Excerpt from Chicory Growing as an Addition to the Resources of the American Farmer

Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith, for publication as a Bulle tin of the Division of Botany, a manuscript entitled Chicory Growing as an Addition to the Resources of the American Farmer, prepared under my direction by Mr. Maurice Gr. Kains. As the report contains chapters on the adulteration and chemical analysis of chicory, it has been submitted to the Chemist of the Department, Dr. H. W. Wiley, who has revised those portions of it.

In the year 1896 the United States imported pounds of chicory, having a wholesale Value of Most of this chicory was grown in Belgium. In the belief that chicory could be made a profitable crop in the United States, we began an investigation the results of which are embodied in this report. The Department of Agriculture may confidently recommend the cultivation of chicory in the mid-northern belt of our country. Its cultivation, however, as a market product on a farm should be undertaken only when a chicory mill, where the crop can be disposed of, is close at hand, or when the farmer can grow the root on a sufficiently large scale to own and work his own mill. As a home product, however, its cultivation may be much more general. There is no reason why the individual farmer should not grow, dry, and roast the chicory used upon his own table if he desires to pursue this course, instead of purchasing the pure manufactured product. He is certainly entitled to exemption from its purchase at an exorbitant price in the form of supposed ground coffee. It should be considered, however, by those who propose to take up the cultivation of chicory as an agricultural industry, that a very limited area will produce all the chicory we customarily import, and that over production of this crop would be easy.

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