
 the Sea," says that he counted seven million eggs in the 
 roe of one sturgeon, and that the codfish lays more than 
 three million eggs at a time. Various other varieties of 
 fish lay more or less, but every single fish produces so 
 many thousand eggs that we might think that the waters 
 would soon be solid fish. And so they would be, in some 
 places, were it not that the fish eat each other, the larger 
 varieties feeding upon the smaller ; and that birds, reptiles, 
 and men are all fond of this food and use every means in 
 their power to get it. 
 
 Let us visit some of our great fishing grounds and 
 observe how these finny creatures are caught and prepared 
 for the markets. We shall first sail along the Atlantic 
 Coast to watch them catching cod, halibut, mackerel, and 
 herring, which are found in great numbers on the Banks, 
 or shoal waters, of the North Atlantic Ocean. Fishermen 
 go out in schooners and other boats, with their nets and 
 lines, often remaining away from home for months at a 
 time. More than seven thousand American fishermen are 
 engaged in cod fishing alone, and their catch annually 
 sells for several million dollars. The Canadians get fully 
 as many, and altogether about twenty million dollars' worth 
 of cod are marketed in a single year.
 
 FISH IN GENERAL 157 
 
 Cod are found in the Atlantic as far south as Cape 
 Hatteras and as far north as the Arctic Ocean. In the 
 Pacific they swim along the shores of Oregon, Washing- 
 ton, and British Columbia, and also of Japan and southern 
 Alaska. The most of our catch comes from the North 
 Atlantic and especially from the banks off Newfound- 
 
 Cod fishing with hnes and trawls. 
 
 land and New England. According to the laws of 
 nations, the people of any country have the sole right 
 to fish within three miles of its shores, but outside that 
 limit the sea is free to all ; and therefore fishermen 
 from all parts of the world can come to any good fish- 
 ing grounds that are- three miles beyond the coast. Men 
 from many different countries fish along the Grand 
 Banks of Newfoundland, which have been long famous 
 for their cod. 
 
 Every spring fishing schooners start out from Glouces- 
 ter, Boston, or other New England ports for the Grand
 
 158 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW Til K WORLD IS FED 
 
 Banks. They are well supplied with food for the men 
 and salt for curing the fish as fast as they are taken. The 
 boats are good sailers, the captains are well-seasoned ship- 
 masters, and the crews are experienced fishermen. The 
 men are not hired by the day ; but they usually work to- 
 gether as partners, each taking his share when the catch 
 
 -« 
 
 
 . I, 
 
 \ 
 
 
 ■ k i ' 
 
 
 C^S^^^J^^^r 
 
 
 m^^^^KSBmSS^^KK^MBB^^^^mM/KSKSSm^isitttr^^^ 
 
 P™ 
 
 A fishing schooner. 
 
 is sold after they return home. The fishermen usually 
 leave in the latter part of May or June and spend several 
 months getting their cargo. They anchor their schooner 
 on some good feeding ground and then go out in small 
 boats to fish with lines and trawls. 
 
 Cod are deep sea feeders. They eat all sorts of marine 
 animals, including oysters, lobsters, crabs, and fish ; and
 
 FlbH IN GENERAL 1 59 
 
 they delight in moving along the bottom of the sea. Those 
 caught for the market are usually taken at depths of 
 twenty, thirty, or forty fathoms, the men of a crew often 
 fining a boat at one fishing. At the close of each day the 
 fishermen all come back to the schooner ; the boats with 
 the fish in them are slung upon deck, and the cod are 
 
 Salting house in Newfoundland. 
 
 cleaned, salted, and stored away in the hold. There is 
 great rivalry amongst the crew as to which boat shall catch 
 the most fish, and the life is dangerous and interesting. If 
 you would know more about it, I advise you to read 
 Rudyard KipHng's boy story, " Captains Courageous," in 
 which Harvey, the son of a millionaire, who has always
 
 i6o 
 
 FOODS : OR IlfnV THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 had his every wish gratified, falls into the sea from the 
 deck of an ocean steamer, while crossing the Grand Banks, 
 and is picked up by a 'fishing schooner. The captain dis- 
 believes his story of a rich father, and Harvey is forced 
 to work with the men. He helps to clean the cod, to 
 salt them, and to pack them away in the hold. He 
 
 Drying cod at St. John's, Newfoundland. 
 
 resists at first, but he soon learns to obey, and the hard 
 work and many admirable qualities of the fishermen teach 
 him to respect labor and make a man of him. 
 
 After the fish are brought home they are placed in hogs- 
 heads filled with brine and are allowed to soak until the 
 time comes for curing them. The cod are then taken out
 
 FISH IN GENERAL l6l 
 
 and dried in the sun. They are now ready to be packed 
 and shipped to different parts of our own and other 
 countries as salted cod, in which shape we may find them 
 in almost any grocery store. We prepare enough dried cod- 
 fish every year to give one pound to every man, woman, 
 and child in the United States ; and we export large quan- 
 tities to other countries. The chief markets for this fish 
 are France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Brazil. 
 
 Mackerel and halibut are eaten in most parts of our 
 country. Halibut are found in the ocean along the North 
 Atlantic coast, and our fishermen catch them in the Pacific 
 Ocean off the coast of Alaska. Many are shipped across 
 the continent in cold storage trains, and others are smoked 
 and packed for the markets. 
 
 , The mackerel is one of the most valuable of the Atlantic 
 food fishes ; and catching it is an important industry in 
 the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, and our own coun- 
 try. These fish swim about in schools so large that if all 
 were caught, one big school would fill a million barrels. 
 Mackerel like to wander. They go into the deep sea in 
 the winter and return to the shores in the spring, swimming 
 northward as the weather grows warmer. 
 
 Most of our mackerel fishermen start out from Glouces- 
 ter, Massachusetts, sailing south in the early spring, to 
 meet the fish when they first appear off the coasts of the 
 Southern and Middle States. The catch is then landed 
 fresh in New York or Philadelphia. Later they go north- 
 ward to southern Nova Scotia and follow the schools on 
 into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Many of the best fishing 
 vessels of the United States are engaged in catching mack- 
 erel ; and in some years one thousand boats have been so 
 
 FOODS — 1 1
 
 l62 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 employed. Mackerel are often salted and sold in kegs 
 throughout the country. A bit of salt mackerel, boiled or 
 broiled, is delicious for breakfast, and the Spanish mackerel 
 is one of our choicest food fishes when fresh from the sea. 
 
 " Herring, herring, two for a penny, 
 Ar'nt you ashamed to eat so many .-"' 
 
 This is a common cry among the children of England 
 and also of parts of the United States. Herrings are 
 eaten annually throughout the civilized world to the extent 
 of millions of barrels. Enough are caught in one year to 
 supply one pound to every man, woman, and child upon 
 earth. Most of these fish are taken in the North Sea, 
 although some are caught in our waters. 
 
 Herrings are sold in the markets — fresh, pickled, and 
 smoked ; about twenty-five million are annually frozen, 
 and a large number are used as bait for cod. In Maine 
 the young ones are extensively canned as sardines, and 
 they are said to taste quite as well as the sardines of Eu- 
 rope, which come chiefly from the Mediterranean Sea and 
 the Bay of Biscay. 
 
 Sardines are usually put up with olive oil, in flat cans, 
 the little fish being laid so close together that a common 
 expression for crowding or packing has come to be " as 
 tight as sardines in a box." 
 
 In addition to the varieties already mentioned, there 
 are many other sea fish which regularly appear in our 
 markets. Among the most important are smelts, had- 
 docks, sea bass, sheepshead, tautogs, bluefish, and shad. 
 The two latter are caught in large quantities all along 
 the Atlantic Coast, the shad being taken when they come 
 into the sea from the streams to lay their eggs.
 
 SALMON 163 
 
 Shad is one of the sweetest of all sea foods. Its flesh 
 is rich and its eggs are considered a delicacy ; but it has 
 so many bones that it must be carefully eaten. A favorite 
 way of cooking it is to split it open, clean it, and nail it to 
 a hickory plank. The plank is then stood upon end in 
 front of burning coals, and the shad broiled. It is now 
 served upon the charred wood as planked shad. It 
 makes our mouths water to think of it. 
 
 19. SALMON 
 
 IN 1867, when our government bought Alaska from Rus- 
 sia for seven million two hundred thousand dollars, and 
 thereby added almost one fifth as much land as we then 
 had to the territory of the United States, the purchase was 
 criticised as a shameful waste of the public money. We 
 had bought, so the fault-finders said, a barren desert of 
 snow and ice in an Arctic region, incapable of cultivation, 
 whose only treasures were the seals that might be killed 
 along its coasts. The government was charged with hav- 
 ing squandered the money of the people, and it was said 
 that shrewd Russia was laughing in her sleeve over our 
 simplicity. 
 
 It may be that Russia did laugh at that time ; but, if so, 
 she is probably sighing now ; for Alaska has since paid us 
 back her purchase price many times over in salmon alone, 
 to say nothing of millions of dollars' worth of whales, furs, 
 and gold. In 1902 we sold Alaskan salmon to the amount 
 of more than twelve million dollars ; and the salmon caught
 
 164 FOODS: OR HOW TIIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 in one year in the Alaskan streams often bring more than 
 the sum we paid for the whole country. 
 
 The salmon is one of the most profitable of our food 
 fishes. It is caught all along the Pacific Coast from the 
 Gulf of Monterey to Alaska, also in the Arctic streams of 
 that territory, including the mighty Yukon. Another 
 variety of salmon is found in the rivers which flow into the 
 northern Atlantic Ocean. Hendrick Hudson reported 
 that he saw salmon in the Hudson River when he first ex- 
 plored it in 1609; and the fish is caught to-day in the 
 waters of Maine and eastern Canada and also in some 
 streams of northern Europe and eastern Asia. 
 
 The most important of all salmon are those of the Pa- 
 cific Coast. They form one of the chief food fishes of 
 commerce ; they are eaten almost everywhere in our coun- 
 try, and are also exported to England and other parts of 
 Europe, to China, Japan, India, and the Philippine Islands, 
 and even to Australia and Africa. 
 
 Many million dollars are invested in catching and can- 
 ning salmon. There are some towns, such as Astoria, near 
 the mouth of the Columbia River, where the people do 
 little else ; there are others, like Bellingham on Puget Sound, 
 where the canning houses employ hundreds of hands ; and 
 there are single factories where as many as half a million 
 cans of fish are put up in one day. From the Columbia 
 River alone, up to the beginning of this century, seventy- 
 five million dollars' worth of these fish had been exported. 
 Vast quantities are annually taken from Puget Sound; and, 
 as we have seen, the product of Alaska is enormous. 
 
 There are several species of these Pacific Coast salmon, 
 some large and some comparatively small. The quinnat,
 
 SALMON 
 
 165 
 
 or Chinook, is the king of all salmon. In the Yukon River 
 
 it sometimes weighs as much as one hundred pounds, and 
 
 in the Columbia River eighty pounds or more. James G. 
 
 Blaine, our famous American statesman, once received a 
 
 present of an eighty-pound chinook from his Oregon 
 
 friends. The great fish was cooked 
 
 whole, and so served on his dinner 
 
 table. When we remember that 
 
 many a good sized boy of ten does 
 
 not weigh eighty pounds, we can 
 
 imagine that the platter must have 
 
 been enormous, and that it took more 
 than one waiter to bring that fish in 
 from the kitchen. 
 
 Such large salmon are uncommon. 
 The average chinook caught in the 
 Columbia for export weighs only 
 about twenty-two pounds, while that 
 of the Sacramento River weighs 
 less. All other species of salmon 
 are smaller, some, such as the sock eye, weighing five, 
 six, or seven pounds, according to the season. 
 . But let us take a flying trip along the Pacific Coast and 
 see something of this great industry. If we would under- 
 stand it, we must know the life history and habits of this 
 king of fishes, for it is upon them that the industry is 
 founded. 
 
 Suppose we start with the baby salmon in one of the icy 
 streams, fed by the snows of the mountains, which flow 
 into the Columbia. Here the salmon is born ; and it spends 
 its babyhood and a part of its childhood moving down with 
 
 •-S^ 
 
 Chinook, the king of 
 salmon.
 
 l66 hUUDS : UK HOW lllE WURLU IS FED 
 
 the waters to the sea, feeding as it goes. It is quite small 
 when it reaches the ocean, but it increases in size from 
 year to year until about four years later, when it is fat and 
 plump and ready to start back up the very same stream it 
 came down. At this tmie the salmon has solid flesh, it is 
 of a pale red color, and it goes forth in the pride of its 
 strength. It eats but little after leaving the ocean, but 
 devotes itself entirely to making its way back to its birth- 
 place. If one could have the perseverance and the 
 courage that the fish shows on this journey, he could 
 conquer almost any obstacle that might come in his way. 
 It swims steadily onward, making several miles a day, often 
 spending months on the way. It fights against the current, 
 climbs the rapids, jumps over the shallows, often bruising 
 itself sadly upon the rocks, but going on and on until it 
 reaches the place where it was born. A male and a female 
 usually go together ; and when they have reached the right 
 spot, they dig a little hole in the gravel of the bed of the 
 stream, and the female there lays her eggs. 
 
 After this the fish usually sicken and die ; they very 
 seldom get back to the ocean. Their eggs soon hatch 
 into minnows, which feed awhile, just as their parents did 
 when they were little, and, as they grow stronger, start 
 down the river on their voyage to their ocean home. 
 
 This is the story of one pair of fish, but it is also the 
 story of millions upon millions. The salmon come up 
 in vast shoals or schools, sometimes crowding the streams 
 so that they look hke solid fish. In Puget Sound, at 
 certain times of the year, the fish blanket the water in 
 places, so that, with a small boat, one can row several 
 miles through fish.
 
 SALMON 
 
 167 
 
 As the salmon take the same course year after year, the 
 fishermen know just about when and where to expect them. 
 In Puget Sound great cagelike nets are sunk off the 
 shores of the islands. The nets wind about Uke the mazes 
 of Rosamond's bower ; and, as they are set directly in the 
 course of the fish that are journeying to the rivers, the latter 
 
 Salmon fishing with nets in Puget Sound. 
 
 become entangled in the nets. The salmon swim from 
 one enclosure to another until at last they fall into a great 
 trap walled with netting, which will hold thirty or forty 
 thousand salmon at one time. When the trap is full, the 
 fish are turned out into big scows by lifting up one end 
 of the net, or they are ladled out with dip nets which are 
 sometimes worked by a steam engine. As many as ninety
 
 i68 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 thousand salmon have been caught at once in such a trap. 
 When the scows are full, they are towed by steam tugs to 
 the canneries. 
 
 In the rivers salmon are caught with traps, nets, and 
 water wheels. The Indians spear them and also catch them 
 in dip nets, as they jump up in surmounting the rapids. 
 Gill nets, often a quarter of a mile long, are stretched 
 across the course near the mouth of a river. The salmon 
 
 Fish wheel in the Columbia River. 
 
 push their heads through the meshes, and are caught by 
 the gills as they attempt to pull out. 
 
 Far up the Columbia River, where the current is swift, 
 2:reat fnsh wheels with wire nets attached to their rims are 
 fastened to scows in such a way that the salmon, swimming 
 up, strike the nets ; and the wheel, turned by the river, 
 raises them into the air and pours them into the boat. 
 More than thirteen thousand salmon have been caught in 
 this way by a single wheel in one day ; and all the fisherman
 
 SALMON 
 
 169 
 
 did was to sit down and watch the fish dropping by twos 
 and threes into his boat. Sometimes so many fish have 
 been taken by a wheel, that the boat has become over- 
 loaded and sunk. Boats used for this purpose hold five or 
 six thousand large fish. 
 
 Canning salmon is almost as interesting as catching 
 them. The work is carried on by very similar methods at 
 
 Sock eye salmon ready for the cannery. 
 
 the great establishments at Astoria, on Puget Sound, and 
 in Alaska. The buildings are usually at the water's edge, 
 so that the vessels may come alongside and deliver the fish, 
 or take away the packed product. Most of the factories are 
 large, roomy, one-story frame structures, with lofts for stor- 
 age and, in some cases, for the manufacture of cans. In the
 
 I/O FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 more modern establishments much of the work is done by 
 machinery. The sahiion are pitched into conveyors and 
 carried to the kiUing room, which is kept clean by flood- 
 ing and scrubbing it every night with salt water. The fish 
 are first {)laced upon long tables, about which stand a score 
 or more Chinese, who cut off the fins, heads, and tails, 
 and throw the bodies upon an endless rubber belt which 
 carries them to the cleaning machines. Here the scales 
 •are taken off, the entrails removed, and the fish washed and 
 dressed at the rate of forty-five per minute. The fish is 
 held by automatic clamps, which press its body against a 
 sharp knife that splits it open. A series of scrapers and 
 brushes, aided by a stream of water, washes out the in- 
 side and finally dumps it into a tank of running water. It 
 next goes through a series of rapidly moving circular 
 knives which cut it up into pieces of just the size used for 
 the cans. The cuts are now carried to long tables, where 
 they are packed by young women. The filled cans are 
 cooked slightly by steam and then capped and soldered 
 and cooked again. During the second cooking a little 
 hole is made with a steel point in each can to let the vapor 
 and air escape. After this the holes are soldered up and 
 the cans run into another steam chamber, which thoroughly 
 cooks the salmon and softens the bones. The cans are 
 now ready to be varnished and labeled and put up for 
 shipment. They are packed in wooden cases and in this 
 shape find their way to grocers all over the world. 
 
 The Chinese and Japanese who clean the salmon come 
 by thousands from San Francisco and other cities for the 
 fish season, a large number of them being employed in 
 Alaska.
 
 OYSlEKb 171 
 
 20. OYSTERS 
 
 " The herring loves the open sea, 
 The mackerel loves the wind ; 
 But the oyster loves the quiet tide, 
 For it comes of a gentle kind." 
 
 THIS verse of an old song gives us one of the character- 
 istics of a sea food which has delighted man's palate 
 for ages. The Romans, who were noted for their dainty 
 viands, served oysters at their feasts. They caught them 
 in the Mediterranean and even imported them from Great 
 Britain after Caesar conquered that country. Sallust, a 
 Latin writer who lived a little before Christ, wrote thus of 
 our English ancestors: "The poor Britons — there is 
 some good in them after all; they produce an oyster." 
 
 In the Middle Ages oysters were eaten in different 
 parts of Europe ; and since then poets have often sung 
 their praises. Shakespeare probably knew them well, for 
 he uses the word "oyster" several times in his plays ; as, for 
 instance, in " The Merry Wives of Windsor," where Pistol, 
 upon Falstaff's telling him he will not lend him a penny, 
 replies : — 
 
 '' Why, then, the world's my oyster, 
 Which I with sword will open." 
 
 To-day oysters are eaten in great quantities in Europe 
 and in North America, Asia, and Australia. The city of 
 London alone consumes more than a billion raw oysters 
 every year. The United States produces so many that we 
 could annually give one dozen to every man, woman, and 
 child in the whole world, and have some to spare.
 
 1/2 . FOODS: OR IIUW THE \VOKl.l) IS FED 
 
 When our forefathers landed in America they found 
 oysters in abundance. They were probably eaten ages ago 
 by the Indians ; for vast quantities of oyster shells have 
 been discovered in ancient Indian shell heaps. Oyster 
 fishing is now carried on all along our eastern coast from 
 Florida to Massachusetts, and also in the Gulf of Mexico, 
 the Gulf of California, in San Francisco Bay, and in the 
 waters off Oregon and Washington. Our most important 
 fisheries are in Chesapeake Bay, mainly upon natural beds, 
 and in Long Island Sound, where the oysters have been 
 planted by sowing their eggs. 
 
 It seems strange to think of rearing oysters like chick- 
 ens, or of raising them by planting the eggs as seed and 
 reaping the crop after a certain number of years ; but this 
 is the custom in most of the oyster-producing parts of 
 Europe and of our country. The French are famous 
 oyster farmers. Upon one oyster bed of less than five 
 hundred acres in France, a million dollars' worth of oysters 
 have been raised. There are also some fine oyster farms 
 in England. Near the town of Whitestable not far from 
 London, there are twenty-seven square miles of them, 
 which yield an annual product of more than a million 
 dollars. 
 
 Until within a few years, almost all our oysters came from 
 natural beds. Now the government has planted the eggs 
 of the Chesapeake oyster along the shores of our Pacific 
 States, as well as in Chesapeake Bay and at other places 
 upon our Atlantic Coast ; and we are growing many 
 oysters in this way. Indeed, it is estimated, that if all the 
 oyster beds of Chesapeake Bay were properly planted and 
 cultivated, they might produce many times the amount
 
 OYSTERS 173 
 
 they now do and bring in a product of six hundred million 
 dollars a year. 
 
 Our consumption of oysters is so great, and their other 
 enemies, such as fish, sea worms, barnacles, and little snail- 
 like creatures known as drills, are so many, that it is a 
 wonder they have not long since disappeared. The drill 
 has a rasping tongue, with which it makes a tiny hole in 
 the shell and thus extracts the soft parts ; while the oyster- 
 boring sponge consumes the shells, until they are Hke a 
 honeycomb and may be crumbled to powder with the 
 fingers. Oysters are also eaten by the starfish, which 
 sometimes sweep across the beds in large schools, devour- 
 ing the oysters in their path. 
 
 Nevertheless, even if man did not plant it, the oyster 
 would increase rapidly enough to keep from becoming ex- 
 tinct. If it had no enemies at all and its every egg should 
 become a full-grown oyster, the shores of all the oceans 
 could hardly contain tlie product at the end of a few hun- 
 dred years. A single Chesapeake Bay oyster lays from 
 sixteen million to sixty million eggs in one season. The 
 eggs are so small that they cannot be seen with the naked 
 eye. They come from the oyster in a sort of a cloud or 
 milky spray which floats out upon the water and which 
 soon hatches out into tiny oysters. 
 
 Oysters, when first hatched, are not bigger than the point 
 of the finest needle. They are delicate and susceptible to 
 cold. They move up and down in the water and finally 
 attach themselves to some other body, such as a stone or 
 shell. They grow gradually ; at first they look Hke white 
 dots, a little later they are as big as a pin head, and at 
 the age of one year they reach the size of a silver twenty-
 
 174 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 five cent piece. After that, if healthy, they should grow 
 about an inch each year, until they are three or four years 
 old, when they are of full size. 
 
 The oyster is one of the strangest of all animal crea- 
 tions. It has a mouth, but no head. The mouth is 
 merely a hole at the narrowest part of the body, and it 
 contains neither tongue nor teeth. It is bordered by four 
 
 thin lips, and the 
 oyster gets its food 
 by filtering sea water 
 through these lips. 
 The food consists 
 entirely of minute 
 animal and vegetable 
 organisms and small 
 particles of matter 
 found in ordinary sea 
 water. 
 
 The oyster has 
 neither ears nor nose, 
 Young oysters growing on a stump. ^^^ scientists tell US 
 
 that it is able to see in some way and that it will close its 
 shell if a shadow passes over the water. Its stomach con- 
 sists of a bag which lies just behind the mouth and is 
 surrounded by the liver. It has lungs which are like the 
 gills of fishes, and also a heart, as one of the muscles is 
 sometimes called, but no brain. 
 
 Its shell, or house, consists of two valves fastened by 
 a hinge at one end, and so arranged that they can be 
 opened and shut at will. While the oyster lies undisturbed 
 on the bottom of its bed with its shell open, the sea water
 
 OYSTERS 
 
 '75 
 
 is drawn in and out, thus giving it air and food. The shell 
 is a tiny coat at first. It thickens from year to year, so that 
 one can tell how old an oyster is by the layers shown upon 
 the outside of the shell. Shells have been found which 
 were nine inches thick, and some scientists claim that 
 oysters have lived one hundred years. 
 • Oysters are harvested during the fall and winter, by 
 men who sail in big boats over the beds. They use rakes 
 
 Oyster dredging. 
 
 and dredges, and sometimes oyster tongs or huge pincers, 
 
 picking and scooping the shells from the bottom of the sea. 
 
 When the boats are loaded, the catch is carried to the 
 
 markets or to packing establishments, where the shells
 
 1/6 
 
 FOODS : (JR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 are shucked off and the oysters put into tubs or cans for 
 export to all parts of the country. 
 
 The largest oyster-packing centers of the United States 
 are upon the Chesapeake Bay, from which many millions 
 of oysters are shipped annually. They are sent in boats 
 
 Shucking oysters. 
 
 and cars to our chief cities and towns. The business of 
 preparing them for the market employs many thousand 
 hands. 
 
 Suppose we enter a Baltimore factory and see the shuck- 
 ers at work. The building stands on the edge of the har- 
 bor. As we come up, great boats filled with oysters in the 
 shell are being unloaded, and a strong smell of the salt sea 
 fills the air. There are men on the wharf shoveling oysters
 
 OYSTERS 177 
 
 into wheelbarrows and carrying them into the shucking 
 shed. We follow and enter a long low half-dark room, in 
 which, at high tables, which run lengthwise from one end of 
 the room to the other, stand several score of men and women 
 working away. Some are colored and some white, and all 
 are busy. Each has a sort of desk before him, upon which 
 is a block with a chisel blade fixed upright in it. He has 
 a wooden mallet in one hand ; with the other he picks 
 up an oyster and lays the edge of its shell on the blade. 
 Now he strikes it a quick blow with the mallet, cutting it 
 through. He next thrusts a broad-bladed knife into the gap 
 and opens the shell. A scoop of the knife then severs the 
 muscle which attaches the oyster to the shell and, long 
 before its breath is out of its body, it finds itself cold and 
 naked in a bucket with its brothers and sisters which have 
 been shucked just before. 
 
 When the buckets are filled, they are carried into 
 another room. Here the oysters are washed and put up 
 in iive-gallon tubs, with a little ice spread on top, and they 
 are then ready for their railroad journeys to other parts of 
 the country. 
 
 Some oysters are packed up in sealed cans for shipment ; 
 some are sent away in the shell, in barrels ; and others are 
 pickled with spices, and bottled. In many cities on or near 
 the seacoast, the oysters are delivered in the shell ; and each 
 dealer opens them for his customers. 
 
 Oysters taste best when fresh from the shell, and they 
 are frequently served raw, on the half shell, at the begin- 
 ning of a dinner. Indeed, oysters are usually eaten raw 
 in all European countries. In the United States they are 
 also served in soups and stews, broiled, fried, roasted, and 
 
 FOODS — 12
 
 178 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 escalloped, and in pies, curries, and turkey stuffing. We 
 usually eat oysters only in the months which contain the 
 letter " r," beginning with September and ending with 
 April. 
 
 oXKo 
 
 21. LOBSTERS, SHRIMPS, CRABS, AND 
 OTHER SHELLFISH 
 
 THE Crustacea are sea animals so named for the hard 
 shell of armor which completely covers their bodies. 
 There are more than ten thousand species of Crustacea, 
 including lobsters, crabs, shrimps, prawns, and other salt 
 
 and fresh water creatures. The 
 smaller kinds drift in myriads 
 about the shores of the oceans 
 and Great Lakes, while some of 
 the larger varieties are amongst 
 the most delicious of the sea 
 products eaten by man. 
 
 The lobster, which is the big- 
 gest of the Crustacea, has a white 
 meat so sweet that it always 
 brings high prices, and so largely 
 consumed that lobster fishing is 
 an important industry, our catch 
 often amounting to millions of pounds in one year. 
 
 Lobsters are found all along the Atlantic Coast of 
 our continent from Labrador to Delaware Bay. The 
 greater part of our catch comes from the waters of Massa- 
 chusetts and Maine. They are taken in traps three or four 
 feet long, made of laths and stout cords, each of which 
 
 Lobster.
 
 LOBSTERS, SHRIMPS, AND OTHER SHELLFISH 1 79 
 
 will hold several lobsters. The animals feed upon fish, 
 snails, and other things found on the bottom of the 
 sea ; and the traps are baited with meat or dead fish and 
 set not far from the shore, at depths of from twenty- 
 five to two hundred feet. They are pulled up every few 
 days, and the lobsters are taken out and kept in floating 
 cages until enough have been gathered for a shipment to 
 be made. We also get lobsters from the Atlantic Coast of 
 Canada. Steamers fitted with tanks containing salt water 
 run from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Boston and 
 New York. At these cities the lobsters are unloaded to be 
 sold in the markets or to be transferred to similar tanks 
 on railroad cars and sent to our interior cities. By this 
 means we are able to have fresh lobster a thousand miles 
 or more away from the sea. 
 
 The natural color of the lobster is grayish green, but 
 when boiled it turns a brilliant red, whence the expression 
 " as red as a boiled lobster." The same is true of shrimps, 
 shellfish somewhat like lobsters in miniature. Shrimps 
 are only about two inches long ; but they are so numer- 
 ous upon our South Atlantic Coast, in San Francisco 
 Bay, and elsewhere that they form an important sea 
 food. 
 
 The different varieties of crabs are so strange that it 
 would take a long time to describe them all. There are 
 fresh water crabs and crabs of the sea, crabs of different 
 colors, and crabs large and small. The pea crab, some- 
 times found in oysters, is not larger than one's little finger- 
 nail, while the giant crab of Japan is a foot wide and 
 eighteen inches long, and its legs at the front often meas 
 ure fifteen feet from tip to tip. Another large crab is the
 
 i8o 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THK WORLD IS FED 
 
 Blue crab. 
 
 stone crab of Tasmania, which weighs twenty-five or thirty 
 pounds, or as much as many a three-year-old child. 
 
 The chief crab used for food in the United States is the 
 blue crab, which lives in the waters along our Atlantic 
 
 Coast and in Chesa- 
 peake Bay. It is 
 taken in wicker traps 
 baited with meat, or 
 in baited hoop nets, 
 which are hauled up 
 rapidly from time to 
 time to remove the 
 catch. 
 
 Another method of 
 
 crab fishing is to use 
 
 a line with a piece of 
 
 raw beef tied to it. The crab grasps the meat with its 
 
 claws, and it may then be slowly drawn to the top of 
 
 the water, where it is caught with a hand net. 
 
 Crabs are always shipped alive to the markets. They 
 are packed in wet seaweed and are taken out one by one 
 when sold. A man must be very careful in handling 
 them. Each crab has two front claws which open and 
 shut like a pair of pincers, and when it takes hold it is 
 almost impossible to make it let go. I should not advise 
 any boy or girl to play with the front claws of a crab. 
 
 Like all the Crustacea, crabs shed their shells from time 
 to time and grow new ones. They are considered espe- 
 cially delicious when caught just after the old shell has split 
 open and dropped off. The skin is then as smooth as 
 satin and as soft as the cheek of a baby. Even the small
 
 LOBSTERS, SHRIMPS, AND OTHER SHELLFISH l8l 
 
 legs are tender, and the flesh is firm, white, and delicious. 
 Every bit of the creature can then be eaten, if it is cooked 
 at once ; but, if left in the water, the skin soon becomes 
 rough, and within a short time turns to a shell which grows 
 harder and thicker from day to day. 
 
 Crabs which have just shed are known as soft shells, 
 and those upon which the shells have become old and 
 tough are called hard shells. Both are liked as food. 
 A not uncommon dish is deviled crab, which is made 
 by boiling the animal in the shell, removing the meat, 
 seasoning it, and replacing it in the shell to be baked. 
 
 In addition to the sea food we have already considered, 
 there are many other fish and shell animals that are used 
 
 Clams. 
 
 upon our tables. Almost every locality along our coasts 
 is famous for one kind of sea food or another ; and our 
 lakes, rivers, and streams swarm with fish of many species. 
 Clams, which are somewhat like oysters, abound on the 
 shores of the Atlantic Ocean, from Cape Cod to Florida. 
 They are gathered from the sand or the mud in which they 
 bury themselves, and arc shipped to the markets in such 
 quantities that the industry is of commercial importance.
 
 iS. 
 
 bUODS : UK HOW IHE WORLD lb bED 
 
 22. SEA FOOD OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 TO-DAY we shall leave North America and take a 
 flying trip across the oceans, to learn about fishing 
 and sea food in other parts of the world. We shall start 
 with Japan. That country consists of many hundred vol- 
 canic islands, some large and some small. The waters are 
 
 In a Japanese fish market. 
 
 deep a short distance from the shores, and they swarm 
 with all kinds of fish. The Japanese have more than a 
 thousand varieties of sea food, and fishing is one of their 
 principal industries. Their annual product of sea food 
 amounts to many million dollars. They have more fisher- 
 men in proportion to their population than we have, and
 
 SEA FOOD OF OTHER LANDS 1 83 
 
 SO many fishing vessels and boats that one is seldom out of 
 sight of these craft in Japanese waters. 
 
 The Japanese eat fish prepared in all sorts of ways. 
 They roast, stew, and fry them ; they have baked fish, 
 smoked fish, dried fish, and fish soup. They even eat some 
 kinds of fish raw. A favorite fish for this purpose is the tai 
 sliced thin and brought to the table ice cold. It is eaten 
 with chopsticks, each morsel being dipped in soy, a kind of 
 sauce, just before it is put into the mouth. 
 
 During their war with the Russians, the Japanese fed 
 their armies largely upon fish, sending to the field millions 
 of pounds of dried and smoked bonito. 
 
 The bonito abounds off the coasts of Japan. It is a 
 round fish which, when grown, weighs three or more 
 pounds. It is caught in great nets and cured and smoked 
 after the bones are removed. When thus prepared, it be- 
 comes so dry and hard that it will last for an indefinite 
 period. Insects will not touch it, and it can be carried 
 anywhere. Bonito is usually eaten with rice ; or it may be 
 shaved into thin slices and cooked in a soup. 
 
 Almost every species of fish we have in the United States 
 is found also in Asiatic waters. The Japanese have mack- 
 erel, halibut, and herring, and likewise shellfish, prawns, 
 shrimps, crabs, oysters, and clams. They catch great quan- 
 tities of sardines, and even salmon, although their salmon is 
 not so good as ours. Some of their best fishing grounds are 
 about the island of Sakhalin, the southern half of which 
 was ceded to the Japanese at the close of their war with 
 the Russians. 
 
 Both Japanese and Chinese have water farms which 
 give them a great deal of food other than fish. Indeed, it
 
 1 84 
 
 FOODS: OR ITOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 is said that some portions of the Bay of Tokio produce so 
 many water vegetables that an acre yields an annual profit 
 of several hundred dollars. The Chinese farm their waters 
 in the same way. The Japanese gather seaweed and 
 dry it, cooking it with soup ; they also use it to make 
 
 Drying seaweed in Japan 
 
 a vegetable isinglass, which is consumed not only in 
 Japan, but is exported to Europe, North America, and 
 even to China. 
 
 The Chinese are among the great fish eaters of the 
 world. There are so many fish in southern China that 
 one may have a different kind for breakfast every morn- 
 ing of the year, if he will eat every sort that the Chinese 
 do. Not only the sea, but also the rivers and canals, are 
 filled with fish ; and there are fishermen everywhere. So 
 many fish traps are built at intervals out into the inland 
 water ways that the boats sometimes scrape them as 
 they pass by. There are fishing platforms upon the river
 
 SEA FOOD OF OTHER LAN"DS 
 
 185 
 
 banks ; and one often sees a half-naked man raising or 
 lowering a great net into the water. 
 
 The Chinese train otters to catch fish for them ; and a 
 not uncommon sight in their rivers is a long boat, on the 
 edges of which a score or more cormorants sit, waiting for 
 their Chinese master in the stern to order them to dive 
 down into the stream and bring up fish for him. The cor- 
 morant is a bird almost as. large as a good-sized duck and 
 
 Chinaman with trained cormorants 
 
 not unlike it in shape. It has a wide mouth and a po«ch 
 on the under part of its neck in which it can store a num- 
 ber of fish until it is ready to eat thepn. K can dive with 
 great force and can swim under water so fast that few fish 
 can escape it. The cormor^t usually catches a fish by the 
 head and swallows it head first, so that the fins, being 
 laid against the sides of the body, do not hurt the throat of 
 the bird. 
 
 Cormorants are trained for fishing. They are often raised
 
 1 86 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 in captivity, being hatched under hens. When they are 
 about two months old, the trainer takes them in hand and, 
 tying a string to one leg, drives them into the water. He 
 throws them small live fishes, which they are expected to 
 catch, and teaches them to go out and come back at the call 
 of a whistle. The birds that do not obey are whipped 
 with a piece of bamboo. 
 
 When out fishing for its master, the cormorant is fastened 
 to the rim of the boat by a string tied to one leg. At a 
 given signal it slides down into the water and dives for 
 a fish, coming up with one in its mouth or pouch. Its mas- 
 ter then makes it disgorge. It is prevented from swallow- 
 ing the fish by a strap or ring which is fastened about the 
 throat below the pouch. When a bird grows tired, the 
 fisherman removes the strap and rewards it with a share of 
 the fish it has caught. 
 
 The fish markets of China are interesting. Fish are 
 usually sold aUve, being kept in tanks or tubs of running 
 water while awaiting purchasers. However some fish are 
 sold dried and pickled, smoked, or cured in other ways. The 
 Chinese eat water plants and delight in some varieties of sea 
 food which are unknown to our markets. One of their 
 favorite dainties, for instance, is the fins of the shark, cut 
 off and dried in the sun. They boil such fins with wood 
 ashes and then scrape and wash them until perfectly clean ; 
 after this they stew the fins and use them in soups or with 
 crab meat and ham. 
 
 Another costly sea food much prized by these people 
 is becJie de mer or trepang, a great sea worm, or slug, found 
 along the Great Barrier Reef off eastern Australia and the 
 islands about. Bec/ie de mer, as they lie in the water, look
 
 SEA FOOD OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 187 
 
 much like large cucumbers, and they are sometimes called 
 "the cucumbers of the sea." They are from one to four 
 feet in length and from two to four inches thick. They 
 live on the microscopic shellfish which are found in great 
 quantities upon coral rocks. About the mouth of each slug 
 are hundreds of Httle feelers with which it brushes the 
 rocks and thus draws 
 the food into its throat. 
 These queer creatures are 
 picked up at low tide by 
 the fishermen, or are ob- 
 tained by diving for them. 
 They are cut open and 
 cleaned, and then boiled 
 and laid in the sun to dry. 
 They are now smoked for 
 twenty-four hours, when 
 they are ready to be 
 packed up and shipped 
 off to China. 
 
 The waters about our 
 Pacific islands sv/arm with 
 sea animals ; and Porto 
 Rico, like most of the 
 West Indies, has excel- ^''^P'"" ''^"^'"^ ^'^ "^'■ 
 
 lent sea food. The natives of the Philippines live largely 
 upon fish, and they have a great variety of nets and traps 
 for catching them. In sailing along the coasts or upon 
 the rivers and lakes of that far-away colony, one fre- 
 quently sees the Filipino fisherman casting his net; and one 
 often passes winding cages of bamboo cane stuck down in
 
 l88 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS VED 
 
 the sand in such a way that the fish can swim in, but 
 cannot find their way out. Off the shores of some of 
 the islands are iarge fish corrals, fenced in with bamboo 
 canes woven together with rattans. These corrals are 
 so hidden at high tide that the fishes swim in, but, 
 when the tide falls, they find themselves caught, and the 
 fishermen scoop them out with dip nets, killing the larger 
 ones with their spears. Everywhere along the coast and 
 streams the natives have small fish traps, and, sometimes, 
 bamboo cages somewhat similar to ours for trapping 
 lobsters. 
 
 How would you like to walk out into the fields near 
 home, and be able to catch fish in almost every mud 
 puddle ? This is possible in parts of our Philippine 
 Islands. The lowlands of some sections are so underlaid 
 with water that on breaking through a thin crust of earth, 
 a slimy mud is reached, in which several different species 
 of mudfish are found. Some are quite small and others a 
 foot or more long ; but they are so plentiful that after a 
 heavy rain the ditches and small streams are almost filled 
 with them. The Filipinos go out after the rains to fish in 
 the rice fields ; and during the wet season one may often 
 see men and women wading about in the mud, with fishing 
 traps of bamboo, in the shape of barrels open at both ends. 
 The fishermen push these traps through the muddy water 
 into the beds of the irrigating canals, and then feel down 
 and around to learn what they have caught. 
 
 Fish of many kinds are sold alive in the markets of 
 Manila, being kept in bamboo baskets so tightly woven 
 that they will hold water. Upon making a sale, the 
 peddler takes the squirming fish out of his basket, lays it
 
 SEA FOOD OF OTHER LANDS 1 89 
 
 upon a stone, and kills it by striking it just back of the 
 head with a club. 
 
 Going northward to Siberia, we find valuable fishing 
 grounds all along its eastern coast. The Russians annu- 
 ally catch several hundred million pounds of fish, trepang, 
 and crabs in their Asiatic waters ; and the natives of north- 
 ern and northeastern Siberia feed not only themselves, but 
 their sled dogs on fish and blubber. The Eskimos of our 
 continent also feed their sled dogs on fish, and the flesh of 
 the walrus and other sea animals. 
 
 The Russians have rich fisheries in their European rivers 
 and seas. There are many fishing boats on the Volga, 
 Don, Neva, and Dnieper rivers, and also on the Sea of 
 Azov, the Black Sea, and especially on the Caspian Sea. 
 
 An important industry about the Caspian Sea is catch- 
 ing sturgeon for their eggs, which are salted, cured, and 
 sold as caviar, an appetizing dainty, often eaten upon toast 
 at the beginning of a meal. Caviar looks much like bird 
 shot sprinkled with water. It has a bitter, salty taste ; and 
 I doubt whether you would like it at first. It is put up in 
 kegs or cans and shipped to all parts of the civilized world. 
 It is now made in the United States, from sturgeon caught 
 in our waters, but by no means in such quantities as in, 
 Russia, which might be called the chief caviar country of 
 the world. 
 
 The fisheries of the Baltic are extensive, as are also 
 those of the North Sea. From these places comes most 
 of the sea food of London, which has perhaps the largest 
 wholesale fish market in the world. This is Billingsgate, 
 situated in the heart of the city, not far from London 
 Bridge. Steam vessels scurry about the North Sea and
 
 190 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 gather the fish from the places where they are caught and 
 bring them to the mouth of the Thames River. Here 
 larger and faster boats are waiting to carry them to Lon- 
 don. In addition, vast quantities of fish are brought in 
 
 by railway and steamer 
 from Ireland and Scot- 
 land, so that altogether 
 many thousand tons are 
 marketed daily. 
 
 The fish are of al- 
 most every species, from 
 whitebait, one of which 
 is as big as a baby's 
 finger, to great sturgeon, 
 which sometimes weigh 
 as much as a full-grown 
 man. There are the her- 
 ring, sole, salmon, and 
 haddock, as well as 
 eels, prawns, shrimps, 
 and smelts. 
 
 The fish are sold at 
 auction ; and there are 
 thousands of peddlers and retail dealers who push this way 
 and that as they bid. There are vehicles with boisterous 
 drivers and also porters and wheelbarrow men. Indeed, 
 the early morning sales at Billingsgate bring together one 
 of the noisiest crowds of the world. The place has long 
 been so notorious for its confusion and coarse language, 
 that "talking Billingsgate" is a common expression for 
 using slang or scolding in a vulgar manner. 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 »-^liiBLl 
 
 
 
 ^^W^ 
 
 ^g 
 
 
 
 V i V \ 
 
 V /"^hI 
 
 'Mi 
 
 ~* ••*^H 
 
 mk 
 
 V 
 
 
 ^^t^""^' jt^ 
 
 W^k 
 
 mIR 
 
 r ji 
 
 W^lftKllk 
 
 mm 
 
 Wm 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 11^^ 
 
 '''■*' il 
 
 
 I 
 
 iIIm 
 
 
 
 PIBI 
 
 ■■H 
 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 A Scotch fishwife.
 
 TURTLES, FROGS, SNAILS, AND LIZARDS 
 
 191 
 
 23. TURTLES, FROGS, SNAILS, AND 
 LIZARDS 
 
 FROGS, turtles, snails, and lizards ! Do people eat such 
 things as these ? Yes, indeed ; in many parts of the 
 world they are classed among the choicest dainties. Turtle 
 soup is dehcious, and the diamond-backed terrapin is a' 
 famous American deli- 
 cacy. In our own cities 
 frogs are in demand ; 
 they are caught by the 
 thousands ; and snails so 
 delight the Parisians that 
 
 small farms are devoted 
 
 to rearing them. The 'guana lizard. 
 
 great iguana lizard, which abounds on the Isthmus of 
 
 Panama, has flesh which tastes like young chicken. 
 
 The turtle is a shell-incased reptile with four little legs 
 ending in feet with sharp claws, a short tail, and an odd 
 snakelike head attached to a long flexible neck. Most tur- 
 tles can draw their heads, legs, and tails within the shell,* 
 so that they are protected by it as though covered with 
 armor. Some turtles have sharp teeth, and, when they 
 take hold, it is almost impossible to make them let go 
 without chopping off their heads. 
 
 Turtles lay eggs, digging holes for the purpose in the 
 sand or mud. After the eggs are deposited, the turtle 
 smoothes the earth over, the eggs are hatched by the 
 warm sun, and the little turtles pop out. Turtles lay their 
 eggs in the same places year after year, and they are
 
 192 
 
 FOODS: OR now 11 IK WORLD IS KED 
 
 frequently caught by men who know their breeding 
 grounds and who capture them while they are making 
 their nests. 
 
 Turtles are of many varieties. One found in some of 
 the warmer parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is so 
 big that, when full-grown, it would make a cart load for a 
 horse ; and it has such powerful jaws that it can take off 
 a man's finger at a bite. In catching such a turtle, the 
 hunters are careful to keep away from its mouth. They 
 rush up to it and turn it over on its back, as it lies on the 
 sand. It is then helpless, and can be dragged to the ship, 
 which is to carry it to London or to some other market for 
 sale. Enormous turtles were formerly found in great num- 
 bers upon the Galapagos Islands, off the Pacific Coast of 
 South America. A specimen which was kept for two 
 years at the New York Zoological Park weighed over 
 three hundred pounds. 
 
 Giant turtles, Galapagos Islands
 
 TURTLES, FROGS, SNAILS, AND LIZARDS 1 93 
 
 On the banks of the Amazon there are turtles which lay 
 so many eggs that the natives make an oil of them for 
 cooking and lighting. The people know the laying sea- 
 sons, and they then go out in crowds to the breeding 
 grounds. They dig up the nests with spades and put the 
 eggs in great piles, until all have been collected. Then 
 each little party takes its heap of eggs to an empty canoe 
 and mashes them into a filthy-looking mush. The eggs 
 are as big as hens' eggs, or a little larger, and they have 
 leathery shells which can be easily broken with sticks or 
 with the feet. Sometimes the Indian boys and girls take off 
 their clothes and jump up and down, treading the eggs, and 
 smearing themselves with the yolks as they do so. 
 
 After the stuff is thoroughly mixed, water is poured into 
 it and the sun allowed to beat down upon it. In a short 
 while an oil rises to the top and can be skimmed off. It 
 is afterward refined by cooking in copper kettles over the 
 fire ; and then it is stored for use as needed. It is said 
 that about six thousand eggs are needed to make one jar 
 of oil ; and the eggs annually destroyed for this purpose 
 amount to many millions. Indeed, Henry W. Bates, from 
 whose travels on the Amazon we get this information, 
 says the destruction of the eggs for this purpose is so 
 great that the Amazon turtle may in time disappear, espe- 
 cially as the natives also collect the newly hatched young 
 for eating. 
 
 The favorite turtle of the United States, and, indeed, 
 one which has become noted for the delicacy of its flesh, 
 is the diamond-backed terrapin, found in the salt marshes 
 along our Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from New York to 
 Texas and especially in the Chesapeake Bay. This turtle 
 
 FOODS — 13
 
 194 I'OODS: OR now rilK WORLD IS KliD 
 
 is a pygmy in comparison with tlie great ocean turtles. It 
 is usually from five to seven inches long, and it seldom 
 grows to be more than ten inches long. When first 
 hatched, it is about a half inch in diameter, and it grows 
 at the rate of an inch a year for four or five years, and 
 after that more slowly. 
 
 The diamond-backed terrapin feeds largely upon shell- 
 fish and small reptiles, varying its animal food with the 
 tender shoots and roots of such plants as grow in the 
 marshes. It spends most of the summer in the swamps. 
 At the beginning of winter it buries itself in the mud at 
 the bottom of some pool or stream and remains there until 
 spring. 
 
 The terrapin is so delicious that it always brings high 
 prices in our city markets. A single fat turtle of this 
 variety will sell for several dollars ; and there are many 
 terrapin fishers who go about our coasts, wading through 
 the swamps and poking down into them with rods to find 
 where the terrapin nest. They also turn up the mud with 
 spades and sometimes use dredges to drag the dia- 
 mond-backs forth from their haunts. Terrapin are also 
 trapped by very similar methods to those used for trap- 
 ping lobsters, the traps being baited with fish. On some 
 of our southern coasts they are hunted with dogs, the dogs 
 trailing the turtles to their nests in the grass or bush and 
 barking to show where they lie. 
 
 Terrapin farms have been established for the purpose 
 of determining whether the animals cannot be profitably 
 raised. Our government has fenced in experimental ponds 
 in Maryland and in North Carolina and stocked them 
 with thousands of diamond-backs, the eggs of which are
 
 TURTLES, FROGS, SNAILS, AND LIZARDS 
 
 195 
 
 used to supply the marshes from which terrapin have dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Have you ever eaten the fat hind legs of a frog, fried to 
 a turn ? They taste like young chicken and are so much 
 sought after that in the United States alone we kill mil- 
 lions of frogs every year. It is said that we eat more frog 
 legs than any other people, even the French. Frog catch- 
 ing: has become a business in some localities in Minnesota, 
 California, Missouri, New York, Arkansas, Maryland, Vir- 
 ginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The best places for catching 
 them are along the marshes of our lakes and rivers. 
 
 Frogs are caught with lines baited with worms, insects, 
 or pieces of red cloth ; they are speared ; and they are 
 also shot with guns and crossbows. The best time to 
 hunt frogs is at night. 
 The sportsman uses a 
 lantern, the light of which 
 enables him to take aim 
 and, at the same time, 
 blinds the eyes of the 
 frog. 
 
 Sometimes the frogs 
 are sold alive, but they 
 are usually dressed before Bullfrog. 
 
 they are carried to the markets. In Paris I have seen 
 skewers filled with frog legs, which were selling for a few 
 cents a dozen. In our country the legs are usually sold 
 by the pound, and the live frogs at so much apiece. 
 
 In the United States the chief frogs eaten are bullfrogs, 
 green frogs, and spring frogs. These species are much 
 the same, although there is a difference in size, the bull-
 
 196 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW TUK WORLD IS FED 
 
 frog, which often has a body eight inches long, being the 
 largest. 
 
 We have all heard of snails, the little round shell ani- 
 mals which move so slowly, although we may not like 
 Shakespeare's comparison of them with ourselves, when 
 he says : — 
 
 " The whining schoolboy, with his satchel 
 And shining morning face, creeping like a snail, 
 Unwillingly to school." 
 
 The ordinary American boy does not whine, and he 
 usually goes on the run after he has his first pair of trou- 
 sers and top-boots. 
 He is not like a snail, 
 ind it is pretty cer- 
 tain that he does not 
 eat snails. It is dif- 
 ferent, however, with 
 the boys of southern 
 Europe and especi- 
 ally with those of 
 France. They con- 
 sider snails a delicacy 
 and eat them in large 
 Snails in a French market. quantities. Snails are 
 
 sold in all the French markets. I have seen bushels of 
 them in Paris and have watched the market women dishing 
 them out to their customers at so much per dozen or per 
 hundred. They are slimy and disgusting looking creatures, 
 as they crawl about over one another on the market tables. 
 The edible snail comes chiefly from the vineyards of Swit- 
 zerland and southern France. It is fed in gardens made
 
 VEGETABLES I 97 
 
 for the purpose, and the fatter it is, the higher the price it 
 brings. The best snail food is cabbage and clover, and it is 
 said that a wagon load of cabbages forms a single meal for 
 one hundred thousand snails. In some places the snail 
 farmers keep their stock in the house during the winter, 
 and they know just how to handle the eggs and the baby 
 snails and how to fatten the full grown snails for the 
 market. The most of the product of these farms goes to 
 the French cities, although several hundred thousand 
 pounds of snails are annually sent to the United States. 
 
 24. VEGETABLES 
 
 ACCORDING to investigations made by our Govern- 
 ment Department of Agriculture, vegetables form 
 more than one fourth of the daily food of the ordinary 
 American family.' They are eaten everywhere in large 
 quantities, and there are few peoples so savage that they 
 do not raise some kinds of them. 
 
 The different plants and parts of plants thus used are so 
 many that we cannot mention them all. Some plants are 
 valuable for their roots, as turnips, carrots, and beets ; 
 some for their bulbs, as onions and garlic ; some for their 
 tubers, as potatoes ; others for their stems, as asparagus 
 and celery ; others for their leaves, as cabbages, lettuce, 
 and spinach ; others for their seeds, as peas and beans ; 
 and others for their fruits, green and ripe, as cucumbers, 
 squashes, tomatoes, and melons. 
 
 Some vegetables will grow well only in certain localities
 
 198 
 
 InoDS: OR IloW IIIE WoKlJ) IS FED 
 
 and in certain climates, and some are found almost every- 
 where. In the United States the principal varieties thrive, 
 during one season or other, all over our country ; and out- 
 side the cities almost every family grows its own vegetables. 
 We have also many thousand farms and gardens where 
 vegetables are raised for the markets, the product being 
 
 A truck farm. 
 
 so great that it sells for several hundred million dollars 
 every year. The best soil close to our large cities is used 
 for gardening ; and along our southern Atlantic Coast vast 
 quantities of vegetables are raised during the winter, 
 spring, and early summer, for shipment to our northern 
 cities, where the weather is so cold that vegetables can- 
 not be produced at such times. This business is called 
 trucking or truck farming.
 
 VEGETABLES I 99 
 
 One of the chief trucking centers of the United States 
 is the lower shore of the Chesapeake Bay, whence vege- 
 tables are sent upon fast steamers to our chief northern 
 Atlantic ports and also to Richmond, Baltimore, and Wash- 
 ington. During the height of the season several great 
 ships loaded with garden truck steam daily from Norfolk 
 for New York and Boston ; and vegetables are also carried 
 in refrigerator cars to the larger cities of the interior. 
 
 A little farther south, in North Carolina, is another truck- 
 ing region, the chief port of which is Wilmington ; and still 
 
 ja-.^-t- 
 
 Shipping watermelons. 
 
 farther down the coast, quantities of garden stuff are shipped 
 from the ports of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 
 Among the chief products of eastern Georgia is the water- 
 melon, which is sent northward, beginning in early July, and 
 which reaches nearly every large market east of the Missis- 
 sippi River. About one half of all the watermelons used
 
 200 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 in the United States come from eastern Georgia, although 
 Norfolk sometimes ships as many as six hundred thou- 
 sand in one year. 
 
 Trucking is usually done upon small farms. A large 
 amount of vegetables can be raised upon an acre ; but the 
 crop requires careful cultivation and almost constant atten- 
 tion. The plants must be weeded and hoed and the insects 
 
 Picking tomatoes on a southern truck farm. 
 
 and worms destroyed, so that one man cannot take charge 
 of a large tract. The ordinary truck farm usually contains 
 only ten or fifteen acres ; and we have in our country 
 something like two hundred and fifty thousand market 
 gardens of the average size of one acre each. From many 
 of these gardens the products are taken direct to the cities 
 near by, and sometimes the gardener hauls the vegetables 
 into town in his own wagon and peddles them out.
 
 VEGETABLES 20I 
 
 A great deal of trucking is done on the Pacific Coast, 
 where it is carried on by Chinese and Italians. The 
 Chinese are skillful cultivators. They economize every 
 inch of ground and do not spare water, fertilizer, or trouble, 
 in growing their crops. 
 
 Not many years ago canned vegetables were almost un- 
 known. They were costly and were used chiefly upon 
 shipboard or in remote places where other food was not 
 obtainable. To-day they are sold in all our grocery stores, 
 as well as at the mines, lumber camps, and other out-of- 
 the-way places. We now have more than two thousand 
 estabUshments devoted to canning; and about four fifths 
 of them are engaged in putting up fruits and vegetables. 
 The business employs a capital of over fifty million dollars, 
 and at certain times of the year the labor of something like 
 one hundred thousand men, women, and children. 
 
 The vegetables most canned are corn and tomatoes, our 
 product of these two articles alone amounting to some- 
 thing like thirty million pounds every year. Peas are 
 preserved in a green state, and likewise asparagus, lima 
 beans, string beans, succotash, beets, cabbages, pumpkins, 
 and squashes. Indeed, it is now possible to buy almost any 
 kind of vegetable in cans. 
 
 Until a short while ago, the only way of keeping fruit 
 and other such things was by drying, or putting them away 
 in salt or sugar. It was in 1795 that Nicholas Appert, a 
 Frenchman, submitted to his government a plan for preserv- 
 ing food by heating it in glass jars set in boiling water, 
 and sealing the jars while hot. This plan worked so well 
 that the emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, paid Appert twelve 
 thousand francs for his invention. The discovery was
 
 202 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 introduced into England, and in time a canning business 
 grew up in that country. Shortly afterward other in- 
 ventions were made along the same line; and about 1815 
 Ezra Daggett brought to the United States a process for 
 canning salmon, lobsters, and oysters, which was extended 
 to the preservation of pickles, jellies, and sauces, and thus 
 formed the basis of quite an industry. 
 
 When men began to put up vegetables, tin cans were 
 found to be cheaper and more easily shipped than glass 
 jars ; and, as the business grew, many machines were in- 
 vented to prepare the vegetables for cooking and to aid in 
 canning them. We now have hulling machines which will 
 take green peas out of the pods at the rate of a thousand 
 bushels per day ; and separators which will grade the peas ; 
 sieves for sorting and pea blanchers for scalding them. 
 There are corncutters which take the grains from the 
 cobs of four thousand ears in one hour; and corn silk- 
 ing machines which remove the silk at an equal speed. 
 There are also machines for preparing tomatoes, pump- 
 kins, and squashes, and many kinds of graters, corers, and 
 seeders. 
 
 In canning vegetables and fruits, galvanized wire bas- 
 kets are now used to lower the articles into the scalding 
 kettles ; and there is an automatic machine which will 
 fill twelve thousand cans in a day. Some vegetables 
 are cooked in the cans. A great number of cans with 
 soldered tops are placed on a tray, and all are lowered 
 into a cooking boiler at one time, a little hole being left in 
 the top of each can to permit the air and steam to escape. 
 When the cooking is finished, the tray is raised, and a drop 
 of solder, placed upon the hole, seals each can tight.
 
 POTATOES 203 
 
 25. POTATOES 
 
 POTATOES for*m such an important part of our daily 
 food that it is hard to imagine living without them. 
 Nevertheless, the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans of the 
 olden time never heard of them, and although Shakespeare 
 in his "Merry Wives of Windsor" makes Falstaff say 
 " Let the sky rain potatoes," it was long after his time 
 that they became a common food of civilized man. 
 
 Potatoes existed nowhere but upon this hemisphere until 
 some years after Columbus discovered the New World. 
 The Spaniards found the Indians eating these vegetables 
 in the valleys and on the slopes of the Andes, and the 
 potatoes which they carried home with them were the 
 first ones seen in Europe. They were shown to Queen 
 Isabella, and were first grown as curiosities in flower gar- 
 dens. Later, some were taken to Virginia by the Span- 
 iards, and from Virginia to Ireland by Sir John Hawkins. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have carried the first speci- 
 mens from Ireland to England and showed them to Queen 
 Elizabeth, advocating their use as food. 
 
 It was many years, however, before the people of Europe 
 began to appreciate this vegetable. They used it first for 
 their cattle and hogs and then for the poor in times of 
 famine. It was chiefly as a famine food that the potato was 
 first cultivated in Ireland ; but the better classes soon dis- 
 covered its value, and it then became one of the chief 
 crops of that country and also spread to many parts of 
 Europe. The early use of the potato by the Irish gave it 
 the name of the " Irish potato," in contrast with the
 
 204 
 
 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 sweet potato, which is also a native of our hemisphere. 
 We shall treat of the sweet potato further on, using the 
 general term " potato " for the Irish potato only. 
 
 To-day potatoes are used in every country of Europe, and 
 more are raised there than in any other part of the world. 
 The chief of all potato lands is Germany, which yields 
 about one fourth of the world's crop. The sandy plains 
 
 Plowing a potato field. 
 
 sloping up from the Baltic are especially adapted to these 
 vegetables, and they produce many million tons of them 
 every year. Other European countries which raise pota- 
 toes in large quantities are Russia, Spain, Portugal, Aus- 
 tria-Hungary, and France. In the United States the 
 potato crop ranks next to our cereal crop. We raise 
 several hundred million bushels annually, and there are 
 few farmers who have not their potato patches.
 
 POTATOES - 205 
 
 Our chief potato states are New York, Wisconsin, 
 Michigan, and Pennsylvania, although we have many 
 others which raise this crop in large quantities. Some 
 of the best of our potatoes are produced in California 
 and Utah and upon other parts of the Rocky Mountain 
 plateau. 
 
 Have you ever considered what an odd vegetable the 
 potato is ? It is a tuber which grows under the ground 
 on the roots of a plant, instead of upon its vines or 
 branches. The French call it pomine de terre, which 
 means " apple of the earth," and the Germans also know 
 it as the earth apple or der Erdapfcl. It is not unlike 
 the apple in size ; and contains an enormous amount of 
 water, as does the apple, but, in addition, it has a con- 
 siderable amount of starch and of other elements, which 
 make it much more valuable for food. 
 
 Potatoes are grown by planting old potatoes or pieces of 
 them. Upon each potato are numerous little buds, called 
 eyes, from which, when planted, the vines grow up and the 
 roots grow down. After a while little potatoes form on 
 the roots. They grow to the size of peas, then of marbles, 
 and some varieties finally become so large that one potato 
 weighs several pounds. At the same time the vines have 
 grown above ground until they have reached a height of 
 two or three feet. Their color is a rich dark green, and 
 they have beautiful little flowers and now and then round 
 purplish seed balls. When the vines begin to die, the 
 potatoes are ripe, and they may then be dug or plowed up 
 and stored away or sent to the market. 
 
 There are many 'varieties of potatoes, some early and 
 some late, some large and some small. Some have a
 
 2o6 
 
 FOODS: OK now TIIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 better flavor than others, and some will produce far more 
 to the acre. It has been found that when one plants the 
 seeds in the little potato pods, new varieties may come 
 from them ; and that when these potatoes themselves are 
 planted, they produce their own kind. The famous Early 
 Rose potato came from the seeds of some South American 
 
 Harvesting potatoes. 
 
 wild potatoes, which had been carried to Vermont and 
 planted ; and the Burbank potato was discovered by a 
 schoolboy named Luther Burbank, who planted some 
 seeds from the vine of an Early Rose. Young Burbank 
 had heard how the Early Rose potato originated. He 
 was interested in plant growing and when, upon going to 
 school one morning, he saw a green seed pod in an Early
 
 POTATOES 207 
 
 Rose potato patch by the roadside, he decided to gather 
 it when ripe and to save the seeds to plant the next year. 
 He looked further, but this pod was the only one he 
 could find. The Early Rose differs from many other 
 varieties of potatoes in that it does not often have seeds ; 
 therefore young Burbank was especially anxious about this 
 pod. He watched it carefully from day to day, and the very 
 morning when he thought it would be ready for picking, 
 he was dismayed to find it had disappeared. He looked 
 for it a long time and finally got down on his knees and 
 went carefully over the bed. After some hours he found 
 the pod. It lay hidden away under another vine about 
 sixteen feet distant, where it had been blown by the wind, 
 or thrown by some one running rapidly through the field. 
 He saved it and planted the seeds the following year ; 
 and the result was the Burbank potato, which is now 
 famous throughout the world. 
 
 I have visited some of the high valleys of the Andes 
 Mountains, which are said to be the home of the potato, 
 and have watched the Indians selling potatoes in the Peru- 
 vian and Bolivian cities. Many kinds are sold in La Paz, 
 where the market women peddle them out at so much 
 per pile of a dozen or so. The chief varieties there are 
 by no means so large as those of the United States, some 
 kinds being little larger than marbles. 
 
 During the winter we keep potatoes in cellars or in 
 other warm places. The Bolivian Indians accomplish the 
 same object by freezing and drying them. They soak the 
 potatoes in water and let them freeze night after night 
 until they are soft. The skins are then rubbed off by 
 treading them with the bare feet, and the potatoes are
 
 208 FOODS: OR HOW IllE WORLD IS FKD 
 
 dried in the open air. After so drying, they become as 
 hard as stones, and they have to be soaked three or four 
 days before they are cooked. They are now called cJiuno, 
 and will keep a long time. 
 
 Irish potatoes are used for making starch, glucose, and 
 other things. The Germans make alcohol of them and 
 feed them largely to their cattle and hogs. 
 
 Next to the Irish potato, the vegetable most extensively 
 grown in the United States is the sweet potato. It is 
 annually raised by more than one million farmers, and the 
 crop sometimes sells for over twenty million dollars. It is 
 cultivated most largely in our Southern States, and also to 
 a considerable extent in New Jersey, Illinois, and Mis- 
 souri. The crop grows best in a warm, sandy soil, where 
 several hundred bushels are frequently gathered from one 
 acre. 
 
 26 IMPORTANT VEGETABLES USED FOR 
 FOOD 
 
 IF our vegetables could speak and tell us about them- 
 selves, we might learn that each has its history, and 
 that many have long held an important place in furnishing 
 food for mankind. Even the humble bean might show us 
 that it requires some education to know him. He could 
 tell how his kind originated in western Asia, and how he 
 has for ages been used as food throughout the world. He 
 might say that there are one hundred and fifty varieties of 
 him now cultivated in the United States ; and refer to the 
 string bean, which we eat green, the Hma bean, whose
 
 IMl'DRTANT VEGE'iABLES USED FOR EOOD 20Q 
 
 native home is South America, the bone bean, which came 
 from Scotland, and the soy bean, used in China and in 
 Japan for making a sauce and also for the delicious bean 
 candy which all Japanese boys and girls like. He would 
 surely mention dwarf beans, field beans, bush beans, and 
 pole beans; and, if he were properly asked, he might tell 
 us just what kind of a bean it was up whose mighty stalk. 
 Jack the Giant Killer climbed. 
 
 The bean would certainly say something of himself as 
 food for cattle and hogs ; and he would not omit to tell 
 how the famous baked beans of Boston are cooked and ex- 
 ported everywhere in cans. Indeed, he might even go 
 back into history and describe the elections of ancient 
 Greece, when beans were used by the voters as ballots, each 
 man dropping one into a helmet to indicate his choice ; or, 
 he might tell about the feast of the Bean King, which was 
 long held on Twelfth Night in France, Germany, and Eng- 
 land. At this feast a bean was hidden in a large cake, 
 and when it was cut, the child who got the slice contain- 
 ing it was made king over the rest of the guests for that 
 evening. 
 
 The pea would also have his story, showing how he first 
 grew wild in southern Europe and in Asia, and was a com- 
 mon food of the ancient Greeks and Romans. He might 
 say that he formed a principal food of the working classes 
 in England before the potato was brought over from Amer- 
 ica; and tell how he is now eaten, both green and ripe, 
 throughout the civilized world 
 
 As to the cabbage, which is supposed to be the dullest 
 of all the vegetables, his head is full of strange information. 
 The Romans and Greeks had a tradition that he sprang 
 
 FOODS — 14
 
 2IO FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 from the sweat of Jupiter, some drops of which fell upon 
 earth. We know that cabbages have long been cultivated, 
 that our common cabbage was first brought into England 
 by the Romans, and that it is now grown everywhere in 
 the United States. There are all together more than an 
 hundred different varieties of cabbages ; some are red, and 
 some white, some are small and some are large, a single 
 head weighing thirty pounds, and, with the leaves, being 
 big enough to fill a wheelbarrow. 
 
 The lettuce, another leaf vegetable, comes from the 
 East Indies ; but it has been used in salads in Europe as 
 far back as any one can remember. We raise a great deal 
 of it in Michigan and New Jersey. It is grown largely in 
 the south during the winter, and is shipped northward in 
 barrels and crates. Cabbages and spinach are exported 
 in the same way. 
 
 But how about the plants whose roots and bulbs are so 
 largely eaten ? I refer to beets, carrots, onions, and tur- 
 nips. For hundreds and hundreds of years each of these 
 vegetables has been a part of the food of man. We 
 have all heard of the Pyramids of Egypt. Herodotus, 
 a Greek historian, sometimes called the Father of History, 
 who wrote about them ages ago, says that the writings 
 carved upon them showed how much garlic and how many 
 radishes and onions were eaten by the workmen during 
 their building, and that the cost of these vegetables alone 
 amounted to sixteen hundred talents of silver, or a great 
 deal more than one million dollars. 
 
 We know that man has been eating onions and garlic 
 from that time to this. The Spaniards and Italians are 
 especially fond of them, and the onion peddler is a common
 
 IMPORTANT VEGETABLES USED FOR FOOD 
 
 21 I 
 
 sight in the cities of southern Europe. He puts up his 
 onions in strings by braiding together the tops and goes 
 about with them thrown 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 As to carrots and tur- 
 nips, they are a choice 
 food for cattle as well as 
 for man ; and beets are 
 eaten by both man and 
 beast. Indeed, some of 
 us eat beets every day in 
 a way we little imagine. 
 We spread them upon 
 bread and butter in the 
 form of beet sugar ; and 
 we are often consuming 
 beets when we eat candy. 
 We shall learn more about this later on, when we look 
 into the beet sugar product of the world. 
 
 The story of asparagus, the vegetable which comes first 
 upon our tables in the early spring, is interesting. It was 
 used in old Rome, and the Roman soldiers carried the 
 knowledge of it to the Gauls and Britons. It grew wild 
 in Holland, France, Germany, Hungary, and England, and 
 soon it began to be cultivated in the gardens. It was 
 brought to our country by our Pilgrim Fathers and is now 
 grown everywhere. All along our Atlantic Coast, from 
 Charleston to Boston, and on the Pacific Coast, and in parts 
 of the Mississippi Valley, asparagus is raised for shipment 
 to the markets, great quantities being produced on Long 
 Island and in New Jersey. 
 
 A Spanish onion peddler.
 
 212 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Asparagus belongs to the lily family of plants, and if 
 might be called a second cousin to the smilax whose 
 vines are used for floral decorations. It can be grown 
 from the seed ; and a bed once started will produce for 
 years, new shoots coming up every season. Only the 
 shoots are eaten ; they are round fat green or white 
 
 Preparing celery for the markets. 
 
 Stems which sprout out of the center of the plant and 
 are cut when soft and tender. They are tied up in bunches 
 of ten or more to be shipped to the markets. 
 
 Celery is a native of Europe, but it is now cultivated 
 widely in our country, especially in Michigan, Ohio, 
 and New York, and also, for winter use, in Florida and 
 California. So much celery is grown about Kalamazoo,
 
 IMPORTANT VEGETABLES USED FOR FOOD 213 
 
 Michigan, that it is sometimes called " the celery city." 
 The celery is raised there on the rich lowlands about the 
 town. The seed for the earliest celery is sown in hotbeds 
 before the snow has disappeared, and the plants are set 
 out five or six weeks later, being banked up from time 
 to time to keep the sun off the stalks and thus produce 
 the white color. 
 
 Some of the celery land is so low and wet that wooden 
 plates about as big as a large geography book are fastened 
 to the shoes of the horses to keep them from sinking in, 
 while plowing the rows. The horse soon learns to shift 
 his feet sideways, so that he does not step on his woodep 
 shoes. Similar shoes are used on plow mules, on some of 
 our truck farms in the lower part of Florida. 
 
 But it would take a long time to discuss all the food 
 plants grown in our gardens. If you would know more 
 about spinach, cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, and a host 
 of such things, you must ask each plant for its story. We 
 can now take a glance at only the tomato and the melon. 
 The tomato is such an important food product that it is 
 canned in greater quantities than any other vegetable. 
 It is now grown in almost every garden, but civilized man 
 knew nothing about it until the New World was dis- 
 covered ; and long after that it was cultivated only for the 
 beauty of its rich green foliage and its fruit, which was 
 thought to be poisonous. It was called the love apple. 
 
 The muskmelon came from the warmer regions of Asia, 
 and it is now grown in all parts of the world where it is 
 not too cold. The cantaloupe, one of the smallest varieties 
 of this vegetable, is especially delicious. The water- 
 melon is a native of tropical Africa, but it is now eaten
 
 21-1 
 
 KUODS: OR HDW IHE VVORl.l) IS FED 
 
 Packing cantaloupes. 
 
 almost everywhere. We have two hundred thousand acres 
 devoted to it in the United States, and in the early summer 
 it is shipped from our Southern States to all parts of the 
 north. 
 
 27. IN THE GARDENS OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 LEAVING the United States, we shall now take a flying 
 trip to learn something about the vegetables of other 
 parts of the world. Europe has extensive gardens. Its 
 chief cities are surrounded by them, and the best soil of the 
 thickly populated regions is used for growing vegetables. 
 In the winter many varieties of garden stuff are produced
 
 IN THE GARDENS OF OTHER LANDS 21 5 
 
 in glass houses and hotbeds ; and the warm countries of 
 the south supply the people farther north with their winter 
 food of this kind. Fast trains are always shooting from 
 one end of Europe to the other, carrying vegetables and 
 fruits; and many vegetables raised under the hot winter 
 sun of Algeria are sent on steamers across the Mediter- 
 ranean to France, and thence by rail to Paris and other 
 cities. On the southern side of the English Channel are 
 large gardens and truck farms whose market is London ; 
 so that commerce and transportation have a great business 
 in bringing the vegetables from the places where they are 
 raised to the people who, for reasons of climate, soil, or 
 business, cannot produce them themselves. 
 
 This is so not only in Europe and in our own country, but 
 in all parts of the world. Steamers and railroad trains are 
 always moving up and down the earth, transporting food 
 products that can be grown to better advantage in one 
 section than in another. China sends vegetables and fruits 
 to Japan, and Japan sends foods back in return. I once 
 traveled from Swatow, in southern China, to Bangkok, via 
 Hong Kong, on a steamer loaded with cabbages and pota- 
 toes for the Siamese ; and, in going down the east coast of 
 Australia, our vessel took on tropical fruits and early vege- 
 tables at the northern Queensland ports, which are nearer 
 the Equator, to sell in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, 
 the colder cities of the south, In sailing up the Parana 
 River from Buenos Ayres northward to Asuncion in Para- 
 guay, we carried vegetables ; and returning, our ship was 
 filled with oranges and tropical fruits. One who goes in 
 the early spring from Havana, or other parts of the West 
 Indies, to New York, may see ripe tomatoes, early potatoes,
 
 2i6 FOODS: OR now hik world is ted 
 
 eggplants, and other fresh vegetables placed upon board 
 for our markets. 
 
 Down the west coast of South America extends a narrow 
 strip of desert, about two thousand miles long. It has rich 
 mines here and there ; and near the coast of northern 
 Chile are nitrate fields which supply fertilizing salts, so 
 good for raising vegetables that the gardeners of our 
 country and Europe pay high prices for them. For that 
 reason, they are exported by the ship load. A great indus- 
 try has been established in digging the nitrate rock from 
 the desert, and cities and towns have grown up there. 
 Nevertheless, the climate is such that no vegetables* or fruits 
 can be raised there. No grass and green trees are to be 
 found anywhere, and the people must depend entirely for 
 their garden stuff, fruits, and other food, upon the lands 
 which lie far to the north or south of them. So, although 
 the nitrate region yields the very best of stuff to raise vege- 
 tables, it is entirely dependent on other lands for its vege- 
 tables. Commerce, however, enables it to sell its nitrate 
 rock to the market gardeners across the oceans for enough 
 to supply it with all the food it needs, and a large sum in 
 addition. 
 
 The miners of the desert likewise exchange their gold, 
 copper, and silver for food, in another way , and so do the 
 workers in factories, in cities, or in the bleak and out-of- 
 the-way places of the earth. Indeed, every populated part 
 of the globe has, or is able to make, some things much 
 desired by man, that other lands have not; and hence, the 
 whole world is joined together by human wants and the 
 money paid to supply them. 
 
 There are, however, some foods which grow in certain
 
 IN THE GARDENS OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 217 
 
 parts of the earth which are almost unknown and unused 
 in other parts. We have seen how Indian corn, potatoes, 
 and tomatoes were strangers to our race until Columbus 
 discovered the New World. Millions of people are to-day 
 feeding upon things that seldom come upon our tables and 
 of which we know little. One of these foods is manioc, 
 the roots of which, in South 
 America, the West -Indies, and in 
 parts of Asia and Africa, largely 
 take the place of both potatoes 
 and wheat. The South Americans 
 eat them roasted, boiled, and baked, 
 as we eat potatoes, and also grind 
 them into flour, from which bread 
 and cakes are made. In the Congo 
 Valley the manioc root is mashed 
 to a pulp, and after being washed 
 is allowed to ferment. It is then 
 mixed into a stiff dough and cooked 
 up like dumplings, to be eaten at 
 home or sold in the market. We 
 use manioc ourselves in the shape 
 of arrowroot and tapioca, and we 
 grow it to some extent in Florida and on a narrow strip 
 of land along the Gulf of Mexico, from that state to Texas. 
 Manioc, or cassava, belongs to the same .family as the 
 milkweed. It is not raised from the seed, but from the 
 canes or stalks of the previous season, which are kept and 
 planted in much the same way that sugar cane is. Both 
 root and cane sprout out from the joints, the cane growing 
 to a height of four or five feet, and the roots extending 
 
 ifiiM' 
 
 
 S^ 
 
 ki^MH^i8»« ^^Kvl 
 
 Ell 
 
 IP^ 
 
 ^qI^Hk^ \ 
 
 
 E 
 
 A load of manioc.
 
 2l8 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 out on all sides in a cluster which sometimes weighs many 
 pounds. A single root is often as big around as one's 
 wrist and as long as one's arm. The roots are the val- 
 uable parts of the plant. They are full of starch and 
 other food matter, and in some varieties they contain also 
 
 In a tapioca factory at Singapore. 
 
 a bitter acid, which is poisonous. This is removed by 
 washing or cooking, after which they form an excellent 
 food. 
 
 In making tapioca the bitter roots are washed and then 
 cut and ground up and mashed to a pulp. They are next 
 strained in such a way that all the starchy particles are 
 taken out of the fibers. The starch is then allowed to 
 settle and harden, when it is broken fine and packed for
 
 IN THE GARDENS OF OTHER LANDS 
 
 219 
 
 shipment abroad. There are tapioca factories in the West 
 Indies, at Singapore, and in other parts of Malaysia, and 
 also at different places in South America. We use tapioca 
 in puddings and soups. It may be found for sale in 
 almost any grocery store. In some parts of the world 
 manioc roots are fed to cattle and hogs. 
 
 Our cousins of the Hawaiian Islands have a vegetable 
 which furnishes such a large part of their food that they 
 could not afford to lose 
 it. This is the taro 
 plant, which grows al- 
 most everywhere in the 
 warm islands of the 
 South Seas. It has no 
 stem ; but its heart- 
 shaped leaves are so 
 large that one would 
 almost do for an um- 
 brella. The leaves and 
 stalks are sometimes 
 eaten like spinach and '^^''° P'^"^- 
 
 asparagus ; but the chief food value lies in the long tuber- 
 ous root, which is full of starchy material. 
 
 Taro is grown in gardens, or in patches out in the fields, 
 by planting cuttings from the tops of the roots. When 
 ripe, the roots are dug up, washed, and then roasted or 
 baked. They are next put into wooden trays and pounded 
 up with water into a thick dough, which is allowed to fer- 
 ment. This dough is called poi, and it may be eaten as it 
 is, or cooked again in a variety of ways. In the Himalaya 
 Mountains and also in Japan and Porto Rico, somewhat
 
 220 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 similar roots are used in the same way that we use pota- 
 toes. 
 
 The bamboo, from one variety of which we make fish- 
 ing poles, takes the place of asparagus in tropical coun- 
 tries. It grows in clumps of tall cane, which are often 
 large around at the base and as high as a three, four, or 
 five-story house. This plant sends 
 out shoots, so tender that they can 
 be eaten boiled or stewed, or can be 
 pickled with vinegar and other sauces. 
 Bamboo shoots are esteemed deli- 
 cious by the Japanese, Chinese, and 
 also by our cousins of the PhiHppine 
 Islands. The Chinese consider one 
 species of this plant an emblem of a 
 child's obedience to its parents, which 
 they regard as the greatest of all 
 virtues. They have a legend about 
 a Chinese boy who so loved his 
 mother that, during one winter, when 
 she was sick and longed for a soup 
 made of bamboo shoots, he went out 
 to the garden and watered the bamboo 
 plants with his tears. As the story 
 goes, his tears were so hot with his 
 affection, and so copious, that they softened the frozen 
 soil and caused the tender shoots to burst forth. I will 
 not vouch for the truth of this story, but it may be found 
 in Chinese books ; and it is said that the Japanese have 
 named a bamboo after the Chinese boy who so loved his 
 sick mother. 
 
 Bamboo grove.
 
 ODD FOODS FROM TREES AND VINES 
 
 221 
 
 28. ODD FOODS FROM TREES AND 
 VINES 
 
 THERE are many other foods from trees and vines. 
 The crowns of many palm trees from which the long 
 leaves sprout out are cooked as we cook cabbage, and 
 eaten ; and there are several palms the sap of which is 
 used to make wine and 
 sugar. The sap of the 
 nipa palm of our Philip- 
 pine Islands is made into 
 palm wine and palm beer ; 
 and there are palms 
 known as wine palms 
 and cabbage palms. The 
 carnauba palm of Brazil 
 has not only an edible 
 crown, but its leaves are 
 coated with a vegetable 
 wax from which candles 
 are made ; and the nuts 
 of the betel palm are chewed like tobacco in the Philippine 
 Islands and the neighboring countries. The doum palm 
 of Upper Egypt is often called the gingerbread tree, be- 
 cause its fruit is brown and mealy, tasting somewhat like 
 gingerbread ; and the sago palm has a pith which is made 
 into meal or flour and sent all over the world, to be used 
 for making starch and confectionery, and in puddings and 
 the thickening of soups. We can find some of this pith in 
 almost any of our grocery stores. 
 
 The gingerbread tree.
 
 222 
 
 FOODS : OR now THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The sago palm is the most important of all the food 
 palms, with the exception of the cocoanut palm. It is 
 grown for commercial purposes in southeastern Asia, espe- 
 cially in Singapore, Sumatra, and the neighboring islands. 
 It is not as tall as many other palms ; but it is so thick 
 that a full-grown man could hardly reach around it. 
 
 The trunk of this tree consists of a hard wall, inside of 
 which is a spongy jiith, so full of starch and other nutri- 
 
 Making sago. 
 
 tious matter that it gives a great quantity of excellent food. 
 It is said that three large sago palms will yield more 
 food than one acre of wheat, and several times as much as 
 an acre of potatoes. 
 
 There is just one time in the life of this palm when it is 
 fit for eating. This is when it is about seven years old, 
 just before it begins to bear fruit. After that, the pith
 
 ODD FOODS FROM TREES AND VIWES 223 
 
 gradually disappears, and when the tree is full-grown the 
 trunk becomes a hollow shell. 
 
 In making sago the palms are cut down near the roots, 
 and the trunks are divided into logs six or seven feet long. 
 These are split, and the pith is taken out and ground to a 
 powder somewhat like sawdust. The dust is next mixed 
 with water and then run through a series of sieves, to get 
 out the coarse fiber. During this process the starchy and 
 food materials go into the water, which is drawn off into 
 other vessels. As it stands, the sago falls to the bottom 
 in a flour or meal and later is dried and roasted in such 
 a way that it forms the pearl sago of commerce. Sago 
 meal is eaten by the natives as a mush, and is also baked 
 in small biscuits, in which shape it will keep a long time. 
 The island of Singapore is one of the chief places where 
 pearl sago is made. 
 
 Have you ever thought how the peanut gets its name ? 
 It is really a ground pea with the taste of a nut. It has 
 a pod somewhat like a pea, but the pods or shells grow on 
 the stem of the plant under the ground. It seems sti^ange 
 to speak of the peanut as a vegetable; but if we should 
 go to the southern part of Virginia, we might see great 
 fields of them being cultivated by very similar methods to 
 those used in cultivating potatoes or corn. Peanuts are 
 raised there for export, and millions of bushels are shipped 
 away every year. 
 
 The peanut grows in many tropical and subtropical 
 countries. The plant is thought to be a native of Brazil, 
 but is now grown in all the warm regions of the globe. 
 Great quantities of peanuts are raised in Africa, Europe, 
 and in many parts of our southern states. We use pea-
 
 224 KOODS: OK HOW rilE WORLD IS FED 
 
 nuts chiefly for eating at odd times, rather than as a staple 
 article of diet. They are on sale in our stores, and men 
 and boys peddle them about at fairs, shows, and at the 
 fruit stands in our various cities. We eat them in candies 
 and in peanut butter ; and we also feed them to hogs and to 
 cattle. In Europe peanuts are imported from Africa and 
 
 jK^dk' 
 
 „ ^ 
 
 
 iM. A 
 
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 ^^^^^^I^9h 
 
 Peanut pickers in North Carolina. 
 
 elsewhere for making an oil, much like salad oil ; and 
 amongst some African tribes they are an important food. 
 In planting the nuts are first shelled and then dropped 
 in hills or drilled in rows. They soon sprout and grow 
 vines which cover the ground and look somewhat like 
 clover. They are carefully plowed and hoed to keep 
 down the weeds. When the vines are about eight inches 
 long, they begin to blossom and are soon covered with
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF OUR FRUIT INDUSTRY 225 
 
 small yellow flowers. As each flower fades away, a sharp 
 pointed stem shoots out, turns downward, and buries itself 
 in the ground. On the end of the stem a pod forms, con- 
 taining the peanuts, which continue to grow until they are 
 ripe. 
 
 The planting is done in the spring, and the nuts are 
 ready to harvest in the fall. The vines, with the peanuts 
 attached to their underground stems, are dug up and put 
 in little stacks about poles to dry. They remain in the 
 stacks several weeks, after which the nuts are picked off 
 and sacked up for the markets. A thrifty peanut vine 
 should yield about one hundred nuts, and an acre forty 
 bushels. 
 
 After the peanuts are picked from the vines, they are 
 still covered with dirt and must be cleaned before they 
 can be sold. The cleaning is done in fanning mills, much 
 like those used by farmers for cleaning grain. After this 
 process the nuts are sorted by women and girls, who pick 
 out the bad ones, as the peanuts are carried by them on a 
 moving belt a yard wide. 
 
 29. GENERAL VIEW OF OUR FRUIT 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 NOT many years ago fruit was much less important as 
 an article of commerce than it is now. Only a few 
 fresh fruits, such as apples, lemons, and oranges, could then 
 be kept for a long time or be sent to any great distance 
 from the places where they were grown ; and only a few dried 
 fruits, such as dates, raisins, and prunes, could be exported. 
 
 FOODS — 15
 
 226 FUODS : OR HUW llll-: WUKLD IS FED 
 
 Modern invention has since supplied quick transportation 
 on land and sea and also cold storage arrangements, by 
 which fruits can be preserved fresh during their transit 
 from one part of the world to another. America, Aus- 
 tralia, and South Africa now ship apples, pears, and plums 
 to Europe ; and Europe sends back dried figs, raisins, and 
 seedless grapes in return. California exports oranges, 
 lemons, peaches, and pears to New York, Chicago, and 
 other cities ; and Washington and Oregon give our Eastern 
 States some of their most delicious apples. Florida sends 
 subtropical fruits to the north, and Georgia gives us 
 peaches long before they are ripe in the Northern States. 
 
 Later in the year, after the fruit season in some localities 
 is over, the southern people import fruit which has ripened 
 more slowly in the cold north lands. Indeed, commerce 
 now supplies us with fresh apples, lemons, bananas, and 
 oranges throughout the year; and pears, strawberries, 
 grapes, and peaches, which a half century or more ago 
 could be had for but a few weeks, are now brought from 
 so many different climates that they are in our markets 
 for many months. 
 
 Inventions for preserving fruits have also been made. 
 They are so dried and canned that they can be kept 
 a long time and shipped all over the world. Fruits, fresh 
 and preserved, now form a large part of the diet of civil- 
 ized man. 
 
 When our continent was discovered, the Indians had 
 only a few species of wild grapes, plums, and berries, and 
 these were worth but little. Now we have almost every 
 fruit of the north temperate zone, many of the south tem- 
 perate, and even some of the tropical zone. Orange trees
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF OUR FRUIT INDUSTRY 22/ 
 
 were planted by the Spaniards at St. Augustine, Florida, 
 more than half a century before the Pilgrims landed on 
 Plymouth Rock. Grapes were growing at Jamestown in 
 1619, and pears were planted in New York City eleven 
 years later. We know that we had apple orchards about 
 the same time ; and, about a hundred years later, one of 
 the villages near Boston reported the manufacture of 
 ten thousand barrels of cider. 
 
 Fruits of many kinds were introduced with the settling 
 of our country, and all the world has been called upon for 
 our fruit trees and plants. Europe gave us apples, cher- 
 ries, and pears ; Asia peaches and plums, as well as 
 oranges and figs ; Africa has supplied the date which we 
 are now raising on some of the semi-arid lands of the 
 west; and from South America came the navel orange, so 
 important to commerce. 
 
 We are now raising more kinds of fruit than any other 
 nation, and we lead the world in the value of our fruit 
 product and in the best methods of fruit preservation 
 and marketing. When our last census was taken, our fruit 
 crop amounted to many billion pounds, and its value was 
 more than two hundred million dollars, an amount much 
 greater than all the gold and silver mined in our country 
 during that year. 
 
 Our fruit crop is so large that the labor of many thou- 
 sands is required to handle it ; and it is so important in some 
 localities, where the soil and climate are exactly suited to 
 raising certain kinds of fruits, that the people do little else 
 but attend to it. The county of Los Angeles in Cali- 
 fornia, for instance, sometimes raises six million dollars' 
 worth of fruit in one year; and Fresno County, in the same
 
 228 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 State, produces so many grapes that one year's crop will 
 sometimes sell for about three million dollars. There are 
 regions in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Mis- 
 souri, Oregon, and Washington where apples grow so well 
 that the people have large orchards of them ; and Cali- 
 fornia and Florida have an enormous industry in growing 
 oranges for shipment to all parts of our country. 
 
 If we could look over the United States and examine 
 each locality carefully, we should find that the larger share 
 
 A California fruit ranch. 
 
 of the money from our fruit crop comes from the North 
 Atlantic and the North Central States ; although the West- 
 ern States annually produce only a few million.dollars' worth 
 of fruit less than either of these divisions. Our seven 
 chief fruit states are California, New York, Pennsylvania, 
 Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, and Florida. Many other states 
 are also important. Cahfornia produces more than any 
 other state, its product being almost twice as valuable 
 as that of New York, which ranks next, and about three 
 times as valuable as that of Michigan, the third of our
 
 APPLES 229 
 
 fruit states in rank. In one year California has realized 
 more than eighteen million dollars from its fruit orchards, 
 as well as eleven millions from grapes, two millions from 
 small fruits, and more than seven millions from oranges 
 and other subtropical fruits. In the same year New York 
 realized nearly eighteen million dollars from its orchards, 
 about four millions from grapes, and nearly three millions 
 from small fruits. When we remember how thickly New 
 York is populated, how many cities it has, and the great 
 size of New York City, we can see why so much money 
 is realized from small fruits. 
 
 30. APPLES 
 
 FRUIT trees of one kind or another are to be found in 
 almost every part of the United States, and in some 
 places in such large numbers that the business of caring 
 for them and of marketing the crop is the principal industry. 
 Our apples, quinces, pears, peaches, and plums annually 
 sell for enough to give every man, woman, and child in 
 our whole country one dollar and leave some money over. 
 They bring in about twice as much as the grapes and small 
 fruits, and almost ten times as much as our oranges, lemons, 
 and other productions of a subtropical nature. 
 
 Of these products the apple is the most important. It 
 will keep longer than any of the others, and people like it 
 the year round. It is one of the oldest fruits known. 
 Many suppose that the apple was the forbidden fruit 
 of the Garden of Eden and that our first parents were cast 
 out of Paradise for eatinc: it. The ancient Greeks consid-
 
 230 K(H)1>S: (iR 1I(»\V rHK WOKIJ) IS KKD 
 
 ered it the most beautiful of all fruits ; and it is mentioned 
 frequently in their legends of gods and heroes. 
 
 We remember the story of the golden apple which 
 brought about the ten years' siege of Troy and its final 
 destruction by the Greeks. The Goddess of Discord threw 
 the apple which bore the words, " For the Fairest," into 
 a party of gods and goddesses. When it fell, Juno, the 
 wife of Jupiter and queen of all the gods ; Minerva, the 
 Goddess of Wisdom ; and Venus, the Goddess of Love and 
 Beauty, each claimed that she was the fairest and ought to 
 have it. Jupiter was called in to settle the dispute, and he 
 gave the decision over to Paris, a shepherd on Mount Ida. 
 Each goddess tried to influence Paris by bribes. Juno 
 dffered him power and riches, Minerva wisdom, and Venus, 
 the most beautiful woman of all the world for his wife. 
 He gave the apple to Venus, and in return received 
 Helena, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, and carried 
 her to Troy. To get back his wife, Menelaus then raised 
 an army, and with his brother kings of Greece began the 
 Trojan War, which is celebrated in the poems of Homer 
 and Virgil. 
 
 And then there is the story of the three golden apples 
 of the Garden of Hesperides, which were defended by a 
 horrid sleepless dragon with one hundred heads, and of 
 how Hercules succeeded in getting them ; and also that of 
 the fair maiden Atalanta, who could run faster than any one 
 else in the world. Atalanta was so beautiful and so charm- 
 ing that many a young man wanted her for his wife, but she 
 said she would marry only him who could distance her on 
 the race track ; and as she did not want to be troubled with 
 too many suitors, she also said that every one who ran
 
 APPLES 231 
 
 with her and failed should suffer death. At last the cun- 
 ning Hippomenes came to try his fate. He brought three 
 golden apples with him, and as he ran he dropped one from 
 time to time. Atalanta could not resist stopping to pick 
 up the apples, and Hippomenes came out victorious. 
 
 Apples are now grown in most countries of Europe ; and 
 they thrive so well in Tasmania and in New Zealand that 
 they are exported from these countries to San Francisco and 
 London. They are grown more generally, however, in 
 North America than in any other continent, and more gen- 
 erally in the United States than anywhere else. The apple 
 was brought here from Europe by our forefathers, who 
 planted orchards almost everywhere they stopped, as they 
 pushed their way westward ; so that apples are now raised 
 on a commercial scale from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, 
 and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They grow especially 
 well in New England, in some parts of Virginia, North 
 Carolina, Missouri, and Arkan.sas, and in certain valleys of 
 Washington and Oregon. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
 Indiana, Michigan, Kansas, and Kentucky are also famous 
 apple states, each having millions of apple trees. Albe- 
 marle County, Virginia, the Ozark Mountain region of 
 Missouri, the Wenatchee Valley in Washington, and the 
 Hood River Valley in Oregon are celebrated for their large, 
 delicious, and highly colored apples, and the same is true 
 of eastern Canada and of some of the valleys of British 
 Columbia. 
 
 I wonder if any of us has ever heard of Johnny Apple- 
 seed } He was an odd character who had much to do with 
 starting the first orchards of Pennsylvania and Ohio, which 
 are now two of our chief apple-raising states. Johnny
 
 232 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Applesecd's real name was Jonathan Chapman. He was 
 born in Boston in 1775, and, when a young man, he went to 
 live in western Pennsylvania, which was then almost a 
 wilderness. Johnny somehow got the idea that it was his 
 mission to give apples to the people, and he began to plant 
 apple seeds wherever he could. In 1801 he drove westward 
 into Ohio, carrying a wagon load of apple seeds which he 
 had gathered from the Pennsylvania cider presses. He 
 picked out fertile spots along the streams and planted or- 
 chards. Then he went back and got more seeds and 
 planted them. He often carried a bag of seeds on his back, 
 as he marched through the woods from one settler's cabin 
 to another, and gave some to each settler with whom he 
 stopped. Many of the little trees which grew in his wild 
 nurseries he afterward dug up and sold to those who could 
 afford to pay for them ; but the poor could have them for 
 nothing, or in exchange for old clothing, meal, or anything 
 he could use. 
 
 The wants of Johnny Appleseed were few, and he cared 
 little about money. He lived simply, camping out in the 
 woods, or, if sleeping in a house, occupying the floor. His 
 dress was the cast-off clothing he had taken in exchange 
 for apple trees. In his latter years he thought even 
 this second-hand raiment too luxurious and chose, as his 
 principal garment, an old coffee sack in the bottom and 
 sides of which he cut holes for his head and arms. 
 
 This strange man was considered crazy by many of the 
 settlers, and, indeed, some of his actions lead us to think 
 that he may have been so His work in planting trees, 
 however, was of such value to the people of Ohio that they 
 have since erected monuments to him.
 
 APPLES 
 
 233 
 
 Nearly all our orchard trees are now grown in nurseries, 
 which are to be found in every fruit-raising section. The 
 nurserymen make a business of raising young trees and 
 plants for sale to those who set them out in orchards or 
 gardens. In the nurseries the seeds of the most hardy of 
 each kind of tree are planted in rows. They sprout quickly, 
 and soon make their way through the ground. After a 
 short time they are budded, in order to get the varieties of 
 fruits most desired. 
 
 This budding is an interesting process. It is based upon 
 the fact that the bud of any apple or other fruit tree, if cut 
 off with a part of the bark to which it is joined and slipped 
 under the bark of another variety of the same tree, will 
 grow into a branch which will produce fruit of the same 
 kind of tree as that from which the bud came. For 
 instance, if the bud of a Northern Spy be thus set into a 
 Baldwin tree, the branch from that bud will grow Northern 
 Spy apples, and not Baldwins. So the nurserymen set into 
 each little tree, near the ground, one choice bud; and, 
 when that bud sprouts, they cut off all the other branches 
 and make the tree grow from that bud only, knowing that 
 its fruit will be that of the tree from which the bud comes. 
 In this way they can sell trees in large numbers which are 
 sure to produce the same kind of fruit. Millions of trees 
 are thus budded every year, and it is from them that most 
 of our choice fruit comes. 
 
 Fruit trees arc bought for planting when they are one, 
 two, three, or more years old. The nurserymen put them 
 up in bundles, wrapping the roots with wet moss, if they are 
 to take a long railroad journey, or to wait some time before 
 being planted. In the meantime, the orchard men have
 
 234 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 plowed their fields and fitted the ground for the trees. 
 They set them out in rows, fifteen, twenty, and sometimes 
 more feet apart, according to the variety, and carefully 
 cultivate them from year to year. 
 
 Apple orchard. 
 
 In planting apple trees some orchardists make the dis- 
 tance between the trees thirty-two feet, and some even 
 forty feet, in order that the trees may not interfere with 
 one another when full-grown. The apple tree is compara- 
 tively long lived. It begins to produce fruit at from three 
 to ten years of age, according to its variety ; and it will 
 continue to yield if properly cared for thirty or more 
 years. 
 
 In our better orchards the trees are carefully watched. 
 They are trimmed every season and are sprayed several 
 times a year with some poisonous liquid which kills the
 
 APPLES 235 
 
 insects upon them and keeps them free from disease. 
 Each tree is also examined to see that no worms are feed- 
 ing upon its roots, and the small and imperfect apples are 
 taken off in order to let the strength of thetree go into the 
 best fruit. 
 
 The apples are picked by hand in order that they may 
 not be bruised. They are next sorted into sizes and then 
 
 Picking apples. 
 
 packed up in boxes or barrels for the markets. In harvest- 
 ing some of the choice varieties, each apple is wrapped in 
 tissue paper before being placed in the boxes ; and every 
 box is marked with the number of apples it contains, a box 
 holding from seventy to one hundred and twenty-six, ac- 
 cording to size. Apples which have fallen on the ground
 
 236 
 
 FOUUS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 are bruised and cannot be used for shipping. These are 
 prcsei'ved or made into cider. 
 
 The most of our apples are consumed at home, although 
 many are sent "in cold storage steamers to England and 
 other parts of Europe, to South America, and the West 
 
 Packing the apple crop. 
 
 Indies, and even across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines, 
 Hawaii, China, and Japan. We are rapidly increasing the 
 extent of our apple orchards and also the number of locali- 
 ties where apples are commercially grown. Of all the 
 orchards of the United States more than one half are de- 
 voted to apples and we now have more than two hundred 
 million trees. The states having the greatest number of 
 apple trees in 1910 were Missouri, New York, Illinois, Ohio, 
 Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Virginia, Michigan, and Kansas.
 
 PEACHES 237 
 
 31. PEACHES 
 
 CHINA is the home of the peach. It came by way 
 of Persia to Europe, and thence to the United 
 States. 
 
 The Chinese peaches, however, are by no means so fine 
 to-day as are the American peaches, nor are they grown in 
 such quantities. Persian peaches are now unknown to 
 commerce, and the peach crop of Europe cannot compare 
 in value and in character with ours. The climate of 
 northern Europe is such that fine peaches cannot well be 
 grown there out of doors. Peach orchards are few, and 
 the trees must either be trained against garden walls, fac- 
 ing the sun, or be cultivated in hothouses under glass. 
 
 Even in our own country, until a generation or so ago, 
 the peach crop was of no great importance. Until that 
 time all our peaches came from New Jersey, Maryland, 
 and the eastern shores of Lake Michigan ; and the peach- 
 eating season lasted only from the middle of August until 
 the latter part of September. Now we have three hundred 
 different varieties of peaches, and they are grown all over 
 the United States, excepting in Maine, Vermont, and the 
 cold regions of the northwest beyond the Great Lakes. We 
 have ripe peaches in our markets from May until Novem- 
 ber. It has been found that peaches will grow almost 
 everywhere, and that the Southern States will produce 
 them before they are ripe farther north. There are sec- 
 tions of the north that will grow late fruit ; and all together 
 the several crops ripen at such widely different times that, 
 by means of refrigerator or iced cars, we can have peaches
 
 238 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 all over the country for four or five times as long a season 
 as in the past. 
 
 Georgia, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, and Cali- 
 fornia are each producing more peaches than were raised 
 half a century ago in our so-called peach belt ; and Con- 
 necticut, which was then considered too cold for peaches, 
 now yields more than Delaware. When our census offi- 
 cials made their last count of Uncle Sam's orchards, he had 
 all together more than one hundred million peach trees, 
 and peach growing had become a great industry, employ- 
 ing many thousand people and vast sums of money. 
 
 The discovery that -peaches could be cultivated profit- 
 ably outside the peach belt above mentioned was largely 
 due to a New England schoolboy whose father had died 
 when he was quite small and who had to work out by the 
 month, during vacations, to make money to help support 
 his mother and to keep down the interest on the mortgage 
 upon their home. One day when the boy was about twelve 
 years old he was cutting corn for a farmer, on a high hill 
 overlooking the beautiful Connecticut Valley, when, right 
 in the midst of the corn, he found a seedling tree loaded 
 down with ripe rosy peaches. He was tired from handling 
 the heavy stalks, and he sat down to rest under the tree, 
 pulling off some of the fruit and eating it. As he munched 
 the delicious peaches, he thought how fine it would be if 
 he could have an orchard full of such trees and could 
 make enough from it not only to pay off the mortgage, but 
 to give him all the money he needed. He then and there 
 resolved to save every cent he could and to buy trees and 
 plant them. 
 
 The next year he left school and started his peach or-
 
 PEACHES 239 
 
 chard on the home farm, setting out a few trees at first and 
 planting more and more, as he was able to save the money 
 to buy them. He raised strawberries and other small fruits 
 between the rows of peach trees, to help pay his expenses, 
 until the trees should be three or four years old, and should 
 begin to bear fruit. All this time he was trying to learn 
 where the trees would grow best, produce the most fruit, 
 and be safest from the frosts which often kill the fruit buds. 
 He observed that the best trees in Connecticut were on the 
 sides and tops of the hills ; and he tramped around at day- 
 light on the winter mornings, with a thermometer, to learn 
 just which places were the coldest. He found that the tem- 
 perature would vary from fifteen to twenty degrees below 
 zero on the levels and in the valleys ; while, on the hillsides, 
 not more than fifty feet higher, it would be only eight or ten 
 degrees below zero ; and on the tops of the hills, three hun- 
 dred feet above the valleys and perhaps a mile away, only 
 zero. This showed him that the hills were the best places 
 to plant his trees, and it was upon them that he set out his 
 orchards. 
 
 All this while the farmers were laughing at him and 
 telling him he was wasting his time trying to grow peaches 
 in Connecticut. The men who had a two thousand dollar 
 mortgage on his home did not approve of his orchards, and 
 they finally told him they could wait for their money only 
 three months longer. In the meanwhile his peach trees 
 had been growing in number and in size. He had now a 
 large orchard in which the fruit was almost ripe ; and be- 
 fore the three months were up, he marketed his crop and 
 received more than ten thousand dollars for it. He paid 
 off the mortgage with part of the money and put the rest
 
 240 RHJDS : UK llOW THE WUKLD IS 1< liD 
 
 of it into more peach trees ; and he continued to add to 
 the extent of his orchards until he finally became one of 
 the chief fruit growers of our country and much richer 
 then he had ever hoped to be. 
 
 Others in Connecticut who had observed his success then 
 began to set out orchards, and that state is now one of 
 the chief peach-raising regions of our country. This same 
 man afterward went to Georgia and planted peaches 
 there. He had at one time three hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand trees in his Georgia orchards; and early peaches 
 raised by him were shipped to all the large cities of the 
 north. Since then Georgia has become one of our best 
 fruit states, and its peach trees are now numbered by 
 millions. 
 
 If we could visit a big Georgia orchard, we should find 
 that peaches are by no means easy to grow. The trees 
 must be started in nurseries, by planting the peach stones 
 and budding the sprouts, as already described. When 
 they are a year or two old, they are set out, each little tree 
 being first so trimmed that it looks more like a switch than 
 anything else. The trees are planted in rows, fifteen or 
 twenty feet apart. They are carefully cultivated, being 
 trimmed year after year. They are fed with fertihzers, and 
 each tree is examined once or twice every season to see 
 whether a little worm, known as the borer, is not eating 
 away at its roots. Sometimes the trees are washed, to kill 
 the insects upon them, and sometimes they are sprayed, 
 in order to kill horrid little animals, called scales, which, 
 if not destroyed, multiply so rapidly that they eventually 
 ruin the tree, eating away at its bark and sucking the 
 sap.
 
 PEACHES 
 
 241 
 
 As the peaches ripen, the imperfect ones are picked off, 
 and the others are thinned, in order that there may be only 
 enough peaches on each tree to produce the largest and 
 finest fruit. In picking peaches great care is taken that 
 they be not bruised. Each picker has a small canvas bag 
 marked with his name and tickets bearing his number. 
 
 Peach pickers. 
 
 He picks the fruit into the bag and then empties it into 
 a basket, putting first his ticket on the bottom. When 
 the basket is full it is taken to the packing house ; and the 
 ticket shows who did the picking. If any bad or bruised 
 peaches are found, an inspector on horseback gallops off 
 and warns the man he is not doing good work. 
 
 The peach packing houses are immense sheds filled with 
 
 FOODS — 16
 
 242 
 
 KOOUS: OR HOW 11 IK WORLD IS FED 
 
 long tables, behind which men and women stand to sort 
 the peaches as they come in. Other hands pack them as 
 they are sorted, and others nail up the crates and put them 
 on the refrigerator cars which take them to the markets 
 all over the country. The refrigerator cars are kept 
 cool by ice and the crates and baskets of peaches are so 
 placed that there is a circulation of cold air about each one 
 during the entire journey. Peaches that are too ripe for 
 shipping are used for canning and drying. 
 
 In the smaller orchards the peaches are loaded on 
 waa:ons and carried to the railroad stations. Along the 
 
 Shipping peaches from a small orchard. 
 
 shores of Lake Michigan they are taken to Chicago by 
 fast steamers, the greatest diligence being used to get 
 them to the markets in the shortest possible time.
 
 APRICOTS, PEARS, QUINCES, CHERRIES, AND PLUMS 243 
 
 32. APRICOTS, PEARS, QUINCES, CHERRIES, 
 AND PLUMS 
 
 APRICOTS and plums, as well as pears, quinces, and 
 cherries, may be found fresh, dried, or canned, in every 
 American market. The apricot resembles both the peach 
 and the plum. The tree is like 
 the plum tree, but the fruit, when 
 ripe, looks more like the peach. 
 It is as hardy as the peach, but, 
 as it blooms early, it is some- 
 times killed by Jack Frost. 
 
 The apricot is supposed to 
 have originated in China. It 
 was carried to Europe by Alex- 
 ander the Great, and centuries 
 later was brought to America. 
 It grows well in our Pacific Coast 
 States and especially in Cali- 
 fornia, where more than one 
 milHon bushels are produced an- 
 nually. The fruit is excellent 
 for drying and canning, in which 
 form it is shipped all over the 
 world. 
 
 Pears, cherries, and quinces 
 are also largely preserved. The pear is a native of 
 Europe. It was first brought to the United States about 
 1630, when a tree was planted near Governor Endicott's 
 house in Boston. It now ranks fourth among our orchard 
 
 Apricots,
 
 ?44 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 fruits and is grown commercially in all our states from New 
 England to the Great Lakes, and also in Texas, Michigan, 
 California, Washington, and Oregon, the chief pear-grow- 
 ing states being California, New York, Michigan, and 
 
 Sorting cherries for the mari^ets. 
 
 Texas. The pear, like the apple, will keep quite a long 
 time ; and, like the peach, it is delicious when canned. 
 
 The same is true of the quince, which also resembles 
 somewhat both the pear and the apple, but which cannot 
 be eaten until cooked. The quince is the least important 
 of our orchard fruits, and, although it has been cultivated 
 for two thousand years, it has almost no place as an article 
 of commerce. 
 
 Cherries are very generally grown in our country. They
 
 APRICOTS, PEARS, QUINCES, CHERRIES, AND PLUMS 245 
 
 are eaten fresh and are also especially valuable for canning 
 and preserving. They are raised in large quantities in 
 Europe and also in Japan and China. The Japanese have 
 certain varieties of cherries which they cultivate only for 
 their flowers. In cherry blossom season they hold picnics 
 under the trees, and the boys and girls, as well as the 
 older people, write verses about nature and tie them to 
 the cherry tree branches. 
 
 Far more important than any other of our orchard 
 fruits, excepting, the apple and peach, is the plum. It 
 grows well in the United States ; and certain varieties, 
 from which prunes are made, thrive to such an extent in 
 California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, that we pro- 
 duce many million pounds of dried prunes every year and 
 even export them to other countries. 
 
 The plum is a near relative of the peach, but is 
 distinguished from it by the character of its flesh, its 
 smooth skin, and its small, unwrinkled stone. It is a 
 native of many parts of the temperate zone and was 
 found growing in North America when the New World 
 was discovered. It is of many varieties, some of the most 
 peculiar of which are found in Japan and China. At 
 Kowshing, China, for instance, grow deUcious plums, 
 each of which has a dimple in one cheek. Whfle there 
 some years ago, my guide told me the story of how this 
 dimple originated. He said: — 
 
 " Centuries ago we had here in Kowshing a princess 
 noted for her beauty and gentle ways. She was 
 fond of fruit, and one day, while eating some plums, 
 she picked out an especially fine one and pressed her 
 dainty Uttle finger into it. The pressure left a dimple.
 
 246 I'OODS : OR lle)\V 1 HE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Upon tasting the plum, she found it so delicious that 
 she saved the stone and planted it. This in time grew 
 into a tree which bore plums equally sweet; but each 
 of the new plums, strange to say, had a dimple in its 
 side. The plums were so fine that they became famous 
 throughout China, and buds from that tree were carried 
 everywhere." 
 
 There are many widely different varieties of plums. 
 Some are sweet, and some sour, some large, and some 
 small. It is only the large sweet varieties which are used 
 for prunes, and the finest prune plums still come from 
 Europe. France, Germany, Servia, Spain, Austria, and 
 South Africa are all plum-producing regions. France 
 was for a long time the chief plum-growing country of 
 the world. Within the past generation, however, we have 
 begun to produce prunes in our Pacific Coast States, and 
 we now market more than any other one country. There 
 are California valleys which are almost covered with plum 
 orchards ; and delicious plums are commercially grown in 
 Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. 
 
 In making prunes, the fruit is picked by hand and care- 
 fully washed in warm water. All the imperfect plums are 
 taken out and the remainder are sorted according to size. 
 They are next dipped in a mild solution of lye to crack 
 the skin, so that the heat of the sun can penetrate the 
 pulp, and they are then spread out upon long wicker trays 
 or bo.xes about a yard wide and set in the sun for a week 
 or longer to cure. Several times a day men go about and 
 stir them, rolling them over and over, so that they may be 
 evenly cured on all sides. When thoroughly dried, they 
 are taken back to the packing houses and stored in bins,
 
 APRICOTS, PEARS, QUINCES, CHERRIES, AND PLUMS 247 
 
 until the rush of the picking and curing season is over. 
 After this they are again sorted and graded and packed 
 up in boxes, by machinery and by hand, and shipped to 
 the markets. 
 
 In the more fancy varieties, the boxes have glass lids, 
 and the prunes are fitted in, one by one, so carefully that 
 
 Plums drying for prunes. 
 
 they lie in rows. Many school children are employed in 
 California in picking and curing this fruit. The work can 
 be carried on during vacations, and girls and boys and 
 even students from high schools and universities go out 
 from the cities to aid in the harvest. In some orchards 
 the prunes are dried over a fire, and in certain parts of 
 Europe they are partially cooked before they are dried.
 
 248 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 33. GRAPES 
 
 WE want to know something about our grape indus- 
 try. It is more extensive in California than any- 
 where else in the United States. This state has more than 
 one hundred million vines, and it raises enough grapes in 
 one year to give ten pounds to every man and woman and 
 boy and girl in the United States, including the babies. 
 
 The grape is one of the oldest of cultivated plants. 
 The ancients considered it, like the olive, the symbol of 
 civilized life, and the Greeks and Romans paid worship to 
 Bacchus, the God of the Vine. The grape grows wild in 
 the Mediterranean countries of Europe, and also in some 
 parts of Asia. When our forefathers came to America, it 
 was found all along the coasts of our country from Massa- 
 chusetts to Florida, and the Indians ate grapes, fresh and 
 dried. 
 
 The cultivation of grapes dates back to the beginning of 
 history. They were eaten by the early Egyptians and 
 were introduced into England by the Romans. They are 
 now raised in almost every part of Europe ; and in France, 
 Italy, and some other countries they form a principal crop. 
 France produces so much wine every year that she could 
 give every inhabitant of the world a gallon and have some 
 left over. Italy makes about as much wine as France, 
 and Spain about half as much. In our country we raise 
 grapes to eat fresh or as raisins and also for making wine. 
 We do not, however, lead as a wine-growing country ; for 
 we are not, as a nation, wine drinkers, and we think it is 
 much better for us that this is the case.
 
 GRAPES 
 
 249 
 
 To-day grapes are raised commercially in New York, 
 Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, and in all the Southern States 
 from North Carolina to Texas, and also in California, 
 New Mexico, and Arizona. Many of our grapes, such 
 as the Scuppernong and Catawba, are the descendants of 
 those found growing wild when our forefathers came to 
 
 A vineyard in France. 
 
 this country, and others, especially those of California, 
 come from the choicest grapevines of Europe. 
 
 Our first attempt at grape culture was made in Virginia 
 in 16 10 by a Frenchman, who planted a vineyard at 
 Jamestown. About ten years later more Frenchmen came 
 over; and when Thomas Jefferson was President Con- 
 gress gave a grant of land to some immigrants from
 
 250 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Switzerland who wished to try grape growing in southern 
 Indiana on the Ohio River. These enterprises, however, 
 were not successful ; but vineyards set out near Cincin- 
 nati some years later did better ; and now the grape is 
 cultivated in almost all parts of the United States. We 
 have learned what localities are best fitted for grape rais- 
 ing ; and by the use of cold storage and other methods, 
 we are able so to transport and keep grapes that we have 
 them to eat during the greater part of the year. 
 
 In order that the grapevine may be successfully grown, 
 it must have plenty of sun, not too much moisture, and 
 an excellent soil. These conditions are just right in 
 California. The state runs north and south through ten 
 degrees of latitude ; it has mountains, hills, slopes, rivers, 
 and valleys, giving it such a variety of temperature and 
 of soil that it can raise almost any kind of grapes for eat- 
 ing, for raisins, or for wines. 
 
 Grapevines are grown from cuttings. Slips of the ripe 
 wood, cut off in the fall, are buried in the ground until the 
 following spring, when they are planted in nurseries. They 
 soon sprout and a little later they are set out in the vine- 
 yards. The vines are carefully cultivated, being trimmed 
 back from year to year. In the eastern parts of the United 
 States they are frequently grown over arbors or on trellises ; 
 but in California each vine stands alone, out in the field, 
 often without a stake or anything to support it. 
 
 The vines begin to bear at about two years of age, and 
 every year after this they are cut back to the trunk, so 
 that the new branches trail out on all sides on the ground. 
 After a few years' pruning, the trunk grows stout and 
 stubb}-, like the body of a small oak tree ; and it is seldom
 
 GRAPES 
 
 251 
 
 more than two or three feet in height, although it may be 
 eight or nine inches thick. 
 
 But we shall see this better in the vineyards. Let us 
 suppose that we are in Fresno County, California, where 
 so many grapes are raised that if one year's crop could be 
 distributed over the United States, every one of us might 
 have a handful and a quantitv be left over. This is one 
 
 lii Caiuwi ilia, cci^n viiic stai"iQ3 aionc. 
 
 of our chief raisin-making regions, and we shall be able 
 to see the people drying the grapes and packing them for 
 the market. 
 
 The time of our visit is midsummer. How hot it is ! 
 The sun shines down like a ball of fire, and the heat waves 
 are dancing above the green vines. The country is flat, 
 and, by climbing to the top of one of the packing houses,
 
 252 FOODS: OR now rilE WORLD IS FED 
 
 wc can SCO the vines reaching away for miles on each 
 side. The land is almost level. It is cut up by irrigating 
 canals, and white streams are flowing here and there 
 amongst the green leaves. There are two thousand miles 
 of canals in this region, with two or three times as many 
 miles of ditches running out from them to water the grapes. 
 
 We come down from the roof of the packing house and 
 walk through one of the vineyards. The vines are about 
 as high as our waists, and their great branches, loaded with 
 bunches of almost transparent white and green grapes, lie 
 upon the ground, so that one might think they would be 
 baked by the sun. Pick up some of the ripe fruit and 
 taste it. How sweet ! This variety is known as the 
 White Muscat. It is a large grape, with a soft thin skin 
 and a hard plump pulp, so full of sugar that it is especially 
 good for raisins. 
 
 But let us go to the other side of the vineyard and 
 watch the men and boys picking the fruit. Each has a 
 tray about two feet long and three feet wide. He lays 
 the ripe bunches carefully upon this, handling each bunch 
 by its stem in order not to injure the bloom on the grapes 
 nor bruise them, as he transfers them from the vine to the 
 tray. He cuts off the bunches with a sharp curved knife 
 and then snips away any defective berries with a pair of 
 scissors, laying the bunches carefully down. The tray will 
 hold twenty-five pounds of grapes, and these, when dried, 
 will yield just about five pounds of raisins. 
 
 When his tray is full, the man carries it to one side 
 and so places it that the full rays of the sun will shine 
 upon it all day long. It is not disturbed for a week or 
 longer ; and then the half-dried grapes are turned by
 
 GRAPES 253 
 
 placing an empty tray over the full one and inverting the 
 latter. The trays fit so closely that the grapes may be 
 turned in this way without handling. They are allowed to 
 remain in the sun for a few days longer ; then they are 
 taken to the packing house and put into sweat boxes, which 
 
 Picking grapes for raisins in California. 
 
 even the moisture and give the grapes the aroma that the 
 lover of raisins enjoys almost as much as the taste. 
 
 After this sweating process, the grapes are taken out 
 and packed. The bunches are first separated from the loose 
 grapes and then carefully placed in boxes in layers. The 
 bunches that are too small for this purpose are put into a 
 stemming machine, from which they are carried to a series
 
 254 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 of sifters ; and they are finally sold as crown raisins, the 
 loose raisins we use for cooking. 
 
 Leaving this vineyard, we go to others, finding hun- 
 dreds of men, women, and children gathering grapes. In 
 some places the grapes are of a smaller variety, without 
 seeds, known as Sultanas, from which seedless raisins are 
 made; and in others they are Muskats, grown upon vines 
 (Which have been brought to California from Chile, where 
 the climate and soil are very similar to the climate and 
 soil of California. 
 
 Until within comparatively recent years, all the raisins 
 used in the United States were imported from Europe. 
 They came from the warm countries along the Mediterra- 
 nean Sea, and especially from southeastern Spain, a region 
 which is noted for the Malaga grape, and which is to-day 
 one of the raisin-producing parts of the world. If we could 
 go there, we would find the grapes cultivated by very 
 similar methods to those used in California. They are 
 allowed to lie on the ground, and are carefully picked. 
 They are not only dried in the sun, as here, but in some 
 places are also cured by steam, the cut grapes being put 
 into baskets and brought on the backs of donkeys to the 
 drying places. In other Spanish vineyards the grapes are 
 made into raisins by dipping them in boiling lye, which 
 wrinkles the skin and cures the flesh. 
 
 When the Californians first tried to dry raisins they 
 were not successful. They did not know what grapes to 
 use nor just how to cure them ; but they sent men to the 
 countries along the Mediterranean and elsewhere to learn 
 the best methods of raisin making, and to-day our raisins 
 are as delicious as any in the world.
 
 BERRIES 
 
 255 
 
 In traveling over California we visit vineyards where the 
 ripe grapes are gathered and their juice squeezed out to 
 be made into wine. The juice is allowed to ferment and 
 is then carefully stored in cellars for a time to cure, after 
 which it is put into bottles or casks and shipped to the 
 markets. 
 
 o>f^c 
 
 34. BERRIES 
 
 WE have many small fruits which are grown in large 
 quantities, some of which are eaten fresh, and 
 others are dried, canned, or otherwise preserved for the 
 table. 
 
 Of these the chief are strawberries, blackberries, raspber- 
 ries, currants, gooseber- 
 ries, and cranberries, all 
 of which; with the excep- 
 tion of cranberries, are 
 to be found growing in 
 almost every part of the 
 United States. There are 
 so many berries brought 
 to our markets that they 
 annually sell for one tenth 
 as much as our vegetables. 
 Several hundred thousand acres are devoted to raising 
 them, and the largest part of them are grown in thickly 
 populated neighborhoods, in such states as New York, 
 Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts, Illinois, Indiana, New 
 Jersey, and Missouri. 
 
 Strawberries.
 
 256 I'OUDS : (JK IIUVV 1 llli WORLD IS FED 
 
 We have all eaten strawberries. They are the most 
 important of the small fruits, this crop giving employment 
 to more men and bringing in more money than any of the 
 others. They may be grown anywhere in America from 
 Florida to Alaska; and in the highlands of Mexico there 
 are climates where strawberries are ripe all the year 
 round. 
 
 The strawberry grows wild in many parts of the United 
 States. It may be found in fields or in woods and often 
 along the fence corners. It is improved by cultivation, 
 however, and the greater part of our product comes from 
 beds of choice varieties, where the vines are carefully cul- 
 tivated and the berries picked in baskets and packed in 
 crates for shipment to the markets. Strawberries must be 
 eaten a short time after they are picked, but, since re- 
 frigerator cars have been invented, it is possible to send 
 them long distances. We have strawberry beds in our 
 Southern States from which the early ripening berries are 
 shipped in great quantities to the markets. Later in the 
 year, the berries from the colder parts of the country come 
 in, so that our strawberry season now lasts several months. 
 
 Have you ever visited the Blue Ridge Mountains .-' If 
 you will go there at the right time, you may have all the 
 blackberries and raspberries you can eat, for the picking. 
 These fruits grow wild throughout the greater part of the 
 Appalachian Chain and in many other places. They are 
 also cultivated, and it is the cultivated varieties that give us 
 the finest fruit. Both blackberries and raspberries are used 
 largely for canning, and also for making jellies and jams. 
 
 Currants and gooseberries are grown almost altogether 
 for canning. Gooseberries are often eaten in pies and in
 
 BERRIES 
 
 ^57 
 
 tarts; and we remember how proud Oliver Goldsmith's 
 Vicar of Wakefield was of his wife's home-made goose- 
 berry wine. The gooseberry is especially fine in England, 
 where it has been cultivated for hundreds of years. It is 
 raised in the northern parts of our country, and especially 
 in Indiana, which might be called our chief gooseberry 
 state. 
 
 More important still is the currant, which we use in 
 large quantities for jellies. We have eight different states 
 each producing more than a million quarts of currant jelly 
 every year. 
 
 The currant is found throughout our Northern States, in 
 northern Europe, and also in Asia, where the delicious 
 red currant of the Himalaya Mountains thrives as high as 
 two miles or more above the sea. 
 
 In addition to these small fruits, we have some others, 
 such as huckleberries and elderberries, which, although 
 eaten to a considerable extent both fresh and canned, are 
 of little value in commerce. 
 
 We have one berry which is odder, perhaps, than any 
 of the others. It is of about the size of a common cherry, 
 and so tart that if cooked without sugar it sets one's teeth 
 on edge. It always makes its appearance upon our tables 
 at Thanksgiving and Christmas, being used as a sauce 
 with roast turkey or chicken. I refer to the cranberry, of 
 which we produce about a million bushels a year, shipping 
 them to all parts of our country. 
 
 The cranberry is a native of the United States and of 
 Europe, but some of our varieties are larger and better 
 than those of the Old World. They are found in the low 
 boggy lands along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to New 
 
 KDOUS — 17
 
 25S FOODS: OR now IIIK WORLD IS FED 
 
 Jcrsc)', ill parts ot llic Alleghany Mountains, and also in 
 the swamps of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 
 
 Cranberries grow wild in some places, and in others 
 upon cultivated vines. More than half of our crop is now 
 raised in Massachusetts, and about one fourth of it in New 
 Jersey. Indeed, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Wiscon- 
 
 Gathering cranberries. 
 
 sin grow more than ninety per cent of these berries, a com- 
 paratively small area being devoted to the industry. The 
 reason for this is the peculiar conditions necessary to cran- 
 berry culture. I venture to say that none of us has ever 
 seen any other farm so odd as a cranberry farm. The land 
 chosen must be low and boggy and so situated that the 
 vines may be flooded at certain times of the year. The
 
 ORANGES, LEMONS, LIMES, POMELOS, CITRON, ETC. 259 
 
 soil must first be cleaned of bushes and other vegetation 
 and then covered with a layer of sand, to keep the earth 
 beneath damp and cool and to prevent other things from 
 growing. 
 
 The plants are raised both from seeds and from cuttings, 
 the sprouts being set out in rows, about fourteen inches 
 apart. After planting, the grass and weeds must be kept 
 down and the beds flooded from time to time. As the 
 vines grow, they spread and run over the ground some- 
 what like strawberry vines. When they are about three 
 years of age they begin to produce fruit. 
 
 The cranberry blossoms appear in the early summer, and 
 the berries are ripe in the fall. They are gathered by hand 
 or by little rake scoops and are cleaned and sorted and 
 then packed in barrels and crates for the market. The 
 chief distributing points are New York, Philadelphia^ 
 Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago. The berries will keep 
 for some weeks, and in the late fall they may be found on 
 sale in almost every grocery store. 
 
 »o>>ioo — 
 
 35. ORANGES, LEMONS, LIMES, POMELOS, 
 CITRON, ETC. 
 
 WE are again in CaUfornia this morning, although in 
 different surroundings from where we saw grapes 
 made into raisins. We are traveling through orchards of 
 beautiful trees, whose green leaves shine as though var- 
 nished. In some orchards golden balls are peeping, like 
 eyes, out of the leaves, and in others the trees are loaded 
 with oval fruit of pale yellow or green. We are in the
 
 26o 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 great citr.is fruit region of the Pacific Coast, where oranges 
 and lemons enough to fill millions of boxes are raised every 
 year. 
 
 Citrus fruits are different from any of the fruits we 
 have yet examined, but they are, nevertheless, amongst 
 
 the most deHcious that come on 
 our tables. What is finer than a 
 great round yellow orange full 
 of juice, or a pomelo ("grape 
 fruit") sliced in half and pow- 
 dered with sugar ? On a hot 
 day there is nothing so cooling 
 as a glass of iced lemonade; and 
 we all delight in the fruit cake 
 and the plum pudding, the flavor 
 of which is due largely to the 
 citron within. Citrus fruits belong 
 to a family from southern Asia 
 which includes oranges, lemons, 
 and limes, and also pomelos, citrons, and the bergamot 
 used for perfumery. All these have a pulp with a sour, 
 sweet, or bitter juice, a spongy or leathery rind, and smooth 
 seeds. The leaves and the rind are full of oil, and the 
 flowers also contain oil and have a peculiar fragrance. 
 
 Many of these fruits grow wild in India and in other 
 warm parts of Asia; some of them have spines or thorns; 
 and some have become very different through cultivation 
 from what they originally were. It is said that the orange 
 was once a berry, about as big as a marble, bitter, and full 
 of seeds, and that it has been brought to its present size and 
 flavor by cultivation and experiment throughout the ages. 
 
 Oranges.
 
 OKANLiES, LEMONS, LIMES, POMELOS, CITRON, ETC. 26 1 
 
 Some people think that the apple of the Garden of Eden 
 was really an orange ; and there is a kind of a pomelo sold 
 in Europe which is called the forbidden fruit. Ceylon also 
 has a pulpy forbidden fruit which looks as though a bite 
 had been taken out of it ; and the natives say it was 
 originally round and good to eat, but since Eve sinned it 
 has always showed the mark of her bite and has been 
 poisonous. 
 
 The chief citrus fruits grown in the United States are 
 oranges, lemons, limes, and pomelos or grape fruit. They 
 require about the same climate and soil, and are found in 
 the tropics and the warmer parts of the temperate zones, 
 all over the world. Oranges and lemons are largely culti- 
 vated in Portugal, Spain, Sicily, and other countries in and 
 about the Mediterranean Sea. Asia Minor has delicious 
 oranges, and those from Jaffa, the chief port of Palestine, 
 are excellent. Oranges thrive in Porto Rico and in 
 others of the West Indies, in Hawaii and in the Philippine 
 Islands; and there are great quantities of them grown in 
 Brazil, Paraguay, and some other South American coun- 
 tries. They are produced in China and Japan and through- 
 out southern Asia, as well as in north and south Africa, 
 and on almost all the islands of the South Seas. Our 
 chief orange-growing regions are in Florida and California, 
 the latter state producing the larger part of our crop. The 
 same is true of our lemons and pomelos, so that we can 
 learn more about these fruits in California than anywhere 
 else. 
 
 Suppose we take a look at a great orange orchard, now 
 ready for harvest. Here is one where they are picking the 
 crop. They have brought wagon loads of boxes and scat-
 
 262 
 
 FOODS: OR now THE WORLD IS FKD 
 
 tercd tlicni al^oiit iiiulci" the trees. There are a seore of 
 pickers at work. ICach ha.sasack fastened by a strap over 
 his shoulders, into which he puts the ripe oranges, as he 
 cuts them from the trees. He does not pull them off as 
 we do apples, peaches, and pears ; for the wound that 
 would be thus left in the fruit would be liable to cause rot. 
 Notice how carefully the men work. They drop the 
 
 Picking oranges in California. 
 
 oranges into the sack so gently that they are not bruised; 
 and they empty the sacks slowly into the boxes. 
 
 When the boxes are filled they are carried in spring 
 wagons to the packing houses. There is a load going out 
 now, and if we follow it we can see how the fruit is pre- 
 pared for the market. We soon reach the packing estab- 
 lishment, a long low shed, in and about which many men 
 and women, as well as boys and girls, are at work. The
 
 ORANCJES, LEMONS, LIMES, TOMELOS, CITRON, ETC. 263 
 
 fruit first goes into the hands of the washers. Every 
 orange must be well scrubbed before it is packed. In 
 some places this work is done by boys and girls who 
 scour the fruit with rough brushes to get the dirt, dust, and 
 mold off; and in other places it is done by machinery which 
 brushes the fruit as it rolls along in a stream of water. 
 
 After washing, the oranges are put into a trough, down 
 which they roll into grading machines which separate them 
 according to size. They are next carried into the shed to 
 be packed. In the establishment we are visiting this work 
 is done by Chinese, although in many other places it is 
 performed by Americans. The Chinese have long slender 
 fingers and are noted for their skill in handUng fruit of 
 all kinds. They take up each orange, wrap it in a piece 
 of tissue paper, upon which is printed the trade-mark of 
 the shipper, and then lay it carefully in a box. Each box 
 is just two feet long, one foot wide, and one foot deep. 
 The oranges packed in one box are of about the same size; 
 and the boxes contain a larger or smaller number of oranges, 
 according to the grade of the fruit. Some of the fruit is so 
 large that sixty oranges will just fill a box, and some so 
 small that three hundred are required to occupy the same 
 space. The oranges are so fitted in that they rise a little 
 above the sides of the box; and the covers are pressed 
 down into place so carefully that the fruit is squeezed 
 close together, but is not injured. 
 
 After this the boxes are nailed up and loaded upon the 
 cars for their long journey over the Rocky Mountain pla- 
 teau to the markets. The cars are well ventilated, the 
 boxes being so arranged that the air can circulate freely 
 among them ; and, if it is warm, iced cars are used.
 
 264 FOODS: OR llOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Oranges are sent from Florida to the north in much the 
 same way. The Florida fruit is delicious, and it is con- 
 sumed in large quantities in the eastern part of our coun- 
 try. We also import many oranges from the West Indies 
 and from the lands in and about the Mediterranean Sea. 
 The fruit keeps well, and it is often several weeks between 
 the time of picking and eating. 
 
 During our stay the manager chats with us about 
 orange raising. He tells us his trees originally came from 
 the seeds of the hardier varieties, which are sown in nurs- 
 eries, and that they are budded for choice fruit before 
 planting. About two years after budding, they are ready 
 for setting out and are then planted about twenty feet 
 apart in the orchards. After this they must be well culti- 
 vated and kept clean of weeds. Many of the orchards are 
 irrigated, a basin about ten feet square being dug about 
 each tree, into which, from time to time, the water is 
 turned. 
 
 An orange tree begins to bear at four years of age, 
 and if properly trimmed and cared for, it will produce 
 five hundred or more oranges every year for a generation 
 or so. Indeed, it is said that there are orange trees sev- 
 eral hundred years old which are still yielding fruit. 
 
 Oranges are of many varieties. In some the skin is 
 tight to the pulp and in others, such as the mandarin and 
 the tangerine, it is so loose that it may be pulled off like 
 a glove, such kinds being called kid glove oranges. Some 
 oranges are full of seeds, and others have no seeds what- 
 ever. The navel orange is a seedless orange. It was 
 first brought to the United States from Bahia, Brazil, in 
 the shape of a cutting, and planted in our Agricultural
 
 ORANGES, LEMONS, LIMES, POMELOS, CITRON, ETC. 265 
 
 Gardens in Washington. In due time the cutting became 
 a tree and produced such delicious fruit that buds from it 
 were sent to California ; and thereby originated the navel 
 orange industry, which now forms one of the most prosper- 
 ous branches of our citrus fruit business. 
 
 Our next few days are spent in wandering about from 
 one lemon grove to another. Lemon trees are not quite 
 
 Lemon picRers in California. 
 
 so high as orange trees, but they look much the same. 
 Their blossoms are purplish on the outside, and they smell 
 less sweet than those of the orange. The fruit is light 
 yellow ; and the green lemons fairly set our teeth on edge, 
 as we taste them. 
 
 Lemon trees are grown from lemon buds, set into seed- 
 ling sour-orange sprouts. The trees are planted like the
 
 266 
 
 FOODS: OR now THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 orange, and the fruit is gathered in about the same way, 
 save that each picker has a steel ring about two and one- 
 fourth inches wide. He passes this ring over each lemon 
 before cutting its stem, in order to get just the right size 
 demanded by the market. People do not want large 
 lemons, and the kinds most desired are of such a size that 
 it takes from three hundred and sixty to four hundred and 
 
 Grading lemons. 
 
 twenty of them to fill a box. If the lemons fit the ring 
 they are picked, no matter whether they are green or 
 ripe, although all the ripe ones are picked anyway. The 
 ripe lemons are sometimes shipped at once to the market, 
 while the green ones are piled away in boxes in the ware- 
 houses to ripen. It usually requires one or two months to 
 fit a lemon for the market. 
 
 Lemons, like oranges, have to be washed. They must 
 be carefully packed. When loaded, long strips of wood
 
 PINEAPPLES AND BANANAS 26/ 
 
 are nailed across the cars in order that the boxes may not 
 be jarred on their way over the continent. Lemons usually 
 ripen in winter, but the demand for them in our country 
 is not great until summer, so they are often held until then. 
 
 The lime might be called the lemon's sour little sister. 
 It grows wild in Malaysia and India ; and the trees are so 
 thorny that they are sometimes used as a hedge. Limes 
 are cultivated in the West Indies, and also to some extent 
 in Florida. The fruit has a thin skin and a light yellow 
 pulp, full of an acid juice, from which is made a delicious 
 drink similar to lemonade. 
 
 The pomelo or grape-fruit tree looks much like an 
 orange tree, and it is cultivated in about the same way. 
 Its fruit is several times as large as the largest orange. 
 It is of a light yellow color and it contains a pulp which 
 is somewhat acid and which, at the same time, has a 
 bitter taste which many people like. It is largely used 
 throughout our country and elsewhere as a breakfast 
 fruit, and also for dessert. It is grown in Florida and 
 California. 
 
 »oj»<oo 
 
 36. pineapplp:s and bananas 
 
 TO-DAY we shall consider two fruits of warm climates 
 which are not found on bushes or trees. They re- 
 semble vegetables in that one grows on a stalk in a way 
 not unlike a cabbage, and the other grows in great bunches 
 on a plant which shoots up to a height of fifteen or more 
 feet. Nevertheless, the fir.st of these fruits is one of the 
 most delicious, and the second one of the most useful,
 
 268 i'OODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FEU 
 
 known to mankind. One is the pineapple and the other 
 the banana. 
 
 The pineapple is a native of tropical America. It was 
 taken to Europe by the Spaniards, and, as early as the 
 seventeenth century, was cultivated in Holland and in 
 England. It had to be grown in glass houses, however, 
 and was too costly to be eaten by any but the nobles and 
 other rich people. To-day pineapples are found in nearly 
 all the markets of this country and Europe. They are 
 raised in the West Indies and in the Bahamas for export 
 to the United States, and are sent from our Hawaiian Is- 
 lands to San Francisco. We also raise some in Florida 
 and California. The pineapples of Europe come chiefly 
 from the Azores, the West Indies, and parts of North 
 Africa; while the Australian markets are supplied by 
 those parts of Queensland which lie near the Equator. 
 
 Pineapples will not grow except in warm climates. They 
 are a tropical and subtropical fruit, which Jack Frost kills 
 when it comes within his reach. Our Florida pineapple 
 plantations are in the southern part of that state ; and 
 even there, the pineapples are often grown under sheds to 
 guard them from the cold. In Porto Rico and Hawaii 
 they are raised out of doors, as they are in most other trop- 
 ical countries. 
 
 Suppose we go to Cuba and visit a great pineapple 
 plantation. It is only a few hours' ride from Florida 
 across to Havana, where we can get a railroad which will 
 take us right to the pineapple fields. The farm we select 
 belongs to an American, who ships his fruit to New York, 
 Tampa, and New Orleans, whence it is sent to our interior 
 cities.
 
 PINEAPPLES AND BANANAS 
 
 269 
 
 Stand with me in tlie midst of the plantation. We are 
 surrounded by hundreds of acres of plants. They stretch 
 out on all sides of us almost as far as our eyes can reach, 
 forming a carpet of reddish bronze, made up of millions 
 of plants bearing ripe fruit. Close to us the pineapples 
 are distinct, and we can see the great red and yellow fruit, 
 
 A pineapple plantation in Cuba. 
 
 each surrounded by its long green cactus-like leaves, 
 tipped with crimson. Farther away the pineapples and 
 leaves seem blended together ; and the whole field, in the 
 distance, looks like a gorgeous cloth more splendid than 
 the dress of any queen, reaching on and out on every side. 
 The pineapples are in rows, but they are set so close 
 together that it is safe to say there are a million or so
 
 270 
 
 FOODS: Ok IKnV THK WORLD IS FED 
 
 growing- witliin the range of our eyes. That long low 
 building in the center of the orchard is the packing shed. 
 There the fruit is gathered when ripe and nailed up in 
 crates, which go by the railroad to the steamers loading 
 for the United States. The pineapples are planted by 
 setting out the slii)s, or suckers, which grow about the 
 
 Packing pineapples for shipment'. 
 
 base or the bunch of leaves at the top of the fruit. They 
 are carefully cultivated until they begin to bear and for 
 some time thereafter; although a plantation will last sev- 
 eral years without replanting. The fruit is picked green, 
 and ripens on its way to the market. Ordinary pineapples 
 are four or five inches thick and from six to ten inches long ; 
 but the larger specimens often weigh as much as fifteen, 
 and sometimes twenty, and even more, pounds apiece.
 
 PINEAPPLES AND BANANAS 
 
 271 
 
 Leaving our pineapple plantation, we cross Cuba to the 
 northeastern coast about Nipe Bay. Here are some of 
 the largest banana plantations of the world. There are 
 millions of plants, covering thousands of acres, and when 
 the fruit is ripe, great ships loaded with it are dispatched 
 regularly to New York. 
 
 In the distance, the bananas make us think of fields of 
 green corn rising and falling in the wind, but as we come 
 closer we see that each stalk is a great plant with a 
 green trunk, almost a foot thick at the bottom and rising 
 upward eight or ten feet, before the wide leaves, some of 
 which are ten feet long, extend out like palm leaves and 
 bend over. Some of the plants have suckers, like corn 
 suckers, springing out of the ground at their roots, and 
 often two or three plants are growing together. The rows 
 are not more than six feet apart ; and walking through 
 the plantation is like making our way through a forest of 
 green trunks upholding these wide green leaves which 
 meet overhead and shut out the sun. 
 
 There is a banana plant in blossom. I venture to say 
 none of us has ever seen such a blossom before. It looks 
 more like a great bud than a flower. It is six inches long 
 and, at its base, as big around as my arm. Just back of it, 
 sprouting out from the place where the leaves join the 
 trunk, is a great bunch of bananas, the blossom ending 
 the bunch. The stem of the bunch hangs down, and 
 the bananas themselves grow upward, and not downward, 
 as many suppose. Let us stop and count the bananas on 
 that bunch. It has seventy-four. On a larger plant farther 
 over is a bunch containing more than a hundred, while on 
 other plants are smaller bunches having fifty or less.
 
 272 
 
 InjOUS : OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 This plantation is three years of age. It was set out 
 from suckers like those we see at the roots, and it has been 
 well cultivated until now. There are no weeds anywhere, 
 and the plants are kept free from grass. Each plant bears 
 
 The bananas grow upward. 
 
 but one bunch and then dies, but the sprouts at the base 
 grow up year after year, so that a plantation lasts a long 
 time. 
 
 In harvesting bananas the plant is chopped almost in 
 half. As it falls, it is caught and the bunch of bananas is 
 cut off ; after which the plant is chopped down to allow the 
 sprouts at the foot to secure the full strength of the roots. 
 
 As we go onward, we come to a place where the men 
 are gathering the fruit. The bunches are cut while the
 
 PINEAPPLES AND BANANAS 
 
 273 
 
 fruit is still green. There is not a ripe or yellow banana 
 among them. A little later we watch the loading of a 
 steamer, and are told that the fruit will be still green when 
 taken off in New York, and that it will not turn yellow 
 until about the time it reaches the market stands. 
 Bananas will keep easily 
 for several weeks, and 
 they are cut green in 
 order that they may stand 
 the journey to all parts of 
 our country. 
 
 The banana, as used by 
 us, is a luxury. In many 
 parts of the world it forms 
 the principal food. It is 
 eaten in all tropical coun- 
 tries, and some savage 
 and semicivilized people 
 have, at times, little else. 
 This is so in nearly all 
 the equatorial islands, in 
 the Dutch East Indies, 
 Malaysia, and in many 
 parts of equatorial Africa. 
 
 The banana gives the native of central Africa not only 
 his food and drink, but his string, soap, and clothing. He 
 eats the green fruit of the plantain, which is closely allied 
 to the banana, cooked as a vegetable, and when ripe it 
 serves as a dessert. With him bananas largely take the 
 place of wheat and corn, for he steams them and makes 
 them up into flour. He uses banana leaves to thatch his 
 
 FOODS — 18 
 
 Brazilian banana peddler.
 
 274 FuulJS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 house, and makes them answer the purposes of paper, 
 tablecloths, and napkins. The stems are sometimes made 
 into fences, and the pith is scraped out and used as a 
 sponge. The fibers form excellent string, and they are 
 also woven into sun hats and shields. 
 
 In some parts of the world savages make an intoxicat- 
 ing drink from the banana which might be called banana 
 brandy, and also another liquor somewhat like beer. There 
 are other drinks made from this fruit which are not intoxi- 
 cating at all. Not only in Africa, but in parts of the West 
 Indies and elsewhere, if the banana crop is good, the na- 
 tives are prosperous ; and, if it fails, they are likely to 
 suffer from want. 
 
 37. OLIVES AND VEGETABLE OILS 
 
 IN ancient times there was a contest between Minerva, 
 the Goddess of Wisdom, and Neptune, the God of the 
 Sea, as to which should have the Greek city of Athens 
 under his protection. The other gods came together and 
 decided that this right should be given to the one who 
 could offer the gift most useful to man. Thereupon Nep- 
 tune brought forth the horse, and Minerva, the olive tree. 
 The gods gave their judgment that the olive was the more 
 useful, and Athens was awarded to Minerva, who sometimes 
 goes by the name of Pallas Athene. 
 
 The olive is one of the oldest of fruits. The dove 
 which Noah sent forth from the ark when the floods were 
 abating came back with an olive leaf in its mouth ; and 
 we read of olives being used in early times in the countries
 
 OLIVES AND VEGETABLE OILS 2/5 
 
 about the Mediterranean Sea. It is said that they came 
 originally from southern Europe and Asia Minor. The 
 Atlas regfons of northern Africa seem to be peculiarly fitted 
 for them, and the same is true of the southern part of the 
 great central valley of California and of certain regions in 
 Mexico and Peru. Italy raises more olives than any other 
 country, and they are also grown for export in Algeria and 
 Tunis, and in France, Spain, Greece, and Asia Minor. 
 We still import olives and olive oil from Italy and Spain, 
 although we now have large olive orchards on the Pacific 
 Coast and are raising quantities of olives every year. 
 
 Suppose we visit one of these orchards in southern 
 California. The trees are loaded with fruit that looks some- 
 what like plums, but the leaves are of a darker green than 
 the plum tree, and the trunks and branches are twisted in 
 all sorts of shapes, looking as though they had been made 
 so by the wind. 
 
 Olive trees are propagated from the seed, from cut- 
 tings, sprouts, and suckers, and by layering. They are 
 set out in orchards, about thirty or forty feet apart, and 
 begin to bear fruit at two or three years of age, although 
 it is not until they are seven years old that they yield profit- 
 able crops. They bear more fruit as they grow older, 
 until they are about thirty years otd. At ten years of age 
 a good tree may have six or seven gallons of olives upon it, 
 and later it may produce as much as fifty gallons. 
 
 The olive is very long lived. There are some trees in 
 Calif ornia which were planted before we signed our Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; and in southern Europe are many 
 which are known to be several hundred years old. The 
 people there claim that the olive tree will live a thousand
 
 2 76 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD TS FED 
 
 years, and they have a saying that the man who plants olives 
 lays up riches for his children's children. 
 
 In California the olive orchards are carefully cultivated. 
 The one we are visiting is about twenty years old ; but it 
 is still plowed several times a year and is kept free from 
 weeds. The trees are now loaded with fruit, and the 
 
 Picking^livci 
 
 ilifoinia. 
 
 people are harvesting the crop. A number of men and 
 women, together with many boys and girls, are moving 
 about under the trees. Some hold out sheets of canvas, 
 while others shake each hmb and twig, so that the olives 
 fall into the sheets. The fruit that remains on the trees is 
 plucked by hand. 
 
 After picking, the olives are sorted. Some of them are
 
 OLIVES AND VEGLTABLE OILS 
 
 277 
 
 almost black, while others are light brown or dark green. 
 The black olives are ripe and ready to be pressed into oil. 
 The green ones will be used for pickling; they will be 
 graded, and those of uniform size will be put up in bot- 
 tles or tubs and sold all over the country. Ripe olives are 
 also pickled, but they are black when bottled. 
 
 Suppose we follow that load of ripe fruit which they are 
 taking off to the oil mill. We go with the wagon and see 
 
 Grading olives according to size. 
 
 the black olives thrown into a sort of mortar, in which 
 is a heavy stone, so moved around by an engine that it 
 crushes the ogives to paste. . After being thoroughly crushed, 
 they are taken out and packed by hand into flat bags made 
 of matting, each of which holds about a half bushel. 
 These mats are piled, one on top of the other, in a press 
 which works so gradually that they must remain in it for 
 several hours before all the juice, water, and oil are squeezed
 
 2j8 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 out. The oil which comes first is the best. It is ahnost 
 clear white. It is called virgin oil and is used chiefly for 
 salads. That which comes later is of a lower grade, and 
 the last is the poorest. 
 
 In some orchards the fruit is dried in the sun or by arti- 
 ficial heat before it is pressed, and the pulp is pressed again 
 and again for the different grades of oil. Before the last 
 pressing it is soaked with hot water, and the result is a low 
 grade oil, used for the table and also for machinery and 
 burning. 
 
 After the oil has been taken out of the pulp, it is drawn 
 off carefully, filtered, and stored in a cool dark place 
 ready for bottling. If expo.sed to light or heat, it soon 
 becomes rancid, and the greatest care is taken to keep 
 it sweet and cool. 
 
 We use olive oil for salads and also in manufacturing 
 soap and tobacco and for mechanical purposes. We 
 import a great quantity every year, in addition to that 
 which we raise ourselves. 
 
 In southern Europe and in the other lands about the 
 Mediterranean Sea olive oil, to a large extent, takes the 
 place of butter. It is used not only in salads, but upon 
 bread and vegetables and for cooking. In some locali- 
 ties olives and olive oil serve even for meat and bread ; 
 and many a Spaniard, when upon a long journey, ties a 
 wicker basket of this fruit to his saddle horn and eats 
 it as he rides. 
 
 We have another oil much like olive oil which is 
 made from cotton-seed. For a long time these seeds 
 went to waste, but now they are ground up into oil, 
 and the refuse therefrom is made into cattle feed and
 
 OLIVES AND VEGEFABLE OILS 
 
 279 
 
 fertilizer. The products from our cotton-seed now yield 
 annually a vast sum. In the year 1900 the seeds used 
 weighed several million tons, and they produced oil, meal, 
 and other things valued at thirty-three million dollars. 
 
 In making this oil the lint is first taken off and sold 
 as raw cotton, and the seeds are then sifted and cleaned. 
 The hulls are cracked 
 by machinery and 
 separated from the 
 kernels. The kernels 
 are then run through 
 heavy rolls to squeeze 
 out the oil, which is 
 drawn off into settling 
 tanks. It is after- 
 ward refined, when it 
 looks and tastes much 
 like olive oil. In 
 some cases the ker- 
 nels are cooked before 
 they are crushed, but 
 the best oil is made 
 when they are pressed 
 cold. Cotton-seed oil is used largely for cooking, and 
 many prefer it as a substitute for lard or butter. It is 
 sometimes employed to adulterate olive oil, lard, and other 
 things, and it is also used for making soap, paint, drugs, 
 and for oiling machinery, and for lighting. 
 
 The Russians raise sunflowers for their seeds. These 
 contain a rich oil that is used largely in salads and in 
 cooking, and also for lighting and for making candles 
 
 Sunflowers in Russia.
 
 28o FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 and soaps. The people eat the seeds as we do peanuts, 
 keeping a handful or so in their pockets and nibbling 
 away at them from time to time. Each sunflower has 
 from eight hundred to one thousand seeds, and these 
 seeds are in such demand for various purposes that about 
 forty miUion pounds of them are raised every year. The 
 Russians sow the seeds in the fall or in the early spring, 
 drilling them in, in rows about eighteen inches apart, and 
 thinning out the plants, so as to leave a space of a foot or 
 so between them. An acre of sunflowers should yield 
 about fifty bushels of seeds ; and these, when pressed, 
 will give about one gallon of oil per bushel. 
 
 The Chinese make oil from certain kinds of beans, using 
 the refuse, or bean cake, as food for both man and animal 
 and also as fertihzer. They have, moreover, an oil which 
 is extensively grown in their own and in other countries 
 and which is largely imported by us. This oil could hardly 
 be used for cooking, although it is of great value when one 
 has eaten too much. It is castor oil, made of the seed of 
 the castor oil plant. This plant is a native of India but 
 is now cultivated in most warm countries. It varies in 
 size from a shrub to a tree fifteen or twenty feet in 
 height. In extracting the oil the seeds are first crushed 
 Ibetween heavy rollers and then pressed in bags under a 
 screw press. 
 
 There are a few other vegetable oils which are used for 
 cooking and eating in different parts of the world, but none 
 of them is so important as those we have considered. Val- 
 uable oils are also made from several species of nuts, such 
 as peanuts, palm nuts, and cocoanuts, as we shall learn 
 farther on in our travels.
 
 DATES AND FIGS 28 1 
 
 38. DATES AND FIGS 
 
 IS it not strange that one of the sweetest of fruits should 
 come from the desert ? The palm that bears the date 
 thrives in the midst of burning sands, if its roots can have 
 plenty of moisture. It is grown by irrigation in the oases 
 of the Sahara Desert, almost everywhere in the valley of 
 the Nile, in the fertile spots upon the Desert of Arabia, 
 and especially along the Shat-el-Arab River, at the head 
 of the Persian Gulf. 
 
 The Shat-el-Arab is formed by the union of the Tigris and 
 the Euphrates at Kurna; and it flows from there for a dis- 
 tance of seventy miles down to the Gulf of Persia, 
 through some of the richest soil and one of the hottest 
 climates of the world. Here, in midsummer, the thermom- 
 eter rises to one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, 
 and the few European inhabitants sleep in bedrooms 
 cooled by fanning mills which force the air through wet 
 screens. Even the natives spend the hot nights on the 
 roofs of their houses; and in the warmer parts of the day 
 most people stay within doors. In winter the climate is 
 ,as delightful as that of southern California. It seldom 
 rains, and the air is dry and clear almost all the year 
 round. 
 
 This region is said to be the birthplace of the date palm. 
 According to the Arabs, it was here that the Garden of 
 Eden was situated. It is only a few hundred miles above 
 here, on the banks of the Euphrates, that Babylon was situ- 
 ated, and a like distance away, upon the Tigris, that Bag- 
 dad now stands. The climate here is exactly suited to the
 
 282 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 date palm, and the Shat-el-Arab Valley is believed to con- 
 tain the largest continuous orchard of the world. It ranges 
 from less than a mile to more than three miles in width, 
 and has more than five million date trees growing along 
 both sides of the river. 
 
 The slope of the valley is such that it can be easily irri- 
 gated. The wide muddy Shat-el-Arab carries the vast 
 
 volume of the Euphrates 
 and the Tigris Rivers ; 
 and during the periodic 
 floods it fills the irrigat- 
 ing canals, inclosing the 
 date trees in a network 
 of waters. At such times 
 the larger canals look like 
 rivers running through a 
 forest of palms ; and the 
 smaller ones form silver 
 ropes, winding their way 
 in and out about the 
 date trees. The water 
 is full of silt, and this, 
 settling, fertilizes the 
 land- 
 There are date orchards 
 along the Tigris and the 
 Euphrates Rivers, and also near the Gulf of Oman, farther 
 south ; so that all together the Persian Gulf regions have 
 more date palms than any other part of the earth. They 
 have fifteen or twenty million trees, annually yielding more 
 than one hundred thousand pounds of fruit. They furnish 
 
 In a Persian date orchard.
 
 DATES AND FIGS 
 
 283 
 
 most of the dates sold in our American markets ; altiiough 
 we get some from tiie Sahara and from Egypt, and are 
 now growing a few ourselves in the hot dry irrigated 
 lands of Arizona and southern CaUfornia. 
 
 The date palm may be raised from the seed, but it is usu- 
 ally grown from suckers which sprout out about the trunks 
 of the older trees. These are set out at about one hundred 
 to the acre, and, if well watered, they strike root at once 
 and, within four or five years, begin to 
 bear fruit. They come into full bearing at 
 eleven or more years of age, and after 
 that they may yield for a hundred years. 
 When mature, a tree should produce 
 eight or ten bunches, each containing 
 from twelve to twenty pounds of dates. 
 
 In the Sahara the date blossoms in 
 April. The flowers are perfectly white, 
 and this is the color of the dates when 
 they are first formed. A little later 
 they turn green, and toward the end 
 of the summer they take on a reddish or 
 a yellowish tinge, a sign that they are ripening. They 
 grow redder or yellower as they become riper ; and, when 
 dead ripe, the yellow dates are the color of amber, and the 
 red dates have turned to a reddish brown or black. Green 
 dates are not fit to eat, and they pucker one's mouth like 
 a green persimmon. As they ripen, this taste passes 
 away, they gradually sweeten, and, when dead ripe, they 
 are almost as sweet as sugar itself. They now begin to 
 dry on the trees and are ready to be gathered and shipped 
 to the market. 
 
 Date flower.
 
 284 FOODS: OK HOW lllK WORLD IS FED 
 
 Dates are of as many different varieties as apples. More 
 than one hundred kinds of dates are grown in the Sahara 
 and a great number in the Persian Gulf region. Different 
 markets demand different dates. Europe and America 
 have their favorites, while India and the Orient prefer 
 other kinds. Some dates will stand shipment better than 
 others, and some are especially delicious when fresh from 
 the trees. 
 
 The dates shipped to America are sweet dates. They 
 are allowed to dry on the trees for a week or so after they 
 ripen. This shrinks them, and they can then be shipped 
 to better advantage. They are of a soft variety, and are full 
 of juice, which must be drained off before they are packed. 
 They are brought here in bags of matting or in long 
 wooden boxes, the choicest dates often being repacked at 
 the ports before they are shipped to New York. 
 
 The favorite date of the natives of the Sahara contains 
 much less sugar than that sent to the United States. It is 
 a dry date which is almost unknown to us, but which largely 
 takes the place of bread in that wild desert region. These 
 dates are not soft or sticky when ripe, and if stored in dry 
 places, they can be kept a long time. They form a health- 
 ful food and are eaten by man and beast, being often fed 
 to camels and even to dogs. 
 
 The date palm is the most important of all desert palms. 
 In the Sahara Desert its fruit often takes the place of 
 both bread and meat. There are parts of Arabia where 
 the people live almost entirely upon dates and bread, with 
 an occasional feast of a sheep, goat, or chicken. The 
 sweet dates furnish a sirup or date honey and the juice of 
 the green dates can be turned into vinegar. The Bedouins
 
 DATES AND FIGS 
 
 285 
 
 make the ripe fruit into a paste which hardens so that it 
 can be kept for a long time ; and dry dates are sometimes 
 pulverized and cooked as meal. The seeds or stones are 
 crushed and fed to camels, goats, sheep, and horses, and 
 there is an edible bud at the crown of the tree which is 
 known as palm cabbage and which, when the tree falls, is 
 eaten as a vegetable. 
 
 The wood of this palm is very valuable in the desert lands 
 where it grows. It is used for fencing and for house build- 
 ing. The fibers of the leaves and trunk furnish the tow 
 with which the Arabs stuff their saddles, and they are also 
 used for rope making. 
 A fine thread is made 
 from the stem of the 
 fruit, and mats and 
 baskets are woven 
 from the split leaves. 
 
 There is another 
 fruit which can be 
 grown in much the 
 same surroundings as 
 the date, but which 
 . also thrives in subtropical regions and even in the warmer 
 parts of our country. This is the fig, which is supposed 
 to have originated in Asia, and which is now grown 
 commercially in many of the countries about the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. 
 
 Fig trees are found in most of our Southern States ; and 
 large orchards of Smyrna trees have been planted in Cali- 
 fornia and are yielding several million pounds of figs every 
 year. In some oases of the Sahara Desert fig trees are 
 
 Green figs.
 
 286 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 raised under the date palms; they are common in Algeria 
 and Morocco ; and they thrive better, perhaps, in Syria 
 than anywhere else. The chief port from which they are 
 sent to the United States is Smyrna, about which are 
 large orchards producing a delicious variety of this fruit. 
 
 Fig trees are grown from seeds or from cuttings and also 
 by budding. They are set out sixteen or more feet apart 
 
 Packing figs in California. 
 
 in the orchard, and when full-grown are tall, with wide 
 branches and large beautiful leaves. They begin to yield 
 fruit at three years of age, and after that they will bear 
 two or three crops every year for a century or longer. 
 Figs on the trees look plump, and in shape they resemble 
 a small tomato. They are of different colors, according 
 to the variety, some being white, some black, some purple, 
 and others yellow or green. The purple figs are the best, 
 although the yellow ones are the most beautiful. 
 
 Figs are gathered when they are dead ripe and laid
 
 SOMt UIHEK TKUPiCAL I-KUITS 287 
 
 upon boards in the sun to dry. After this they are pressed 
 into shape, one by one, and packed up in boxes to be sent 
 to the markets. 
 
 39- SOME OTHER TROPICAL FRUITS 
 
 IN addition to the fruits we have already examined, there 
 are many others which are eaten here and there over 
 the world, but have no important part in commerce. The 
 mango, for instance, might be called the apple of the 
 tropics. It is a luscious juicy fruit of about the size of a 
 goose egg, or larger, and of much the same shape. It grows 
 well in the East Indies, in most parts of the Philippine 
 Islands, and in Central and South America, the West In- 
 dies, and elsewhere. 
 
 Theguava, from which the famed guava jelly is made, is 
 a yellow-skinned fruit about as big around as a silver dol- 
 lar. It is rather sweet and of a light red color. The 
 guava tree looks somewhat like a plum tree. It is grown 
 in the West Indies, as well as in Brazil, Paraguay, and otHer 
 tropical parts of the world. 
 
 Many of the fruits of the warm zones are of enormous 
 size. The breadfruit, for instance, grows almost as large 
 as a football ; it is round or oval in shape and contains 
 a fibrous pulp which is white and mealy, looking some- 
 what like new bread. It is eaten before it is ripe, and it 
 forms a staple article of food among the natives of the 
 South Sea and the East Indian Islands. The South Sea 
 Islanders cook breadfruit in ovens made in the earth. 
 They place it between layers of heated stones and green
 
 288 
 
 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 leaves ; first a layer of hot stones, then leaves, and then 
 breadfruit ; then more stones, more leaves, and more fruit, 
 until the oven is full. They then spread earth over all. 
 The hot stones soon create a steam from the moisture in 
 
 the leaves and the 
 fruit, and within 
 a short time the 
 breadfruit is 
 ready to eat. 
 
 The jackfruit 
 is of the same 
 nature as the 
 breadfruit, but 
 coarser, and two 
 or three times as 
 large. Another 
 fruit of these 
 same regions is 
 the durian, which 
 has so disgusting 
 a smell that many 
 people will not 
 taste it. Never- 
 theless, it is de- 
 licious, having a pulp of fine flavor that is not unlike 
 that of cream. The durian is about as large as a good- 
 sized cocoanut ; it has a rind covered with prickly spines 
 and looks Hke a little hedgehog rolled up. 
 
 How would you like to pick melons from trees.-' You 
 may do that in Cuba, Porto Rico, and other countries of 
 about the same latitude. The papaya tree has a fruit 
 
 Breadfruit tree.
 
 SOME OlHER TROPICAL I^KUIIS 
 
 289 
 
 which tastes and looks Hke a niuskmelon. It has soft 
 sweet yellow flesh, with many small black seeds, and is so 
 easily digested that people can eat it when they can eat 
 nothing else. Indeed, the papaya aids the stomach in 
 digesting other foods ; and it is said that tough meat, if 
 dipped in water containing 
 a little papaya juice, will 
 become tender. The papaya 
 tree is seldom more than 
 twenty-five feet high, and 
 the melonlike fruit grows 
 on stems attached to the 
 trunk near the top. 
 
 We have many wild per- 
 simmons in the United 
 States. They are found in 
 great quantities in Virginia ; 
 and some of us have eaten 
 them when dead ripe in the 
 fall, after the first hard frost. 
 They are no larger than 
 plums, and they are by no 
 means bad, I assure you. 
 Nevertheless, they do not 
 
 Papaya tree. 
 
 compare with the persimmons of Japan, China, Korea, and 
 the East Indies. These are as big as good-sized tomatoes 
 and are of about the same color ; they have a soft sweet 
 pulp and can be eaten with a spoon. 
 
 The mangosteen is a famous deUcacy in some of the 
 warmest .parts of the world. It is a native of the Molucca 
 Islands, but is also grown in Java, Ceylon, and other tropical 
 
 FOODS — 19
 
 290 l-OODS : OR IlUW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 countries. This fruit is shaped like a small orange ; it is 
 of a dark reddish brown color, and the pulp within is 
 white, with a tinge of rose pink. It has a fine flavor and 
 is one of the choicest fruits of the tropics. 
 
 The pomegranate is a native of southwestern Asia, and 
 it grows also in other parts of the world where the climate 
 is warm. It is of about the size of a lemon and is full of 
 seeds, each inclosed in a pulp. The pulp is eaten and 
 is used also for making a drink. 
 
 40. NUTS 
 
 WE shall go nutting to-day, and our trip will take us 
 over the greater part of the globe. Nuts have al- 
 ways had an important place as a food for man. They 
 are eaten almost everywhere. They are gathered by the 
 natives of the forest wilds for the traders, and in civilized 
 countries they are raised in orchards and exported all 
 over the world. 
 
 Our principal commercial food nuts are almonds, Eng- 
 lish walnuts, cocoanuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, 
 chestnuts, and hickory nuts. We spend several million 
 dollars every year importing them, and more for almonds 
 and English walnuts than for any of the others. 
 
 We raise some almonds in California ; but, nevertheless, 
 we buy annually almost a million dollars' worth from 
 Spain and from other countries about the Mediterranean 
 Sea. Almonds are of two kinds, sweet and bitter. The 
 bitter ones are used to make flavoring extracts and prussic 
 acid and are not good to eat. Sweet almonds are used for
 
 NUTS 
 
 291 
 
 food and are sold everywhere in our grocery stores. We 
 eat them raw and cooked and also in cakes, candies, and 
 other confections. Sugared almonds are delicious, and so 
 are burnt almonds and blanched almonds, when salted. 
 Almond trees resemble peach trees, and the fruit is 
 much like the peach, save that it has a thin flesh, the nut 
 
 Almond trees rt 
 
 forming the stone. When the almond ripens, the skin 
 breaks open, and, as the flesh shrivels and dries, the nut 
 falls to the ground. In gathering the crop, men and boys 
 go through the orchards and pick up the nuts ; and they 
 sometimes shake them off upon sheets spread under the 
 trees. The almonds are packed in sacks or bales to be 
 shipped to the markets. 
 
 If we lived in certain parts of California, we might have
 
 292 FOODS: OR HfnV THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 a two weeks' vacation every October, in order to help 
 gather English walnuts. These nuts are now grown there 
 in large quantities ; and, although we also import many 
 from France, Spain, and Italy, we raise some of the best 
 of the world. Walnut trees are set out in rows just as 
 apple trees are, and they are carefully cultivated until 
 they are six or seven years old, when they begin to bear. 
 They keep on bearing more and more nuts every year for 
 about twenty years, and, if well cared for, they may bear 
 longer than the lifetime of a man. 
 
 The nuts begin to ripen about the middle of September, 
 and fall from that time on until the last of November. In 
 the height of the season all the boys and the girls of the 
 neighborhood, as well as ^uch men and women as can be 
 had, go over the great orchards again and again, gathering 
 the nuts into pails, cans, or sacks. The chilch~en are paid 
 so much a pound for all they pick up, and a boy or a girl 
 can make very good wages. Sometimes bamboo poles are 
 used to knock the nuts from the trees. 
 
 After the walnuts are gathered, they are taken to the 
 drying grounds and spread out in trays about five inches 
 deep until thoroughly dry. The shells are now brown, 
 and they must be whitened before the nuts are ready for 
 sale. This is done by dipping them in water mixed with 
 certain chemicals, which turns them to the color of the 
 nuts sold in our stores. They are then rinsed in clear 
 water and dried again. 
 
 In addition to the English walnut, we have the black 
 walnut, which grows wild in many parts of the United 
 States, and also the white walnut, or butternut, which is 
 noted for its delicious sweet kernel. These nuts, how-
 
 NUTS 293 
 
 ever, are used chiefly in the localities where they are 
 grown and are seldom exported. The same is true of our 
 hickory nuts, which we gather and lay away to crack on 
 winter nights; and also of acorns, pignuts, and beechnuts, 
 which are eaten by the hogs, as they roam through the 
 woods. 
 
 It is different with the pecan, which belongs to the 
 family of hickories. It grows in large quantities through- 
 out our Southern States and is cultivated in Texas and in 
 many parts of the Mississippi Valley. The trees are set 
 out about forty feet apart. They begin to bear in five or 
 six years and, when they are twenty years old, some trees 
 will yield as much as twenty bushels of nuts in one year. 
 There are different varieties of pecans ; some large and 
 some small, and some with shells so thin that they can be 
 crushed with the fingers. 
 
 Most of our chestnuts are small, and we use them chiefly 
 as a luxury, eating them raw or roasted. They are fre- 
 quently sold hot from the ovens, by peddlers, on the street 
 corners of our cities ; and are sometimes cooked by boys, 
 in corn poppers, over the coals. In southern Europe and 
 in Japan, China, and Korea, there are chestnuts as big as 
 buckeyes, and they are grown extensively for food. In 
 southern France the peasants eat these nuts twice a day 
 during the fall and winter; and in the towns there are 
 regular chestnut peddlers who carry the steamed meats 
 through the streets and sell them to the working people 
 for breakfast. In some parts of the Alps the peasants 
 grind up dried chestnuts and make flour of them ; and in 
 Sicily and Italy they are stewed, roasted, and served in 
 other ways.
 
 294 FOODS: OR now lllK WORLD IS FED 
 
 We import many of these large chestnuts to use for 
 making candy and for stuffing roast turkey ; and in recent 
 years we have been growing them ourselves, either by 
 planting the nuts or by grafting cuttings of the foreign 
 trees upon our native chestnut sprouts. Such trees thrive, 
 and the sprouts, fed by the native roots, grow rapidly and 
 are soon bearing fruit. 
 
 The pistachio nut comes from Syria, and the pine nut, 
 which is of about the same size, is found in many parts of 
 southern Europe, as well as in Korea and other lands of 
 similar climates. Both of these nuts are eaten raw and 
 roasted, and they are often ground up or coated with sugar 
 and sold as a candy. We have also hazelnuts and filberts, 
 which are used in confections or are eaten raw. 
 
 There are two nuts grown in tropical lands which are 
 now exported to all parts of the globe. These are the 
 cocoanut and the Brazil nut. The Brazil nut grows chiefly 
 in northern South America, along the banks of the Amazon 
 and the Orinoco Rivers ; and the cocoanut is found al- 
 most everywhere near the seacoast in the hot parts of 
 the world. 
 
 The Brazil nut is remarkable in that it is a nut within a 
 nut. It grows inside a shell bigger than that of the 
 largest cocoanut, from eighteen to twenty-four nuts being 
 found in each shell. The tree which produces it rises to a 
 height of more than one hundred feet ; and if one of these 
 great nuts should be brushed off by the wind or thrown 
 down by a monkey so that it should strike a traveler 
 beneath, it would probably kill him. Brazil nuts are 
 sometimes called cream nuts. They are about as long as 
 a boy's little finger ; they have hard black or brown shells
 
 NUTS 295 
 
 and white kernels full of oil. They may be found in 
 almost any of our grocery stores. 
 
 Far more important is the cocoanut. It is grown by the 
 millions on the tropical islands of the Pacific, and we find 
 it in vast groves in Samoa and in the Philippines. It 
 sprouts up quickly on the coral atolls in mid-ocean and 
 
 A cocoanut tree. 
 
 along the seashore in Africa, South America, Asia, and 
 in the West Indies. 
 
 This tree is a palm which begins to bear at seven or 
 eight years of age and produces fruit for many years. 
 The cocoanuts grow in great bunches where the leaves 
 sprout out at the top of the trunk ; and a good tree will 
 produce a hundred nuts a year. The nuts fall when they
 
 296 
 
 I'OOnS : OR HOW THE WORT.D IS FED 
 
 are ripe, and the rough outside husks are taken off before 
 they are shipped to our markets. 
 
 The meat of the cocoanut is sometimes eaten raw, but 
 it is chiefly valuable when dried, in which shape it is known 
 as copra and is exported to Europe and the United States 
 to be ground up and pressed into oil for making soap and 
 
 Making copra in Sannoa. 
 
 for use in certain manufactures. Seven or eight cocoanuts 
 will produce about one quart of oil, and the refuse from 
 the pressing forms a good food for stock. Dried cocoa- 
 nut, or copra, is one of the principal articles of commerce 
 in the South Sea Islands; and many of our Samoan and 
 Filipino cousins get a large part of their money from 
 their cocoanut groves. In making copra the rough husks
 
 COFFEE 297 
 
 of the nuts must be first taken off. The inside shells are 
 then broken, and the kernels, cut in pieces, are dried in the 
 sun and packed for export. 
 
 We use considerable ripe cocoanut meat in making candy 
 and cake. Some of us, no doubt, have tasted cocoanut 
 milk, the juice of the ripe cocoanut. The best milk is from 
 the green nut, and this can be had only in the lands of the 
 cocoanut. It is as clear as water and is most delicious 
 when drunk direct from the shell. 
 
 Another tree of this family which yields nuts in commer- 
 cial quantities is the African oil palm, whose fruit compares 
 to the cocoanut much as a glass marble does to a football. 
 These nuts grow in clusters of a thousand or more. Their 
 kernels range in size from sparrow eggs to pigeon eggs. 
 They contain an oil which is used by the natives for cook- 
 ing and lighting and which is exported by the ship load to 
 Europe for soap making and for other manufactures. 
 
 o>Ko 
 
 41. COFFEE 
 
 COFFEE, tea, and cacao are so largely consumed by 
 mankind that they form important articles of com- 
 merce and industry. So much coffee is produced every 
 year that if it were evenly divided there would be more 
 than a pound and a half for every man, woman, and child ; 
 and so many coffee trees are now growing that every in- 
 habitant of the world might have a tree of his own, and 
 leave many millions to spare. 
 
 We have no coffee trees in the United States proper, on
 
 298 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 account of our cold climate ; nevertheless, we buy more 
 coffee than any other country. We use twice as much 
 per capita as the Germans and many times as much as 
 the Belgians, Austro-Hungarians, Dutch, British, or Cana- 
 dians, who rank next to us among the coffee drinkers of 
 the world. We buy enough in a year to equal twelve 
 pounds for every person in our country, and our coffee bill 
 often amounts to ninety million dollars. Of this great sum, 
 every American family which drinks coffee pays a part; 
 and, therefore, we are personally interested in learning 
 about it and how it is grown. 
 
 Coffee is the seed of an evergreen tree which is found 
 in many parts of the tropics. Under cultivation it is 
 
 pruned down to a 
 height of ten feet or 
 less. It has leaves 
 somewhat resembling 
 those of the laurel, 
 and bears small white 
 blossoms and berries 
 of about the size of a 
 cranberry and of the 
 same color and shape. 
 Inside each berry are 
 one or two seeds or 
 beans which form the coffee of commerce. The seeds are 
 usually half globes, fitted together with the flat sides facing 
 each other and surrounded by a sweet fleshy pulp. The 
 berries grow close to the stalk all over the tree. They are 
 picked off when ripe, and the seeds, properly dried and 
 cleaned, are shipped all over the world. 
 
 Coffee blossoms and berries.
 
 COFFEE 299 
 
 The coffee tree is supposed to have originated in Abys- 
 sinia and to have received its name from the province of 
 Kaffa, where it still grows wild. It was first carried over to 
 Arabia and planted there in the districts from where the 
 purest of the famed Mocha coffee comes. Toward the end 
 of the seventeenth century it was taken to Java and then 
 to other tropical countries all over the world. 
 
 It thrives best in latitudes between fifteen degrees north 
 and south of the Equator, although it is cultivated with 
 success in places thirty degrees south or north, where the 
 temperature does not fall below fifty-five above zero. Jack 
 Frost is a deadly enemy to this tree, and excessive heat 
 hinders its growth. It is usually found some distance back 
 from the sea and especially upon well-watered mountain 
 slopes, from one to four thousand feet above sea level. 
 
 The chief coffee regions are upon our own hemisphere ; 
 and nearly all the world's crop comes from South America, 
 and especially from Brazil. Central America and the 
 West Indies also produce coffee abundantly. 
 
 The total crop of the world amounts in some years to as 
 much as twenty-three hundred million pounds, of which 
 twenty-one hundred million and more come from this hemi- 
 sphere ; most of the remainder being from Java and Sumatra 
 in the Dutch East Indies, and from Ceylon and some 
 other islands belonging to the British, in the Indian Ocean. 
 Coffee is also raised in Australia, in Madagascar, and in 
 parts of eastern and western Africa ; while Hawaii and 
 the Philippine Islands produce some for export. A few 
 million pounds of excellent coffee are grown in the moun- 
 tainous regions of Cuba and Porto Rico, and about two 
 hundred million pounds are annually grown in Mexico and
 
 300 FOODS: OK HOW IHE WORLD IS FED 
 
 Central America. Haiti and San Domingo produce a con- 
 siderable amount, and so do Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, 
 Peru, and Chile. The chief of all coffee countries, however, 
 is Brazil, which yields about half of the world's crop, fur- 
 nishing more than enough each year to give one pound to 
 every man, woman, and child upon earth. 
 
 The greater part of the coffee used by the United States 
 comes from Brazil, and we can learn all about it by mak- 
 ing a tour through the highlands southwest of Rio de 
 Janeiro, where more coffee is grown than anywhere else in 
 the world. The land there is from one thousand to three 
 thousand feet above the sea ; it is gently rolling, and the 
 hillsides are covered with coffee plantations. 
 
 We take passage on one of the coffee steamers at New 
 York ; and after sailing southeastwardly many days, we 
 reach the coast of Brazil at Bahia, where we turn to the 
 southwest and finally land at Santos, the port for Sao Paulo. 
 Here we climb the highlands by train, over a cog railroad; 
 and after a journey on the cars of several hundred miles 
 across country, we find ourselves on one of the largest of the 
 coffee estates. We have been riding for hours through a 
 region covered with coffee trees and have gone to and fro 
 on the little railroad which carries the berrries from the 
 trees to the factory and reaches every part of this mighty 
 plantation. 
 
 How interesting it is ! Standing upon the higher hills 
 there are millions of coffee trees within sight ; we can see 
 nothing else as far as our eyes can reach. The land is 
 covered with a mantle of green, striped here and there 
 with bands of brick red. The green mantle is the coffee 
 trees, and the red marks out the roads. Look down at
 
 COFFEE 301 
 
 the soil. It is the color of brick dust, and this color comes 
 from the large amount of iron mixed with the other mate- 
 rials which it contains. The redder the soil, the better it 
 is thought to be for coffee, although in some other parts of 
 the world coffee is raised upon soil which is not red at all. 
 
 Now observe the trees. In the field where we are stand- 
 ing they look more like bushes than anything else. They 
 are ten or twelve feet in height, and the branches grow out 
 on all sides, from the ground to the top. They are planted 
 in rows, and the long rows of green extend on and on until 
 they lose themselves in the sky at the tops of the hills in 
 the distance. 
 
 We take horses and ride through field after field. In 
 some the trees are only as high as our knees, and in others 
 they are three times as high as our heads. Here they are 
 planting coffee. The forest has been cut down, and a 
 gang of laborers is setting out the plants among the 
 stumps. In the next field we find a score or more boys 
 on their knees, pulling the weeds from about the young 
 trees ; and farther on men are plowing with mules which 
 they direct carefully through the rows, turning up the red 
 soil. 
 
 As we go, we observe that it takes a great deal of work 
 to grow coffee trees. The beans are first sown in seed 
 beds or nurseries. They soon sprout, and when they are a 
 few inches high they are transplanted, each being set out 
 in a little basin or hole, with sticks or leaves spread above 
 it to protect it from the hot rays of the sun. The crop is 
 frequently hoed and plowed to keep down the weeds ; and 
 this must be continued until the trees are four years old, 
 when they will begin to bear fruit. After this they will
 
 30- 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 produce several pounds of beans every year ; and in this 
 rich coffee zone of southern Brazil a tree may continue to 
 bear for thirty or even more years. 
 
 A great coffee plantation looks different from season to 
 season. Down here south of the Equator spring comes 
 while we in the temperate zone are having our autumn, 
 
 Picking coffee berries in Brazil. 
 
 and the coffee bushes begin to blossom in December. At 
 this time the air is loaded with fragrance, and the hills 
 are covered with white flowers, shining out through the 
 green leaves. 
 
 Along in April or May the berries turn red, and the pick- 
 ing begins. The berries ripen at different times, and the 
 harvesting lasts for weeks. During the harvest hundreds
 
 . COFFEE 303 
 
 of men, women, and children may be seen moving about 
 through the bushes. Some are sitting down and picking 
 or stripping the berries from the low branches, while others 
 pull down and strip off those higher up. Sometimes a 
 sheet is placed around the bottom of a tree and the berries 
 are allowed to fall upon it. 
 
 After picking, the fruit is taken to the factory in differ- 
 ent ways. On this plantation the most of it goes upon the 
 railroad ; but on others it is carried on mule back or in 
 wagons, and sometimes it is floated down in long chutes, 
 through which mountain streams have been conducted. 
 
 We follow one of the train loads to the factory and 
 watch the coffee seeds taken out and prepared for the 
 markets. The factory is a large building filled with ma- 
 chinery of different kinds for extracting the seeds ; and 
 near it are great fields paved with cement, on which the 
 coffee beans are dried in the sun. 
 
 Let us look at some of the berries which have just come 
 in from the fields. They look like red cherries and are 
 almost as soft. We take up one and bite into it. The 
 taste is not bad ; and we chew away at it until the skin 
 and pulp have separated from the two hard beans which 
 lie within, their flat sides touching each other. We take 
 the beans out of our mouths and look at them. They are 
 white, and it is only when we cut off the outer envelopes 
 or skins, in which each seed lies, that we find the hard 
 green coffee beans of our grocery stores. Every bean has 
 two skins ; an outer one somewhat like parchment, and 
 another within as thin as fine tissue paper. These skins 
 must both be taken off before the beans can be sent to our 
 markets.
 
 304 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW IHE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The first process is getting rid of the pulp. The berries 
 are run through machines which crush them without 
 injuring the seeds, making a mush of the pulp and seeds. 
 This mush is now carried over a long copper cylinder, 
 in which arc hundreds of holes, each just big enough for a 
 coffee bean to pass through. As the mush passes over the 
 
 Coffee drying outside a Brazilian factory. 
 
 cylinder, the beans drop through the holes and are carried 
 away by a little canal, into large vats. Here they are 
 scoured clean by machinery, a great screw moving around 
 among them and leaving them as white as snow. 
 
 The next process is drying, in order that the skins may 
 be crushed and taken off. The white beans are spread 
 upon the cement fioors outside the factory and are left in
 
 COFFEE 
 
 305 
 
 the sun for several weeks, until each is as dry as a bone. 
 During this time they are stirred about with rakes, in order 
 that they may dry evenly, and are covered up at night, so 
 that they may not get wet. 
 
 The third process is the skinning. Every little bean has 
 to have its clothes taken off. Its thick overcoat of parch- 
 ment must be removed and the tissue-paper-like under- 
 clothes, sometimes called the silver skin, must be torn 
 away, so that it may go in its olive-green nakedness to our 
 markets. This undressing is done by machinery which 
 breaks the skins, and by fanning mills which free the 
 chaff from the beans, blowing it away while the beans 
 flow off by themselves. 
 
 The cleaned coffee beans are of different sizes. Some 
 are large and some small, some round and some almost fiat. 
 They must now be separated and graded before they are 
 ready for shipment. This is done by passing them over 
 sieves, so arranged that the grains are graded and run out 
 through different pipes into bags ready to be shipped to 
 the markets. 
 
 Coffee is usually sorted into varieties, as to char- 
 acter, size, and quality. These vary according to the 
 soil in which the plants grow and also according to the 
 parts of the plant from which the berries come. There 
 are also different varieties of the coffee tree, such as 
 the Arabian, the Liberian, and others, each of which has 
 its own kind of fruit. There are certain grades known to 
 the market ; and some of the beans are shipped abroad as 
 Mocha, some as Java, and some as Peaberrv Rio, and 
 others. The fact that a coffee bears the name of Mocha 
 is no proof that it came from Arabia ; and very little of the 
 
 FOODS — 20
 
 3o6 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW II IK WORLD IS KED 
 
 coffee sold in our groceries as Java ever saw the island 
 of Java in the Dutch East Indies. 
 
 Coffee is shipped in sacks, each of which holds one 
 hundred and thirty-two pounds ; and in this shape it is 
 taken on the cars to Santos or to Rio de Janeiro, and there 
 
 loaded upon steamers 
 
 which carry it to the 
 United States or to 
 Europe. 
 
 Leaving Brazil, let 
 us now take a look 
 at some of the coffee 
 regions of Java. The 
 mountain slopes in 
 many parts of that 
 island are covered 
 with coffee trees. 
 Java lies near the 
 h2quator, and its cli- 
 mate is so hot that 
 the trees need to be 
 shaded. When the 
 coffee is young, ba- 
 in Java cotlee trees are shaded. ^^^^ plants are USed 
 
 for this purpose, and, later on, larger trees, the leaves of 
 which meet together overhead and shut out the hot sun. 
 In some parts of the island there are estates where the 
 best of machinery is used, much like the plantation we 
 have visited in Brazil. In others the trees are in small 
 orchards, each owned or rented by a family, who take 
 care of them and gather the crop. The children aid
 
 COFFEE 307 
 
 in the picking, the Httle brown boys and girls moving in 
 and out of the green bushes, stripping off the red berries 
 and carrying them home to be dried in the sun. After 
 this, all unite in pounding the hulls off in wooden mortars, 
 and in winnowing the chaff of skins and hulls by throw- 
 ing it into the air. They carry the beans to the ware- 
 houses belonging to the government or to private parties 
 and sell them for so much a pound. 
 
 The coffee soil of Java is usually of a chocolate-brown 
 color, and some of it has a reddish tinge, like that of Brazil. 
 Java is a land of volcanoes, and many of its volcanoes 
 spout forth mud instead of stones. The mud contains rich 
 fertilizing matter which, when dry, turns to a fine dust 
 and enriches the soil. This dust is known as volcanic 
 ash and is excellent for coffee. A somewhat similar soil 
 is found on our coffee estates in Hawaii. 
 
 I have seen coffee trees growing luxuriantly in the 
 southern part of our Philippine Islands. Here I also 
 observed a process of coffee manufacture of an almost 
 savage nature. It was on a little plantation on the island 
 of Sulu, where the Moros were employed in harvesting the 
 crop. The ripe berries had been brought in from the trees 
 and handed to a score of Moro women and girls, each of 
 whom had a large tin pan by her side. The berries were 
 hulled by putting them in the mouth and chewing them 
 until the pulp was free from the seeds. After this both 
 pulp and seeds were dropped out into the pan, and later 
 on the pulp was washed away from the seeds in a creek 
 near by. The beans were dried in the sun, and the two 
 skins taken off by pounding the beans with a wooden 
 pestle, in a mortar dug out of the upright end of the log.
 
 3o8 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD iS FED 
 
 We raise excellent coffee in Porto Rico. Many of the 
 mountainous parts of this island are covered with coffee 
 trees ; and every October there is a wealth of rich red 
 coffee berries shining out of the green leaves. The pick- 
 ing season lasts several months ; and our little Porto Rican 
 cousins aid their parents in gathering the berries into bas- 
 kets and in carrying them to the factory on their heads. 
 Much of the coffee is harvested in the interior and taken 
 to the ports on the backs of ponies, and not a Httle 
 goes in great carts, hauled by oxen yoked up by their 
 horns. Porto Rican coffee is carefully sorted after it 
 reaches the ports. It is especially prized by the coffee 
 drinkers of Europe and is yearly growing in favor in 
 the United States. 
 
 The coffee, as it comes to us from the countries where 
 it is raised, is in the raw olive-green beans which make 
 the coffee of commerce. In this shape it is sold in all 
 our grocery stores. Before it is used for drinking, the 
 coffee must be roasted and ground. Many people do 
 this at home, but there are also large establishments 
 which make a business of roasting and grinding coffee, 
 and the beans so roasted and ground are to be found 
 almost everywhere. 
 
 42. TEA 
 
 LET us take a cup of tea with some of our friends 
 in Japan, while we learn about a wonderful plant 
 which furnishes a drink used by millions of people in 
 many parts of the world. We are sitting in a tea house 
 near Uji, on the edge of one of the best tea gardens of
 
 TEA 309 
 
 the Japanese Empire. We took off our shoes upon enter- 
 ing, in order not to soil the soft white mats, and are 
 now sitting with our hosts upon little cushions, flat on 
 the floor. How delightful it is ! The walls have been 
 shoved back, and the air, fragrant with the odor of 
 green tea leaves, blows through. We can almost pick the 
 flowers which are blossoming outside the house ; and that 
 mountain stream flowing by seems to gurgle a welcome 
 to us straight-eyed boys and girls from a far-away land. 
 
 Now a little Japanese waitress in a dark blue kimona 
 and white foot mittens trots in with some tiny blue 
 cups on a tray. She first salutes us by getting down 
 on her knees and sucking in her breath, as she bows her 
 head to the floor. She then hands each of us a cup of 
 steaming straw-colored liquor which has a delicious aroma. 
 It is the best of Japanese tea. We drink it slowly, 
 native fashion, taking three long sips and a short one, 
 sucking in our breath loudly as we do so. The more 
 noise we make in drinking, the better our host will be 
 pleased ; for this shows that we appreciate the quality 
 of the tea and like it. 
 
 Tea has been used in Japan and China for ages; and 
 the people of these countries drink more tea to-day than 
 all tbe rest of the world put together. The amount con- 
 sumed by them in one year has been estimated at more 
 than two thousand million pounds, which is about three 
 times as much as is used by the people of Europe, North 
 America, and other tea-drinking countries. The British, 
 whether at home in England, Ireland, or Scotland, or 
 abroad in Australia, South Africa, or Canada, are the 
 chief tea drinkers of the white race. They consume from
 
 3IO FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 f(Hir to eight pounds a year for each person, while the peo- 
 ple of the United States and of the other countries of 
 Europe each drink on the average only one pound or less. 
 The Russians are especially fond of tea ; every well-to-do 
 family keeps a samovar of boiling water ready for making it. 
 The samovar is a metal urn with a central tube in which 
 live charcoal is placed. They usually serve tea in tumblers, 
 without milk, flavoring it with a slice of lemon ; and many 
 of them, in drinking it, put a lump of loaf sugar between the 
 teeth and suck the tea through it. In many English homes 
 tea is served every afternoon and often instead of coffee 
 for breakfast. Here in Japan it is offered us the moment 
 we enter a house ; and the natives seem to be drinking 
 it from morning until night. 
 
 Where does tea come from ? It is from the evergreen 
 leaves of bushes, such as we see on all sides in the 
 gardens about us. The bushes are from three to five 
 feet in height, and the leaves resemble those of a rose 
 bush or a willow tree. It is from the young tender 
 light green leaves which those women and children are 
 picking that the best tea is made. Notice how they 
 move about among the bushes, plucking off leaf after leaf 
 and putting the leaves in baskets. They are careful which 
 leaves they pick and try to get all the young ones. 
 There are some girls who have filled their baskets and 
 are carrying them to the tea factory, where the leaves 
 will be dried and will then become the little twisted-up 
 tea of our grocery stores. 
 
 The tea plant belongs to the same family as the 
 camellia. It is a native of subtropical Asia and grows 
 wild on the slopes of the Himalaya Mountains. It has
 
 TEA 
 
 311 
 
 been cultivated for hundreds of years in Japan and 
 China ; but only within the last century has it been 
 grown commercially in India, Ceylon, and Java, from 
 where more than half the tea exported now comes. The 
 wild plants grow to a height of fifteen or more feet, but 
 the cultivated ones are trimmed back and are usually kept 
 
 Japanese women and children picking te: 
 
 only three, four, or five feet in height. Tea plants are 
 quite hardy, and it is believed that they can be grown 
 in parts of our Southern States. Indeed, a successful 
 plantation has been established in South Carolina. 
 
 In growing tea, the seeds are sown in nurseries or in 
 the gardens themselves. The plants are set out so close 
 together that fifteen hundred or more can be grown on an
 
 312 FOODS; OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 acre. They require a rich soil and must be cultivated and 
 weeded until they are three years old, when the leaves are 
 first plucked for tea. They produce more leaves as they 
 grow older. After the first picking the tea is gathered 
 several times every season, the limbs being trimmed off 
 from time to time, so that the bush, although only a few 
 feet in height, grows after a while quite a thick trunk. 
 In some localities the bushes are cut down to the ground 
 every ten years and new ones are allowed to sprout from 
 the stumps. 
 
 The best tea comes from the young leaves and the buds 
 just ready to 'open. In Japan there are three pickings 
 every year, and in some parts of China, four. The first 
 is in April, when the buds have just unfolded and are 
 covered with fine silky hair. The second is in May or 
 June, and the third and fourth later on. As the summer 
 wanes, the leaves lose in quality, and, although only the 
 tenderest are taken, those picked last make very poor tea. 
 
 Tea varies also in flavor, according to the soil and 
 locality in which it is grown. Some of the choicest 
 tea is so valuable to the Chinese and the Japanese that 
 it is seldom exported. I have tasted tea in Canton, in 
 southern China, which the merchants there told me was 
 worth twenty dollars a pound ; and teas are grown in 
 Japan, the first pickings of which bring five times as much 
 there as any tea sold in our markets. 
 
 In Japan and China most of the tea is raised in small 
 gardens, although there are parts of each country where 
 the little tea farms all together cover many acres, the green 
 bushes extending on and on for long distances in every 
 direction. In the regions south of the Yangtse River
 
 TEA 313 
 
 there are thousands of porters who carry the tea on their 
 backs to the markets. In India, Ceylon, and Java the tea 
 is raised on large estates, some of which employ hundreds 
 of hands. The Sinagar tea plantation, which I visited in 
 Java, was then producing more than a million pounds of 
 the finest tea every year ; and it had, in some seasons, as 
 many as three thousand women and girls picking tea. 
 They were paid less than half a cent each for every 
 pound of leaves, and the best pickers could make only 
 a few cents a day. It takes several pounds of tea leaves 
 to make a pound of tea, and a single bush seldom yields 
 more than one pound of leaves each year. 
 
 The Sinagar estate had great factories in which the tea 
 was cured by machinery. The leaves were first spread out 
 on the floor to wilt and were then put into roUing ma- 
 chines, by which they were rubbed about over tables, so 
 that they lost their flat shape and came out looking 
 more like little green worms than anything else. They were 
 next put through a process of fermentation and then dried 
 by hot blasts and revolving fans, after which they were 
 ready to be packed up into lead lined, damp proof boxes, 
 for export to all parts of the world. 
 
 Here in Japan and also in China most of the tea is 
 cured by hand. There are two ways of doing this, ac- 
 cording as green or black tea is desired. In making 
 green tea, the fresh leaves are roasted in pans or steamed 
 for a short time immediately after they are gathered. They 
 are now rolled with the bare hand upon a table and are then 
 taken back and again roasted in ovens for an hour or 
 more. As the roasting goes on, they are stirred and 
 rolled about; and, when they come out, they are of a dark
 
 314 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 green color, which grows Hghter after a time. The roast- 
 ing is done without fermentation. 
 
 In curing black teas, the leaves are first exposed to the 
 sun on circular trays. During this time they ferment, 
 wilt, and become limp and spotted with red or brown, 
 giving out a peculiar odor. The workmen watch the tea 
 and, when the odor is just right, gather it up in baskets 
 
 Sorting tea. 
 
 and spread it out on a long table, where men and women 
 roll it over and over for about thirty minutes and then 
 pack it tightly in large round baskets, where it again fer- 
 ments. It is now poured out on the tables and again 
 rolled, and then roasted on iron gauze sieves over charcoal 
 fires. During the roasting the color turns black. 
 
 After leaving the roasting or firing rooms the tea is 
 sorted and all the seeds, stalks, and rubbish are picked out.
 
 TEA 
 
 315 
 
 The leaves are then ready to be shipped to the ports, 
 whence they go to the markets. At the ports some teas 
 are again roasted and sorted ; so that the tea for a single 
 cup passes through many hands. 
 
 The chief of the black teas known to commerce are 
 the following, beginning with the finest : Flowery Pekoe, 
 Orange Pekoe, Pekoe, Suchong, Oolong, Congou, and Bohio. 
 The chief green teas are: Gunpowder, Imperial, Hyson, 
 Young Hyson, and Hyson skin. Teas are also classed 
 according to the provinces whence they come, and in other 
 ways. The Formosa teas are especially fine, as are also 
 some from Ceylon and from 
 India. In curing tea, the 
 leaves are often mixed with 
 certain flowers for a time to 
 give them a fragrant odor. 
 In China and Japan green 
 teas are sometimes colored 
 with indigo, Prussian blue, 
 and other materials. The 
 Chinese call colored teas 
 " lie teas." 
 
 There is another form in 
 which tea is largely exported 
 to Russia. This is brick 
 tea. In making it, the leaves are ground up and steamed 
 until they are soft and mushy. They are then put into 
 molds of about the size of a brick and pressed into shape. 
 When they come out they are as hard as so much pressed 
 clay, and the tea in them will keep fresh for a long time. 
 The choice leaves are made into smaller bricks which look 
 
 Brick tea.
 
 3l6 IT)Ons : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 much like the httle cakes of chocolate that are sold in our 
 stores. J-?rick tea is packed up in boxes of the right size 
 to be carried by camels, in caravans, across Asia to Russia. 
 One of the chief places at which this tea^tfTnanufacturcd 
 is Hankow ; and it can now be taken thence by rail to 
 Pekin and over the Trans-Siberian Railroad through Russia 
 to all parts of Europe. 
 
 Brick tea is largely used in Tibet and Mongolia. The 
 natives there make a soup of tea, butter, and salt mixed 
 with water, to which a thick cream is added. The Mon- 
 gols prize the bricks so much that they sometimes use 
 them as money, each brick passing for the value of about 
 fifteen cents. 
 
 The tea importers of Europe and America have their 
 buyers in the tea-growing countries. These men pick out 
 the best teas. Thev must be able to tell good from bad 
 tea before purchasing. They examine, smell, and taste 
 the samples of tea, each made from a different kind of 
 leaf, and can tell just how much each kind is worth. 
 
 Most of the teas are packed for export in wooden 
 chests which are lined with sheet lead to keep out the 
 moisture. A great strife prevails among the tea steamers 
 as to which shall get its cargo first to the markets. After 
 loading, the shi[)s start from China and Japan on their long 
 race down to Singapore and across the Indian Ocean to 
 the Suez Canal, and on through the Mediterranean to Eu- 
 rope. Their arrival is eagerly awaited, and the tea that 
 comes in first brings the highest price. A large part of 
 our tea is brought by fast ships across the Pacific, being 
 landed at either Seattle or Vancouver, whence it is sent by 
 rail to all parts of our country.
 
 CACAO — CHOCOLATE .AND COCOA ^l^ 
 
 43. CACAO — CHOCOLATE AND COCOA 
 
 WHEN the Spaniards, commanded by Hernando Cor- 
 tez, conquered Mexico, they found the natives using 
 a drink made from the ground-up seeds of a fruit that 
 grew on a tree. The Emperor Montezuma was so fond of 
 it that he had some made for him daily, and about two 
 thousand jars for his household. The drink was served to 
 him smoking hot, in golden goblets ; and he sipped it 
 from spoons of fine tortoise shell. The seeds of this tree 
 were so valued by the Aztecs that they used them as 
 money ; and a good double handful, in some localities, 
 was the price of a slave. Pizarro found the Incas 
 using the same drink in Peru ; and his soldiers, as those 
 of Cortez, tried the beverage and liked it. They carried 
 the seeds of the tree back to Spain ; and from there the 
 knowledge of the new drink gradually spread, until it was 
 known throughout Europe, and the seeds became an im- 
 portant article of commerce. 
 
 This drink was chocolate, and the tree from which the 
 seeds came was the cacao tree, which is now commercially 
 grown in many tropical parts of the world. It is a native 
 of Central and South America, and it was cultivated by 
 the Indians long before white men crossed the Atlantic. 
 It is now raised largely, not only in Mexico, Central 
 America, and the West Indies, but also in Ecuador, Colom- 
 bia, Venezuela, and Brazil. It has been taken to the 
 islands and countries along the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, to 
 southeastern Asia, to the Philippines, Hawaii, Java, and 
 even to Samoa and the other islands of the South Seas.
 
 3i8 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW TITE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The world's demand for cacao has become so great that 
 several hundred million pounds of it are annually exported 
 to the various markets, and every nation of Christendom 
 
 delights in it as a 
 drink and also in 
 candies, cakes, and 
 puddings. 
 
 What is more de- 
 licious than a cup of 
 sweet chocolate for 
 breakfast ? And how 
 our mouths water 
 when we think of 
 chocolate caramels, 
 creams, or the little 
 cubes of sweet choco- 
 late made in different 
 ways. The use of 
 chocolate is steadily 
 increasing in our 
 
 Javanese women sorting cacau. country and also in 
 
 many other parts of the world. For a long time the Span- 
 iards consumed more than any other nation. They were 
 the first to know the secrets of chocolate manufacture, and 
 they held, for a time, the monopoly of the trade. Now 
 almost every one understands how to make chocolate, and 
 we ourselves import more cacao seeds than any other 
 nation. The drink is used throughout Europe; and the 
 Germans, French, British, and Dutch now each consume 
 far more of it than the Spaniards. 
 
 The cacao tree is an evergreen which seldom grows
 
 CACAO — CHOCOLATE AND COCOA 
 
 319 
 
 more than fifteen or twenty feet high and which in culti- 
 vation is often kept lower by trimming. The tree has 
 large glossy leaves which grow chiefly on the ends of the 
 branches, but sometimes on the trunk. It has small pink- 
 ish white blossoms on the trunk and the main branches. 
 Its fruit when ripe is somewhat like a cucumber in 
 shape and is six or eight, or even more, inches long and 
 sometimes six inches thick, 
 and grows upon short stems 
 on the trunk or the branches. 
 The ripe fruit has a thick 
 hard warty skin inclosing 
 a sweet pulp, in which are 
 many reddish brown seeds, 
 — the cacao beans of com- 
 merce. There are from 
 twenty to thirty, and some- 
 times even forty, of these 
 seeds in one fruit ; and they 
 He in five cells, each cell 
 filled with this soft pink or 
 white pulp. The seeds are 
 about as big as sweet almonds, only a little thicker. Each 
 seed consists of a shell containing a dark brown kernel, 
 which is more than half oil. From this kernel our choco- 
 late is made. 
 
 In raising cacao trees, the seeds, are first planted in 
 nurseries or out in the fields. They sprout quickly and 
 soon grow a foot or more high. They are now trans- 
 planted, about two hundred and fifty to the acre, in fields 
 shaded with bananas and are carefully weeded until they are 
 
 Cacao.
 
 3-0 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW 11 IK WORLD IS FED 
 
 four or five years old, when they begin to bear fruit. They 
 are in full bearing at about the eighth year, when a good 
 tree will yield about eight thousand seeds, and they con- 
 tinue to bear for many years. 
 
 In Venezuela, which is one of the most important of 
 the cacao-jrrowing countries, the fruit is harvested twice a 
 
 Cacao harvester at work. 
 
 year. It is cut from the trees, the pods on the higher 
 branches being chopped off with sharp knives fastened to 
 long poles and the fruit caught as it falls. In some coun- 
 tries the seeds are at once removed and washed, but in 
 others they are covered up and allowed to ferment in ves- 
 sels, in heaps on the ground or in holes under it, until the 
 pulp decays. After this the beans, or seeds, are taken
 
 CACAO — CHOCOLATE AND COCOA 321 
 
 out, dried in the sun, and shipped in bags to the markets. 
 The ordinary yield of a tree is two or three pounds of 
 seeds per year, although some trees produce much more, 
 a good crop being five or six hundred pounds to the 
 acre. 
 
 After the cacao beans have reached the markets, they 
 have yet a number of processes to go through before they, 
 become chocolate or cocoa. These are performed in great 
 factories filled with modern machinery. Here the beans 
 are first cleansed of dust and other stuff. They are then 
 roasted in large revolving cylinders in which they are 
 moved over hot pipes for several hours. They are next 
 crushed to get out the kernels, the shells and dust being 
 taken away by an air blast to be treated separately and 
 sold under the name of cacao shells. 
 
 It is from the crushed kernels, freed from the shells, 
 that the real chocolate conies. These are put into mills, 
 through hoppers above, and are ground into a fine smooth 
 paste which flows out somewhat like thick molasses. It 
 is run off into molds, in which it soon hardens, and it is then 
 ready to be packed up for sale to our grocery stores. In 
 making sweet chocolate, sugar is added before it is 
 molded ; and, for vanilla chocolate, some vanilla extract, 
 or finely ground vanilla beans. 
 
 Cacao nibs, or the broken pieces of the beans after the 
 shell is removed, are sometimes used to make chocolate or 
 cocoa. An essence of cocoa is also made from them, which 
 can be used by pouring boiling water upon it. In the manu- 
 facture of chocolate and cocoa, a large part of the fat is 
 removed and placed upon the market as cocoa butter, to 
 
 be used for medicinal purposes. 
 FOODS — 21
 
 322 FOODS : OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 In addition to tea, coffee, and cacao, there are other 
 plants and trees which furnish stimulants or drinks in 
 different parts of the world. The coca plant is chewed 
 by the Indians of Bolivia and of Peru. It is a shrub which 
 grows four or five feet high, with leaves that look like 
 those of our wintergreen. The leaves are stimulating, 
 and many of the Indians chew them all day long. It 
 is from this shrub that cocaine is made. 
 
 In southeastern Asia and the islands about the people 
 chew the leaves of the betel pepper, which they mix with 
 lime and bits of areca nuts ; and in Africa the nuts of the 
 kola tree are chewed for their invigorating properties. 
 
 In Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil the people 
 make a tea called yerba mate, from the leaves of a species 
 of wild holly, found in Paraguay and Brazil. The plant 
 is also cultivated. The branches are cut off and the 
 leaves are woven in and over them, as a thatch over a 
 framework. Beneath this a fire is built and is kept burn- 
 ing until the leaves are perfectly dry. They are then taken 
 down and pounded with flat wooden clubs to a coarse 
 powder, which is packed up in rawhide bales for the mar- 
 kets. More than a million dollars' worth of such bales 
 are sold every year. 
 
 In preparing mate for use, a spoonful of powder is put 
 into a bowl, hot water is poured on, and after a short time 
 a tea is formed,which is sucked up through a tube. This tea 
 is very refreshing when one is tired. Many South Ameri- 
 cans use it for their early breakfast, and it is said that the 
 cowboys of Argentina can gallop all day on horseback 
 without eating, if they have a good cup of mate before 
 they start out.
 
 TOBACCO 323 
 
 44. TOBACCO 
 
 TOBACCO is not a food plant, but it is so largely used 
 and so important to commerce and industry that we 
 must learn something about it. It was not known until 
 the discovery of America; and one of the most wonderful 
 stories which the Spaniards who went with Columbus told 
 upon their return to Europe was how the Indians ate fire 
 and breathed the smoke from their nostrils. Many of 
 these Spaniards had learned to smoke tobacco, as the In- 
 dians did, and after a while the custom was introduced 
 into Europe and became fashionable among the ladies 
 and gentlemen of the time. Tobacco leaves were first 
 carried from Santo Domingo to Spain in 1559, and, a few 
 years later, some were taken by Sir Francis Drake from 
 Virginia to England. Sir Walter Raleigh then started the 
 fashion of pipe smoking at the court of Queen Eliza- 
 beth. Shortly after this tobacco began to spread over 
 the world, and it is now used in some form or other in 
 almost every part of it. 
 
 As for ourselves, we think man is better off without 
 tobacco ; and this was the opinion of many at the time it 
 began to be used. It was then denounced as injurious; 
 and James I of England described smoking as "loathsome 
 to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dan- 
 gerous to the lungs, and in its black fumes, nearest resem- 
 bling the Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." 
 Some of the popes of those days declared against smoking, 
 and a Sultan of Turkey made tobacco using a crime. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the evil custom steadily grew,
 
 324 
 
 FOODS : OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 and the demand for tobacco became great. Plantations 
 were set out in Virginia and Maryland, and, for a long time, 
 
 Tobacco field in Virginia. 
 
 most of the wealth of those colonies came from them. 
 The crop was so valuable that taxes were paid in to- 
 bacco, and it was used as money. Some young women 
 were once sent across the Atlantic Ocean from England 
 to the colonies, to be chosen by the settlers as wives ; and 
 each groom paid for his bride's passage between one hun- 
 dred and twenty andone hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco. 
 For a long time Maryland and Virginia were our only 
 tobacco producers. A little later tobacco was planted in 
 Pennsylvania and in other parts of the north, and it is now 
 grown in almost every one of the United States, although,
 
 TOBACCO 
 
 325 
 
 on a large scale, in comparatively few. Our chief tobacco 
 States are Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and 
 Tennessee ; and our crop all together is so large that it could 
 furnish more than ten pounds to every man, woman, and 
 child of us. 
 
 The cultivation of the tobacco plant has long been ex- 
 tended to other countries ; and it is now grown on all the 
 continents and on many islands of the seas. It is one of 
 the chief products of the West Indies, some of the finest 
 tobacco of the world being grown in Cuba and Porto Rico. 
 Excellent varieties are also produced in Sumatra, Java, 
 
 H^'^ 
 
 ■■FH ! ~ 
 
 Eibi^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 Making cigars in a Manila factory. 
 
 and the Philippine Islands. The United States, however, 
 grows more tobacco than any other country ; and we 
 export vast quantities of it, sending some to almost every 
 part of the world. Our chief exports go to Germany, Eng- 
 land, France, Austria, and Holland. 
 
 We use a large amount of it at home ; and, as this lux-
 
 326 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 ury is heavily taxed, those who smoke, chew, or snuff, aid 
 greatly in paying the expenses of our government, our 
 tobacco revenue amounting to many million dollars a year. 
 
 The quality of tobacco depends largely upon the soil, 
 cHmate, and method of cultivation. Different soils pro- 
 duce different tobaccoes, and some tobaccoes will grow 
 better in certain localities than in others. There is a re- 
 gion in western Cuba from which come the finest cigars ; 
 and the tobaccoes of Sumatra and of Connecticut are espe- 
 cially valued for their thin, silky leaves, from which cigar 
 wrappers are made. Other localities produce the tobacco 
 which is used inside the wrappers ; and some are espe- 
 cially noted for their fine smoking tobaccoes, cigarette 
 tobaccoes, and tobaccoes for chewing and for snuffing. 
 
 The tobacco plant grows from three to five feet in height, 
 and often much taller. Its leaves have some resemblance 
 to cabbage leaves ; but they are longer and thinner and 
 of a dark green color. The plants are grown from the 
 seeds, and when one looks at them he would naturally 
 think that the seeds must be large. They are, on the con- 
 trary, about the smallest of all seeds. The tobacco seed 
 is not bigger than the point of a pin, and any of us could, I 
 venture to say, hold a hundred thousand of them in one 
 hand. A single plant will grow more than half a million 
 seeds, or enough to plant about one hundred acres of to- 
 bacco. 
 
 In setting out a tobacco plantation, the first thing is to 
 make a plant bed in which the seeds can be sprouted. In 
 the United States this is often done by covering a piece 
 of ground with wood and burning the wood, so that all the 
 insects, vegetable matter, and other seeds in the ground are
 
 TOBACCO 327 
 
 cooked out. After this the bed is manured and the to- 
 bacco seeds are sown. A wide sheet of very thin cloth is 
 now stretched over the bed to hold in the heat and to keep 
 out the insects. In a short time the little seeds swell and 
 sprout, and the baby plants push their heads through the 
 soil. They first look like cabbage plants, and they are 
 soon ready to be taken up and set out in the fields. They 
 are usually planted in hills at about four thousand plants 
 to the acre. This is done in the spring. They are care- 
 fully cultivated throughout the summer and are harvested 
 in the fall. 
 
 As the tobacco ripens, the leaves become yellow, and the 
 tobacco farmers then cut off the stalks close to the earth 
 and hang them on sticks stuck in the ground. In some 
 places they strip the leaves from the stalks and string them 
 on wires. 
 
 After the leaves are gathered, they must be dried and 
 cured. In some tobacco regions this is done by hanging 
 the leaves in sheds and allowing the air to pass through 
 them. In others they are cured in tobacco barns heated 
 by flues or pipes, so that the moisture is gradually driven 
 out, the barns being kept hot day and night during the 
 process. When the leaves are cured, they are tied up in 
 bundles and packed into bales for shipment. 
 
 In addition to this, the tobacco must go through various 
 other processes in the factories before it can be used. The 
 leaves are stripped from the stems which run through 
 them and then prepared in different ways to be used 
 as cigars, cigarettes, or as tobacco for pipe smoking, as 
 chewing tobacco, or as snuff. 
 
 At the present time some of our choice tobaccoes are
 
 328 
 
 FOODS : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 grown under cover. The plants are set out under great 
 tents, acre after acre being covered with cloth to protect 
 them from the hot sun and strong winds and to give them 
 
 Our choice tobaccoes are grown under cover. 
 
 the same temperature as in the tropics. There are many 
 such tent farms in Connecticut and in Florida, and also 
 in the choicest tobacco lands of the Vuelta Abajo region 
 of Cuba. 
 
 45. WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 
 
 O-DAY we shall take a peep into the world's big 
 sugar bowl and then visit some of the countries 
 which fill it. Sugar is found to some extent in almost 
 every plant that is used for food, and most largely in 
 sugar cane and in beets. Grape sugar comes from fruit, 
 
 T
 
 WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 329 
 
 palm sugar from the juice of the palm, maple sugar from 
 the sap of the maple tree, and milk sugar from cow's 
 milk. The chief commercial sugars are from sugar cane 
 and from beets ; and a larger amount of sugar is now 
 made from beets than from cane. 
 
 For a long time cane sugar was the only variety known 
 to commerce. This originated in southern Asia and was 
 made in China several thousand years before it was brought 
 into Europe. The early Egyptians and Greeks used honey 
 for sweetening, and when sugar was first carried to Europe, 
 it was so costly that it was bought only as medicine or as 
 a luxury by the very rich. 
 
 It was not until the Crusades that sugar cane was grown 
 outside of Asia. It was carried first to northern Africa 
 and later on to the Madeiras and the Canaries, which 
 islands, for a long time, supplied enough for the European 
 market. Then the New World was discovered, and the 
 cane was introduced into the West Indies. Its cultivation 
 spread to South America, and it is now grown here and 
 there throughout the tropical world. 
 
 Beet sugar, which comes from the temperate zones, is 
 a much more recent production. Marggraf, a German 
 chemist, first discovered it in 1747, and about 1801 a pupil 
 of his, named Achard, erected the first beet sugar factory. 
 At that time Napoleon Bonaparte was at war with Eng- 
 land, and the ports of France were so blockaded that 
 the French could not get sugar. Napoleon then decided 
 to raise sugar at home, and he offered a prize of one hun- 
 dred thousand francs to any one who could make a suc- 
 cess of extracting sugar from beets. 
 
 Later, both the French and the German governments
 
 330 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 paid bounties of so much a pound on all sugar made from 
 beets in their respective countries, and in time a great beet 
 industry grew up. Other countries did likewise ; and to-day 
 beets are grown for sugar not only in Europe, but in many 
 parts of the United States. In 1840 only five per cent of 
 our sugar came from this source, while more than ninety 
 per cent of it came from cane; but now about fifty per 
 cent of it is beet sugar. 
 
 In the meantime the world's sugar production has 
 been steadily increasing. In 1840 it amounted to a little 
 more than one million tons, whereas it is now about eigh- 
 teen millions. Of this more than one half comes from 
 cane. 
 
 The use of sugar in the United States is rapidly increas- 
 ing. When our parents were children the people ate only 
 about one third as much as they eat at present. We are 
 now annually consuming more than twice as much sugar 
 as the whole world did in 1840; we eat an average of 
 seventy-five pounds the year through for each person in 
 the United States, or a pound and a half every week. 
 Sugar is largely a luxury, and only those nations which 
 are well-to-do can eat much of it. We Americans are 
 among the richest of the world's peoples. We eat more 
 than twice as much sugar as the Germans or the French, 
 and several times as much as any other nation of Europe 
 except the British, whose per capita consumption is greatly 
 increased by the large amount they use in making jellies 
 and jams for export. 
 
 Our sugar costs us more than our coffee or tea or any 
 other article of food that we buy from abroad. At five cents 
 a pound, the seventy-five pounds of sugar which each of us
 
 WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 331 
 
 annually uses costs three dollars and seventy-five cents ; 
 whereas the barrel of flour which we each use in one year 
 costs only five or six dollars; so that we pay more than half 
 as much for sugar as for bread. Moreover, we raise our 
 own wheat ; whereas, the most of our sugar is imported, 
 and we often pay out in one year, to other nations, as 
 much as one hundred million dollars for it. 
 
 Now let us take a flying trip southward to the land where 
 the sugar cane grows. The greater part of the sugar cane 
 raised in the United States comes from Louisiana, and the 
 country for miles about the low moist delta of the Mis- 
 sissippi River is covered with sugar plantations. We also 
 get a great deal of sugar cane in Porto Rico and in the 
 Philippine Islands; and, in the Hawaiian Islands, we 
 have some of the largest, best, and most profitable sugar 
 estates of the world. The sugar lands of Hawaii lie 
 along the coast and on the lower slopes of the moun- 
 tains. They are mostly owned by companies with large, 
 capital and are worked by thousands of natives or Asiatics 
 under white overseers and managers. Most of the hard 
 labor is done by Japanese and Chinese men and women, 
 who have little villages on the estates, where they live much 
 as they do in their homes on the other side of the Pacific. 
 
 Many of these plantations are irrigated, and on some 
 the water is brought from the mountains, through wooden 
 troughs many miles long. Oa others it is pumped great 
 distances, and the expense of getting it to all parts of the 
 plantations is enormous. The larger establishments have 
 railroads which carry the cane to the mills and steam 
 plows to cultivate the soil. 
 
 How beautiful it is ! We ride on the cars through walls
 
 332 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 of bright green stalks which grow upward to a height of 
 ten or twelve feet, looking from the car windows like a 
 solid mass of green. The stalks remind us of those of 
 Indian corn, save that they are much taller and have many- 
 more leaves than the cornstalks. The canes grow more 
 closely together, and the long stalks bend this way and 
 
 Planting sugar cane in the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 t 
 
 that, so that it is almost impossible to make one's way 
 
 through the rows. 
 
 At one place we watch them planting the cane. The 
 land has been plowed, and great furrows, seven feet apart, 
 have been run from one side of the field to the other. 
 Then stalks of fresh sugar cane, tritnmed and topped, are 
 laid horizontally, three abreast in the rows, the pieces over- 
 lapping each other so that each furrow has, as it were, three
 
 WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 
 
 333 
 
 long pipes of cane running from one end of it to the other. 
 Each piece of cane has joints like a cornstalk, and at each 
 joint there is a little eye, much like that of a potato. The 
 soil is thrown over the furrows to cover the cane, and after 
 a short time each of these little eyes bursts out into a sprout, 
 which makes its way up through the ground, looking just 
 like Indian corn when it first comes through the soil. 
 
 The cane grows rapidly. It is plowed, and the weeds are 
 kept out. By August the plants are taller than a man, and 
 
 1^^^^ 
 
 ^M^P 
 
 ^^pSgE^^^^^p 
 
 
 w^^^S^-^^^^r^^W^^^^f^'^^^rf^^^^^ 
 
 »n0r 
 
 West Indians cutting sugar cane. 
 
 they continue to grow until the middle of October, when 
 they are ready to be cut for sugar. After they have been 
 cut new canes will sprout up from the stumps and give a 
 second or a third crop ; while in some countries, such as 
 Cuba, the stalks will sprout again and again, yielding 
 sugar for fifteen or even more years.
 
 334 FOODS. OR now the world is fed 
 
 As we ride onward through the plantation, we can see 
 the smoke rising from the great sugar mills, scattered here 
 and there over the landscape ; and we now and then pass an 
 estate where they are loading the cane upon the cars which 
 take it to the mills. There are scores of men and women 
 at work. Each has a long knife like a corncutter in his 
 hand, and this flashes in the sunlight, as he chops his way 
 through the green wall. The cane falls, stalk by stalk, as 
 the workers move onward. The men seem to know just 
 how many strokes to use, so that not a motion is wasted. 
 They cut the cane close to the ground, for the most juice 
 is found near the bottom of the stalk ; and strip off the 
 tops and the leaves, from which very little sugar can be 
 made. The cut stalks are thrown into piles, or windrows, 
 
 A sugar train going to the mill. 
 
 where they are gathered up by those carts which are com- 
 ing in now, and are taken to the cars. This plantation has 
 many miles of railroad upon it, and the little engines puff 
 and blow, as they pull the heavy cane to the mills. 
 
 Our next experience is in the great sugar mills them-
 
 WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 
 
 335 
 
 selves. We have ridden in on a train load of cane and 
 have watched the men throw it off upon a moving belt, or 
 roadway, which carries it to the top of the great building 
 and drops it down upon the heavy iron rollers which squeeze 
 the juice out. These rollers are so arranged that the pres- 
 sure between them is enormous. Each is as big around as 
 a hogshead and very much longer. They have teeth like 
 
 Interior of a crushing mill. 
 
 an enormous file, which catch the cane and crush it, while 
 the weight makes the juice flow out in a stream. The 
 crushed cane goes from one series of rollers to another, and 
 at the end it is as dry as a bone. Indeed, it is so dry that 
 it forms excellent fuel. It is carried by a moving belt 
 from the rollers and dropped into the furnaces. Here, 
 as fuel, it makes the steam which is to squeeze the juice 
 from the stalks yet to come. 
 
 We now go around under the rollers and examine the
 
 336 FOODS : UK now THh; WORLD IS FED 
 
 juice. It is pouring down from the squeezed stalks and 
 flowing off in a trough about a foot wide. It has bubbles 
 on top and looks sloppy. It reminds one of dishwater and 
 is so sweet that the taste sickens us. And still it is out of 
 this dirty water that the pure white sugar must come. The 
 dirt and all the impurities will, however, be taken out; and 
 it will be as clear as crystal before it is boiled down into 
 sugar. 
 
 The water is first bleached by running it into large iron 
 tanks through which flow streams of sulphur gas. This 
 process makes it bubble ; and a yellow foam which rises to 
 the top is skimmed off. Lime is next put into the tank 
 to settle the dirt. After several other processes, the juice, 
 which has been skimmed again and again, is ready for 
 boiling. This is done in huge copper vats heated by coils 
 of steam pipes. The liquid flows from one vat to another, 
 growing clearer and clearer and thicker and thicker, until 
 it finally becomes a dense mass of sugar crystals mixed 
 with molasses. It looks now, for all the world, like brown 
 mush. 
 
 The next process is to get the sugar out of the molasses. 
 For this purpose cyUndrical. metal vessels are used, which 
 have walls of gauze so finely made that the molasses will' 
 go through the meshes, but the sugar crystals will remain 
 inside. In each vessel there is a shaft which is moved 
 round by machinery at the rate of a thousand or more 
 revolutions a minute. This throws the sirup against the 
 walls and forces it through the meshes. At first the walls 
 look brown ; but as the shaft continues to turn, more and 
 more of the sirup flies out, and they grow paler and paler, 
 until nothing but sugar is left. The walls now look as
 
 WHERE THE SUGAR CANE GROWS 337 
 
 though they were covered with snow ; but they are really 
 coated with the purest white sugar, as we can see 
 when the shaft stops moving and the sugar is scraped off, 
 to be carried away and packed up for the market. In 
 many mills the molasses which is thus thrown out is boiled 
 again and again to make second and third rate sugars. 
 
 Such molasses is not like the sirup sold for table use. 
 This is made from the fine juice of the cane. The refuse 
 molasses is so cheap that it does not pay to put it in bar- 
 rels, and it is often carried to the markets in tank cars and 
 sold in bulk for cattle food and for use in certain manufac- 
 tures. 
 
 The principal sugar cane countries of the world are Cuba 
 and Java, each yielding a million or so tons of sugar every 
 year. After them come Hawaii, Louisiana, Brazil, Peru, 
 several of the West Indies, Mauritius, Queensland, Argen- 
 tine, and the Philippines. The product from the several 
 countries varies according to the seasons, but, as a rule, 
 Cuba produces far more cane sugar than any other part 
 of the world. Sugar cane is now being grown in nearly 
 every province of Cuba, and about half the land cultivated 
 is devoted to that crop. 
 
 In many of these countries the methods of raising cane 
 and of extracting the juice are much more rude than those 
 we have seen. A large part of our PhiHppine sugar is 
 ground by buffaloes or in water mills, and the product 
 goes to the market in a raw or brown state, so that it must 
 then be refined and turned into white sugar before it can be 
 sold. Much of the Cuban product is sold as raw sugar, 
 and this is also the case in others of the great sugar cane 
 lands.
 
 T,^S I'OODS: OK HOW THK WORLD IS b ED 
 
 46. HKKT SUGAR, MAPLE SUGAR, AND 
 HONEY 
 
 WK have already learned that in some years the 
 United States pays out more money for sugar than 
 for any other import. In 1905 the sum thus spent was 
 almost one hundred million dollars, or more than one dol- 
 lar for every man, woman, and child in our country. Is it 
 not a pity that we do not raise this sugar at home and 
 thereby keep this vast sum in our own pockets? 
 
 As long as sugar was produced from cane only, such a 
 thing was impossible. Cane must have a rich moist soil 
 and a warm climate. It thrives best in the tropics and 
 sub-tropics, and we have only a small area in our Southern 
 States where it can be profitably grown. There are some 
 sugar cane plantations in Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the 
 Philippines ; but they are far away, and their whole prod- 
 uct could not begin to satisfy Uncle Sam's sweet tooth. 
 It is different with sugar that is made from beets. This 
 vegetable grows best in the North Temperate Zone; and 
 our country has such vast areas in which it would thrive 
 that many people believe we shall, at some future time, 
 produce all the sugar we use. There is a belt of beet 
 sugar land about two hundred miles wide which extends 
 from Delaware to Massachusetts, and runs irregularly 
 across the United States, taking in lower New England 
 and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 
 Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, 
 and North and South Dakota, and extends westward 
 almost to the Rocky Mountains. At that point the belt
 
 BEET SUGAR, MAPLE SUGAR, AND HONEY 339 
 
 drops and sweeps over a great part of Colorado, New 
 Mexico, and Arizona; after which it widens and moves 
 northward, including all of California and the most of 
 Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Sugar 
 beets can be grown elsewhere on our continent ; but in 
 this belt they produce so abundantly that, if the plants 
 were set out over even a small part of it, we might be ex- 
 porting sugar, rather than importing it. 
 
 We are already producing several hundred million 
 pounds of beet sugar every year, and we have great fac- 
 tories where the juice of the beets is made into sugar. 
 There are large tracts in Colorado, Michigan, California, 
 Utah, Nebraska, and Wisconsin which are annually planted 
 in sugar beets ; and our beet farms are rapidly increasing 
 in number and in size in many other parts of the belt. 
 
 There is no difference in the taste of beet sugar and of 
 cane sugar; one is every bit as sweet and as good as 
 the other. The juice of each plant contains similar crys- 
 tals, and they are reduced to sugar in much the same 
 way. Of the twelve million tons of sugar now sold in the 
 world's markets, about seven millions come from beets and 
 five millions from cane. These beets are grown in lands 
 ,which formerly imported cane sugar, and most abundantly 
 in Germany, Russia, Austria, France, Belgium, and Hol- 
 land. Germany produces more sugar than any other 
 coLfntry, and its sugar is made altogether from beets. 
 
 The sugar beet is not unlike the common beet of our 
 gardens. It is usually white, and the best varieties contain 
 a great deal of juice, from which sugar is made. In rais- 
 ing beets, the ground must first be deeply plowed and well 
 harrowed, and then laid off in rows about eighteen inches
 
 340 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 apart. The beets are planted from the seed, and some 
 farmers have drills which drop several rows at one time. 
 
 Sugar beets. 
 
 When the plants come up, they are thinned out so that 
 they stand six or eight inches apart in the rows. They are 
 well cultivated and are kept free from weeds, and within 
 about five months after planting are ready to be made into 
 sugar. Each beet should then be about eighteen inches 
 long, four or five inches thick at the top, and should weigh 
 a pound and a half. If the beets are of a good quality, 
 they should contain about fifteen per cent of sugar, so that 
 seven or eight good-sized ones would yield one pound. 
 Good land will often produce twelve tons of beets to the 
 acre, and these, when run through the mill, should yield 
 almost two tons of susrar.
 
 BEET SUGAR, MAPLE SUGAR, AND HONEY 
 
 341 
 
 In preparing the beets for the mill, they are dug up and 
 the leaves are cut off. They are then carried by little 
 
 
 Preparing sugar beets for the mill. 
 
 canals into washing machines, where, by revolving brushes, 
 every particle of soil and dirt is removed. After this they 
 go on into the slicers, to be cut into V-shaped pieces about 
 the length and thickness of a slate pencil, called cossettes. 
 The cossettes are dropped into the large iron tanks of the 
 diffusion batteries, which are so arranged that the beets 
 move about through them from one tank to the other. 
 Each tank is filled with warm water, and the machinery is 
 so constructed that as the cossettes pass through it, a part 
 of the sugar in them goes out into the water. More and 
 more is extracted in each tank and at the end of the pro- 
 cess almost all the sugar has gone into the water, which is 
 now a dirty liquid, almost as black as ink. The refuse or 
 pulp is carried off by machinery into vats outside, where it 
 is used for feeding stock.
 
 342 VOODS, : OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 The inky liquid contains all the beet juice, and, like that 
 of the cane, it must be purified before being boiled down 
 to sugar. It is first run into great tanks, kept hot by steam 
 pipes. Lime is put in to precipitate the dirt, carbonic acid 
 is introduced, and by various processes the water is made 
 as clear as crystal. It is now ready for boiling. This is 
 done in great tanks filled with steam pipes. As the liquid 
 passes from one tank to the other, it grows thicker and 
 thicker, turning first to a sirup and then to a mixture of 
 sugar and molasses, like that we saw in our sugar cane mill. 
 The molasses is removed just as in making cane sugar, and 
 at the end we have the sweet white grains we use on our 
 tables. 
 
 There is another sugar made in the northern part of the 
 United States from the boiled-down sap of the maple tree. 
 The amount of this sugar is not large, in comparison with 
 that made from either cane or beets, being all together about 
 twenty-five million pounds a year. More of this is pro- 
 duced in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania than any- 
 where else. Ohio makes some maple molasses, but it does 
 not compare with those states in the production of sugar. 
 
 Our cane and beet sugars are harvested in the fall ; the 
 maple sugar season is in the early spring, when the sap be- 
 gins to flow. At this time the sugar farmers bore holes in 
 the trees, not far from the ground, and drive little spouts 
 into them. In a short while the clear white sugar water 
 flows out, drop by drop, and is caught in little buckets 
 that are hung on the spouts. When the buckets are filled, 
 which is perhaps once or twice a day, they are carried to 
 the sugar house, and the sap is put in large kettles or 
 vats to be boiled.
 
 BEET SUGAR, MAPLE SUGAR, AND HONEY 
 
 343 
 
 As the boiling goes on, the water grows thicker and 
 thicker. It turns first to a light yellow, then darker ; then 
 
 Gathering sap in a maple sugar camp in Vermont. 
 
 it becomes a molasses, and finally, a thick sirup. It is now 
 poured off into molds and left to harden into sugar. The 
 molasses for table use is taken from the fire at an earlier 
 period during the boiling and is put up in jugs or in 
 bottles to be shipped to the markets. 
 
 Maple sugar making is often done while the snow is 
 yet deep on the ground ; and at such times the sugar water 
 may be carried to the house in buckets, by men or boys 
 upon snowshoes, or in great tubs or barrels, on sleds 
 drawn by horses. 
 
 In addition to our sugars from the juices of cane, beets,
 
 344 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THK WORLD IS FED 
 
 and trees we have myriads of honeybees, which rob the 
 flowers for our tables. We eat more than sixty milUon 
 pounds of honey a year ; and we have several million peo- 
 ple who keep bees and sell honey and wax. The most of 
 our honey comes from the North Central States, although 
 more or less of it is made in every part of the Union. 
 Texas produces the most ; and then come California, New 
 York, Missouri, and Illinois, each of which yields several 
 million pounds per annum. 
 
 Honey varies in quality and in flavor, according to the 
 plants from which it is taken. That from buckwheat, for 
 instance, is dark and strong, and is not so much relished 
 as is the clear white honey that comes from sweet clover. 
 
 In gathering honey, the bee puts the sweet substance 
 extracted from the flowers into a little bag it has inside 
 
 Beehives in California. 
 
 its body. The nectar changes somewhat on the way to 
 the hive. It also changes inside the hive ; so that the
 
 SALT 345 
 
 honey we eat is not exactly the same as that the bees suck 
 from the flowers. The wax, or comb, in which the honey 
 is stored, is made by the bees from the honey they eat ; 
 and it is said that eighteen or twenty pounds of honey are 
 required to make one pound of fine white comb. For 
 this reason many bee keepers take the full combs from 
 the hive and put them into machines which whirl them 
 about, throwing all the pure honey out of the cells. The 
 combs can then be again placed in the hive ; and, if the 
 season is good, the bees will rapidly refill them. 
 
 Honey is sold in our markets, both in the comb and 
 strained. The best way to buy it is in the comb ; for 
 strained or extracted honey is sometimes adulterated with 
 cane sugar or with glucose. 
 
 47. SALT 
 
 ALL the foods we have so far examined belong to 
 either the vegetable or the animal kingdom. We have 
 one food which belongs to the mineral kingdom. This is 
 salt, which is found in sea water and salt springs and in 
 great rocky deposits, down under the ground. Salt is so 
 necessary to man that it early became an article of com- 
 merce. It was one of the commercial products of ancient 
 Venice, whose people evaporated it from the waters about 
 the marshy islands upon which their city is built. It is men- 
 tioned many times in the Bible, and it was used by the 
 Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The poet Homer re- 
 ferred to it in describing the repasts of his heroes, and 
 the soldiers of old Rome considered it an important part
 
 346 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 of their rations. Indeed, the word "salary" comes from 
 salt, and to-day when we speak of a boy or man as good 
 for nothing we say he is not worth his salt. 
 
 Almost every nation has some superstition or other 
 connected with this article. The Hungarian peasants 
 sprinkle it on the doorsteps of a new house to keep out 
 evil spirits, and the Austrians say that a few grains of salt 
 in the pan will keep the witches from souring the milk. 
 The Greeks gave a present of salt to the gods at each 
 meal ; and the Romans considered spilling salt very un- 
 lucky. It is a Norwegian saying that the man who spills 
 salt will have to shed as many tears as will dissolve the 
 amount he thus wastes ; and the Russian peasants believe 
 that if one gives salt to his neighbor, he will soon quarrel 
 with him. 
 
 Salt is so common with us that we can hardly realize its 
 value. It is different in savage countries, where it is 
 hard to get. There are many parts of Africa where it 
 is used as money, as it is also in Tibet and in other out- 
 of-the-way parts of Asia. In some African countries the 
 children like salt better than sugar, and in Abyssinia men 
 carry about little sticks of rock salt and suck them, as 
 we do candy. An Abyssinian man, upon meeting a 
 friend, usually offers him a few licks from his salt stick, 
 just as the American offers a cigar, or, as in the past, a 
 pinch from his snuffbox. 
 
 There are mines of salt rock in the Sahara Desert, some 
 distance above Timbuktu, where the salt is taken out in 
 blocks and carried on camels to the river Niger, to be sent 
 to all parts of the Sudan ; and in certain other parts of 
 Africa where almost no salt exists, it is said that the butter-
 
 SALT 347 
 
 flies and insects will pass by molasses and sugar and light 
 on anything of a saline nature. 
 
 The salt of the world now comes from three sources : 
 from the oceans and salt lakes, from mines, and from 
 brine springs. For a long time almost the whole product 
 was made by evaporating the waters of the seas, and this 
 is done to a large extent in many countries to-day. The 
 oceans contain a vast deal of salt. It is estimated that 
 there is about a half ounce of salt in every pound of sea 
 water ; and so much in all the oceans that if it could all be 
 extracted and spread over the United States proper, it 
 would cover every bit of the country, mountains, valleys, 
 and plains to a depth of more than two miles, and still 
 leave enough to form a salt bed about a mile deep upon 
 Samoa, Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and Alaska. 
 
 Sea salt is obtained chiefly in those parts of the world 
 where the hot sun quickly evaporates the water, — for in- 
 stance, on the island of Madura, in the East Indies, in the 
 Turks and Caicos Islands of the West Indies, on some of the 
 Chinese coasts, and here and there along the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. Sea water is evaporated in large quanti- 
 ties on the shores of San Francisco Bay. It is conveyed 
 into great reservoirs which are so arranged that as the 
 salt water strengthens and decreases in volume, it can be 
 drawn off from one reservoir into another. When the 
 brine reaches the right density it is let out into basins or 
 pools on the bottom of which the salt is deposited in crys- 
 tals, and, at the end of the season, the salt is gathered up 
 and dried for sale. 
 
 Much salt is secured in the same way from the Great 
 Salt Lake. The water is pumped into reservoirs in the
 
 348 
 
 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 spring, and the sun is allowed to beat down upon it all 
 summer. As the water evaporates and the brine becomes 
 
 Tnc 
 
 I.. ;auuji\^.; up and stacked in piles. 
 
 stronger, it is drawn off into smaller reservoirs, more brine 
 being put in from time to time during the summer. The 
 salt gradually crystallizes on the bottom of the reservoir, 
 where at the end of the process it makes a thickness of 
 from three to six inches. The remaining brine is then 
 drawn off, and the salt is gathered up and stacked in large 
 piles on the banks. 
 
 Long before man appeared upon thisearth, there were seas 
 where the dry land is now. After a time the water evapo- 
 rated and left salt there. Then came earthquakes and other 
 convuftions of nature which covered these great salt beds 
 with layers of earth ; the salt hardened, and in time turned 
 to rock salt. Such deposits are found in different parts 
 of Europe and the United States. One of the largest is
 
 SALT 349 
 
 at Wieliczka, near Cracow in northern Austria, where they 
 have been mining salt for seven or eight hundred years. 
 The deposit there is more than twice as deep as the Wash- 
 ington Monument is high. It is twenty miles wide and as 
 long as the distance from New York to Pittsburgh. Miles 
 of galleries have been dug through it ; and the miners have 
 a village away down there below the surface of the earth. 
 They have houses, a school, stores, and even a church, cut 
 out of the salt. 
 
 There are other mines at Salzburg, on the borders of 
 Germany and Austria, where salt was mined in the days 
 of the Romans and where vast quantities are still taken 
 out. I once visited these mines, going far down into the 
 earth and walking for miles through the tunnels cut out of 
 the salt rock. Now and then I came into a chamber 
 where there was a little lake walled and roofed by salt 
 rock. The salt was melted down by letting in water and 
 drawing it off as it turned into brine. After this the brine 
 was run through pipes to the outside and evaporated by 
 the sun or by artificial heat, in enormous tanks, producing 
 the dry salt of commerce. 
 
 Other large salt deposits are found in western Germany, 
 Russia, Switzerland, and also in France, Spain, and Great 
 Britain. 
 
 In our country we have beds of rock salt in New York, 
 Kansas, Louisiana, and Michigan, as well as in Ohio, Vir- 
 ginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. There is, in New York, 
 far below the surface of the earth, a bed of salt which cov- 
 ers several thousand square miles, and another in Kansas, 
 eight hundred feet deep, where the body of salt is three 
 hundred feet thick. The salt is taken from the Kansas
 
 350 
 
 KOODS : OK HOW IHE WORLD IS FED 
 
 mines by a shaft which has tunnels running from it out 
 through the salt rock, like the streets of a city, with great 
 
 Drilling for blast in a Kansas mine. 
 
 chambers cut out of the rock. Here the salt is blasted 
 down by dynamite and is carried on tramways to the shaft. 
 After it reaches the surface, it is crushed and screened 
 by machinery and then deposited in large bins, from which 
 it is loaded on the railroad cars for the markets. 
 
 The most of our table salt, as well as that for other pur- 
 poses, is obtained from brine that is pumped out of these 
 rock deposits. There are salt springs and salt wells in New 
 York and in Michigan which yield thousands of barrels 
 every year. In some of the New York salt works the 
 brine is evaporated in great vats which have movable 
 roofs, so that they can be taken away when the sun shines 
 and put back when it rains. The brine is put into the vats 
 in the. spring or early summer and is exposed until the end
 
 SALT 
 
 351 
 
 of October. As the hot sun pours down upon it, a thin 
 scum forms. This grows thicker and thicker, until it 
 
 Salt works in Syracuse, N.Y. 
 
 finally sinks to the bottom in salty crystals, to be replaced 
 by other scum as the summer goes on. In the autumn 
 the salt is gathered and prepared for the markets. 
 
 We manufacture all together more than thirty million 
 barrels of salt in one year, and more than any other coun- 
 try. In 1900 our production was almost three million 
 tons, while the United Kingdom produced a little more 
 than two millions, Germany, Russia, France, India, and 
 Austria ranking next in order. Our chief salt states 
 are New York, Michigan, Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio, and 
 California.
 
 352 FOODS: OR HOW THK WORLD IS PED 
 
 48. SPICES AND OTHER FLAVORING 
 PLANTS 
 
 THERE are certain plants which are used to give an 
 agreeable taste or flavor to food. Some, like pepper 
 and mustard, are of a biting, pungent nature, and are relished 
 with meats and vegetables, cooked in all sorts of ways ; 
 others, such as cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs, are ground 
 to powder and used in puddings and cakes ; while others, 
 such as vanilla, form flavors for ices, creams, and con- 
 fections. Our mustard is the ground-up seeds of the 
 mustard plant of Europe and America; ginger is a root 
 that grows chiefly in the West Indies ; and pimento, or all- 
 spice, comes from the berry of an evergreen tree which 
 grows at its best in Jamaica. 
 
 Pepper is the most important of spices. It is used in 
 every civilized and semicivilized part of the world, and, 
 amongst peoples of hot climates, much of the food is 
 highly seasoned with it. This spice was known to the an- 
 cients. The Greeks were using pepper when Alexander 
 the Great conquered the then known world, and it was 
 so costly in Europe during the Middle Ages that men 
 considered a few pounds of it a princely gift. Most of 
 the pepper came then, as now, from East India, Ma- 
 laysia, and other islands of that part of the world. It 
 was one of the most profitable articles of commerce ; and 
 it stimulated the desire for a short passage to India, which 
 Columbus attempted to find when he discovered the New 
 World, and which Bartholomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama 
 were looking for when they made their way about the
 
 SPICES AND OTHER FLAVORING PLANTS 353 
 
 Cape of Good Hope and gave us our first knowledge of 
 the extent of the African continent. 
 
 It was largely through pepper that the British obtained 
 possession of their great Indian Empire. In the days of 
 Queen Elizabeth the Dutch controlled most of the trade 
 between that part of the world and Europe, and one 
 of their chief imports was pepper, which was selling fbr 
 about seventy-five cents a pound. This gave a large profit 
 to the Dutch merchants ; but, as they had the whole trade, 
 they thought they could get whatever they asked, and they 
 doubled the price, making pepper cost about a dollar and 
 a half a pound. The English merchants protested. But 
 the Dutch would not put down the price ; and so an English 
 company was formed in Great Britain to bring pepper and 
 other articles from India to England. This was the famous 
 East India Company, which gradually drove the Dutch 
 out of Hindustan, and finally gave the British government 
 possession of that great peninsula. 
 
 Pepper comes from the berries of a climbing plant with 
 large glossy green leaves, which grows to the height of 
 twenty feet or more, but which, under cultivation, is kept 
 down to ten or twelve feet. It is grown from both seeds 
 and cuttings and is usually trained upon poles or upon 
 small trees. The vines begin to bear in the third year 
 after they are planted, and from that time they will each 
 produce annually a pound and a half or two pounds of 
 pepper, for fifteen or twenty years. Pepper plants must 
 have a rich soil and a moist climate, and must be kept 
 clean of weeds. They are set out at about twenty-five 
 hundred to the acre. 
 
 The berries are of the size of a large pea. They are green
 
 354 FOODS; OR now tul world is fed 
 
 at first, then red, and when dead ripe, yellow or blaek. They 
 are usually picked when red and spread out in the sun to dry. 
 After a while they turn a reddish brown or black, and in 
 this shape they form the black pepper of commerce. White 
 
 Gathering pepper in Sumatra. 
 
 pepper is the seed of the ripe berries, the skin and pulp 
 being removed by rubbing and washing. A great part of 
 the pepper is carried from the various islands adjacent to 
 Singapore, and thence shipped to London and to other 
 markets. 
 
 Nutmegs and cloves require much the same climate as 
 pepper, and most of them come from this same part of the 
 world. The chief nutmeg island is Amboina, which lies east 
 of the Celebes Islands, and not far west of New Guinea. 
 The nutmeg is the fruit of a tree that resembles our pear
 
 SPICES AND OTHER FLAVORING PLANTS 
 
 355 
 
 tree. It has a bright yellow blossom, and the nutmegs, 
 as they hang upon it, are about the size of an apricot; 
 they have the color of peaches and are shaped somewhat 
 like pears. 
 
 Each fruit has a thick pulp which splits open, as it ripens, 
 showing a kernel surrounded by a network of crimson mace 
 within. The kernel is the nutmeg of commerce, and the 
 mace is also a spice. In 
 preparing the fruit for the 
 market, the pulpy outside 
 is thrown away, and the 
 nuts are dried slowly in 
 ovens. After this the 
 mace and nutmegs are 
 packed separately for ex- 
 port. 
 
 Nutmeg trees are grown 
 from the seeds of the ripe 
 fruit. They are set out 
 in orchards and are care- 
 fully cultivated. They begin to bear fruit at about ten 
 years of age and continue to produce several pounds every 
 year for a long time. They are grown also in the West 
 Indies and in Brazil. 
 
 Cloves are the dried blossoms of a beautiful evergreen 
 tree which grows to a height of thirty or forty feet. The 
 blossoms are red when they are picked, but they turn black 
 or brown through smoking over a slow wood fire. This 
 dries them and fits them for the market. They are then 
 packed in bales or in boxes and shipped all over the world, 
 to be used in pickles and in other relishes. Zanzibar 
 
 Nutmegs.
 
 356 FOODS: OK HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 produces four fifths of all the cloves used by man, its 
 exports amounting to millions of pounds every year. 
 
 Clove trees are set out in orchards and are carefully cul- 
 tivated. They begin to blossom about six years after 
 planting, and continue to yield for a great many years. 
 A good tree should produce annually about six pounds. 
 
 Cinnamon is the dried bark of a tree which originally 
 came from Ceylon, but which is now grown in Brazil, 
 Egypt, Java, the West Indies, and in the Philippines. The 
 cinnamon tree reaches a height of thirty feet, and its 
 trunk is often a foot or more thick. The cultivated trees 
 are trimmed so that each has four or five stems, which, in 
 about two years, grow to the height of eight or ten feet. 
 At this time each stem is about two inches thick at the 
 bottom and is ready for harvest. It is first stripped of 
 the leaves and twigs, which are dried and sold as cinnamon 
 chips, and then of the bark, which is carefully scraped and 
 dried. As the bark dries, it curls up into rolls, or quills, 
 the smaller rolls being fitted into the larger ones while 
 drying. The bark is tied up in bundles for shipment. It 
 is sold in the quills, and k'lso in a powder for cakes, pud- 
 dings, and pickles, and as an oil for medicines. 
 
 Most boys and girls like gingerbread, and a fresh crisp 
 gingersnap is not bad, I can assure you. The spice used 
 to make these cakes comes from a plant which grows wild 
 in many tropical countries, and is largely cultivated in 
 parts of Asia, Africa, South America, and the West Indies. 
 One of the best places for it is Jamaica, which furnishes 
 a great part of the world's product. 
 
 The part of the plant from which the spice is made is 
 the rhizome, which is a stem that grows under the ground
 
 SPICES AND OTHER FLAVORING PLANTS 
 
 357 
 
 and looks like a root. Ginger is planted by setting out 
 pieces of this root-like stem in the spring. Each sprouts 
 and throws out more rhizomes during the summer, while 
 a plant, at the same time, grows up to the height of three 
 feet or more, and then dies down and withers. When 
 the plant is dead its rhizomes are full-grown. They are 
 then dug up, cleaned, and scalded with boiling water. 
 After this they are spread out in the sun to dry, when 
 they are ready for sale. 
 An extract from them is 
 used for medicine and in 
 ginger beer, and, pre- 
 served in sugar, they are 
 eaten as a sweetmeat and 
 also in puddings and 
 cakes. 
 
 Vanilla, which we use 
 for flavoring cakes and 
 confectionery, comes from 
 the pod, or bean, of a 
 vine which grows wild in 
 the hot regions of eastern 
 Mexico and in parts of 
 South America, and which 
 is now cultivated there 
 and also in the West In- 
 dies and in other tropical 
 
 islands. The vine is of a light green color, with a smooth 
 waxy bark. It has narrow green leaves and a long fleshy 
 fruitlike pod, from which the extract is made. 
 
 In Mexico vanilla plants are set out from shoots about 
 
 Vanilla blossoms.
 
 358 FOODS: OR HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
 
 a yard long, a portion of the shoot being under the ground. 
 They are given a rich soil and are usually planted at 
 the roots of small trees, up which they climb as they grow. 
 After this the ground is kept free from weeds, and the trees 
 are sometimes topped, to prevent the plants growing too 
 high. At the end of three years the vanilla vines begin to 
 yield fragrant little white blossoms, and after the blossoms 
 fall, pods spring forth and grow until they are about as 
 large as a catalpa pod. They are gathered before they 
 are fully ripe and are dried in the sheds and " sweated," 
 to develop and fix the aroma. After this the pods are 
 shipped to the markets, where they are made into the 
 vanilla extract that is sold in our stores.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Alaska, Purchase of, 163. 
 
 Almonds, 290. 
 
 Appert, Nicholas, 201. 
 
 Apples, 229 ; Care of orchards, 234 ; 
 Europe, 231 ; Markets, 236 ; New- 
 Zealand, 231 ; Packing, 235 ; Pick- 
 ing, 235 ; Tasmania, 231 ; Trees, 
 how budded, 233 ; United States, 
 229, 231. 
 
 Appleseed, Johnny, 231. 
 
 Apricots, 243. 
 
 Armadillo, 191. 
 
 Arrowroot, 217. 
 
 Asparagus, 21 1. 
 
 Bamboo, 220. 
 Bananas, 271, 273. 
 Barley, 66, 68. 
 Bates, Henry W., 193. 
 Beans, 208. 
 Bear, 145. 
 Reche de mer, 186. 
 Beets, no. 
 Berries, 255. 
 Betel nuts, 322. 
 Betel palm, 221. 
 Bison, 139, 143. 
 Blackberries, 256. 
 Bobolinks, 153. 
 Bobwhites, 153. 
 Brazil nuts, 294. 
 Bread, 12. 
 Breadfruit, 287. 
 Broom corn, 72. 
 Buckwheat, 70. 
 Burbank, Luther, 206. 
 Butter. 107, 114; Australia, 120; 
 Europe, 1 18; How made, 116; 
 
 New Zealand, 120 ; United States. 
 114, 116. 
 
 Cabbage, 209. 
 
 Cacao, 317. 
 
 Cantaloupes, 213. • 
 
 Caribou, 139. 
 
 Carnauba palm, 221. 
 
 Carrots, 2 n . 
 
 Castor oil, 280. 
 
 Catlin, George, 144. 
 
 Cattle, 73 ; Argentina, 83 ; Australia, 
 83 ; Branding, 77 ; Brazil, 83 ; 
 Breeds of, 82 ; Canada, 83 ; Chile, 
 83 ; Cold storage, 87 ; Cowboys, 
 75 ; Exports, 83 ; How killed, 90 ; 
 How shipped, 82 ; Meat packing, 
 85 ; New Zealand, 83 ; Peru, 83 ; 
 Ranch, 75, 79 ; Round-up, 76 ; 
 Selling, 89 ; Stock yards, 84 ; United 
 States, 73, 79, 83. 
 
 Caviar, 189. 
 
 Celery, 212. 
 
 Ceres, 12. 
 
 Cheese, 107, 114 ; Edam, 122 ; Cjouda, 
 122 ; Gruyere, 122 ; How madi , 
 116; Parmesan, 123; Roquefor', 
 123. 
 
 Cherries, 244. 
 
 Chestnuts, 293. 
 
 Chickens, 128. 
 
 Chocolate, 317. 
 
 Chuno, 208. 
 
 Cinnamon, 356. 
 
 Citrus fruits, 260. 
 
 Clams, 181, 183. 
 
 Qoves, 355. 
 
 Coca plant, 322. 
 
 359
 
 36o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cocoa, 321. 
 
 Cocoanuts, 294. 
 
 Coffee, 297; Java, 306 ; Phili]ipines, 
 307 ; I'icking, 302 ; I'laiUation, 
 300 ; Porto Rico, 30S ; Product, 
 299 ; South America, 300 ; Varie- 
 ties, 305 ; Where grown, 299. 
 
 Commerce, 7, II, 215. 
 
 Cooking, History of, 8. 
 
 Copra, 296. 
 
 Cormorants, 185. 
 
 Corn, 44 ; Africa, 48 ; Amount raised, 
 45; Asia, 48 ; Australia, 48 ; Can- 
 ada, 48 ; Europe, 48 ; Fodder, 54 ; 
 Harvest, 49 ; Mexico, 48 ; Seed, 
 51 ; South America, 48 ; Sweet 
 corn, 55 ; United States, 44, 48. 
 
 Cottonseed oil, 27S. 
 
 Crabs, 179, 183. 
 
 Cranberries, 257. 
 
 Currants, 256. 
 
 Daggett, Ezra, 202. 
 
 Date palm, 281, 284. 
 
 Dates, 281 ; How raisefl, 283 ; Uses 
 
 of, 284 ; Varieties, 284 ; Where 
 
 grown, 281. 
 Deer, 140. 
 Doum palm, 221. 
 Ducks, 126, 130, 134 ; Wild, 150. 
 Durian, 288. 
 Durra, 71. 
 
 Eggs, 127, 134, 136. 
 Elderberries, 257. 
 Elephants, 146. 
 Elk, 141. 
 
 Figs, 281, 285. 
 
 Filberts, 294. 
 
 Fish, 153 ; Baltic Sea, 189 ; Blue- 
 fish, 162; Bonito, 183; China, 
 184; Cod, 156; F^ggs, 156; Grand 
 Banks, 157; Halibut, 161; Herring, 
 162 ; Japan, 182 ; Mackerel, 161 ; 
 
 North Sea, 189 ; Philippines, 187 ; 
 Russia, 189 ; Salmon, 163 ; Sar- 
 dines, 162, 183 ; Sea bass, 162 ; 
 Shad, 162 ; Sheepshead, 162 ; 
 Smelts, 162 ; Sturgeon, 189 ; Tai, 
 183 ; Tautogs, 162; United States, 
 153,162. 
 
 Fishermen, 154. 
 
 Flour, 37. 
 
 Frogs, 191, 195. 
 
 Fruit, 225 ; Africa, 226 ; Asia, 227 ; 
 Australia, 226 ; Europe, 226 ; 
 General view, 225 ; South America, 
 227 ; United States, 228 ; Value 
 of, 229. 
 
 Geese, 126, 130 ; Wild, 130, 150. 
 
 Ginger, 356. 
 
 Gingerbread tree, 221. 
 
 Giraffe, 147. 
 
 Goat's milk, 107. 
 
 Gooseberries, 256. 
 
 Grapes, 248 ; Africa, 248 ; Asia, 248 ; 
 Europe, 248; Malaga, 254; Raisins, 
 251 ; White Muscat, 252; United 
 States, 249. 
 
 Guavas, 287. 
 
 Guinea corn, 71. 
 
 Guinea fowl, 136. 
 
 Hazelnuts, 294. 
 Hickory nuts, 293. 
 Hippopotamuses, 145. 
 Hogs, 92. 
 Honey, 344. 
 Huckleberries, 257. 
 
 Jackfruit, 288. 
 Jack rabbits, 148. 
 
 Kafir corn, 72. 
 Kola nuts, 322. 
 
 Lane, Sir Ralph, 85. 
 Lemons, 261, 265.
 
 INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 Lettuce, 210. 
 
 Limes, 267. 
 Lizards, 191. 
 Lobsters, 178. 
 
 Mangoes, 287. 
 
 Mangosteens, 289. 
 
 Manioc, 217. 
 
 Maple sugar, 342. 
 
 Milk, 107 ; Asia, 125; Ayrshire, 109 ; 
 Babcock test, 113 ; Brown Bessie, 
 108; Condensed, 117 ; Cows, 107 ; 
 Cream, 11 1 ; Europe, 121 ; Goat, 
 107 ; Guernsey, 109 ; Holstein, 
 109 ; Jersey, 109 ; Philippines, 125 ; 
 Red Polls, 109; Separator, 112; 
 Sheep, 124 ; Shorthorns, 109 ; 
 United States, 108 ; Water buffalo, 
 
 125- 
 
 Millet, 70. 
 Molasses, 336. 
 Moose, 141. 
 Muskmelon, 213. 
 Mustard, 352, 
 Mutton, 98. 
 
 Nipa palm, 221. 
 Nutmegs, 354. 
 Nuts, 290. 
 
 Oats, 66, 69. 
 
 Oils, 274 ; Castor, 280 ; Cottonseed, 
 
 278 ; Olive, 277 ; Sunflower seed, 
 
 279. 
 Olives, 274. 
 Onions, 210. 
 Oranges, 260; How packed, 262; How 
 
 picked, 261 ; Where grown, 261. 
 Oysters, 171, 183 ; Fishing, 172 ; 
 
 Packing, 176. 
 
 Papaya, 289. 
 Partridges, 153. 
 
 Peaches, 237 ; Care of orchards, 240 ; 
 China, 237 ; Georgia orchards, 240 ; 
 
 New England schoolboy's dis- 
 covery, 238 ; Varieties, 237 ; 
 Where grown, 237. 
 
 Peanuts, 223. 
 
 Pears, 243. 
 
 Peas, 209. 
 
 Pecans, 293. 
 
 Pepper, 352. 
 
 Persimmons, 289. 
 
 Pigeons, 136. 
 
 Pimento, 352. 
 
 Pineapples, 267. 
 
 Pistachio nuts, 294. 
 
 Plums, 245. 
 
 Pomegranates, 290. 
 
 Pomelos, 267. 
 
 Popcorn, 55. 
 
 Pork, 92 ; Africa, 93 ; Alaska, 93 ; 
 Asia, 93 ; Australia, 93 ; Bacon, 
 
 96 ; Europe, 93 ; Hams, 96 ; Lard, 
 
 97 ; Philippines, 93 ; Product, 93 ; 
 Sausage, 97 ; South America, 93 ; 
 United States, 92, 94 ; West Indies, 
 
 93- 
 
 Potatoes, 203 ; Andes Mountains, 
 207 ; Bolivia, 207 ; Burbank, 
 Luther, 206 ; Chuno, 208 ; Irish, 
 203 ; Peru, 207 ; Sweet, 208. 
 
 Poultry, 126 ; China, 133 ; Java, 
 133 ; Philippines, 133 ; Porto Rico, 
 132; LTnited States, 127; Prairie 
 chickens, 152. 
 
 Prunes, 246. 
 
 Quinces, 244. 
 Quinua, 70. 
 
 Rabbits, 147. 
 
 Radishes, 210, 
 
 Raisins, 251. 
 
 Raspberries, 256. 
 
 Rhinoceroses, 145. 
 
 Rice, 56 ; Asia, 56 ; Burma, 64 ; 
 
 Central America, 57 ; Ceylon, 57 ; 
 
 China, 57, 60; Harvest, 61; Hawaii,
 
 362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 57 ; India, 56 ; Japan, 57, 60 ; 
 Java, 57, 60, 62 ; Madagascar, 57 ; 
 Mauritius, 57 ; Mills, 62 ; Philip- 
 pines, 57 ; South America, 57 ; 
 Sumatra, 57 ; United States, 58 ; 
 West Indies, 57. 
 Rye, 66, 68. 
 
 Sago palm, 221. 
 
 Salt, 345 ; Evaporation, 350 ; Sources 
 of, 346. 
 
 Sheep, 99 ; Africa, loi ; Asia, loi ; 
 Australia, loi ; Europe, loi ; Milk, 
 124 ; Mutton, how shipped, 105 ; 
 New Zealand, 102 ; Shepherds, lOl ; 
 South America, loi ; Stock yards, 
 104 ; United States, 99. 
 
 Shrimps, 178, 183. 
 
 Smith, Thomas, 57. 
 
 Snails, 191, 196. 
 
 Sorghum, 72, 
 
 Squirrels, 147, 149. 
 
 Starch, 53. 
 
 Strawberries, 256. 
 
 Sugar, 328 ; Beets, 338, 340 ; Cane, 
 329, 331 ; Cultivation, 331 ; Man- 
 ufacture, 334 ; Maple, 342 ; Mills, 
 334 ; Molasses, 336 ; Where grown, 
 
 337. 339- 
 Sunflower seeds, 279. 
 
 Tapioca, 217. 
 Taro, 219. 
 
 lea, 308 ; Brick, 315 ; Ceylon, 311 ; 
 China, 309 ; Cultivation, 312 ; Cur- 
 ing' 3^3 > Importation, 316; India, 
 311 ; Japan, 309 ; Java, 311; 
 L'nited States, 311 ; Varieties, 315. 
 
 Terrapin, 194. 
 
 Tobacco, 323 ; How cured, 327 ; 
 Where grown, 324. 
 
 Tomatoes, 213. 
 
 Turkeys, 126, 130; Wild, 150. 
 
 Turnips, 211. 
 
 Turtles, 191 ; Oil, 193. 
 
 Vanilla, 357. 
 
 Vegetables, 197 ; Canned, 201 ; 
 Truck farms, 198. 
 
 Walnuts, Black, 292 ; English, 292 ; 
 White, 292. 
 
 Water liuffalo, 125. 
 
 Watermelon, 213. 
 
 Wheat, 12 ; Africa, 28 ; Asia, 29 ; 
 Australia, 29 ; Canada, 28 ; Eleva- 
 tors, 26 ; Europe, 28, 30 ; Flour, 
 37 ; Harvesting, 20 ; Kernels, 41 ; 
 Mills, 38, 41 ; New Zealand, 29 ; 
 Producing states, 14 ; Red River 
 Valley, 17 ; South America, 28 ; 
 Varieties, 15. 
 
 Verba mate, 322. 
 
 Zebra, 147.
 
 
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