The potato’s finest hour

From ‘Our friends the vegetables’, 9 June 1917. The food shortage, and the consequent necessity of planting every available space with vegetables, have multiplied the amateur gardener many times over… If the spirit that inspires them is utilitarian, it is not surprising, for the kitchen garden is regarded by most people as above all things prosaic. Can one grow enthusiastic over a potato-patch or ecstatic about rows of turnips? True, the potato at the moment is having a devotion bestowed upon it that it can never have experienced before, but it is an attention founded on the most matter-of-fact motives.