The chestnut also comes under this head, and is largely eaten in Spain and Italy, either boiled, or dried and ground into flour.
TUBERS and ROOTS follow, and of these the _Potato_ leads the van.

Low as you may have noticed their standing on the food-table to be, they are the most economical and valuable of foods, combining as well with others, and as little cloying to the palate, as bread itself.

Each pound of potatoes contains seven hundred and seventy grains of carbon, and twenty-four grains of nitrogen; each pound of wheat-flour, two thousand grains of carbon, and one hundred and twenty of nitrogen.

But the average cost of the pound of potatoes is but one cent; that of the pound of wheat, four.
It is obtainable at all seasons, and thus invaluable as a permanent store, though best in the winter.

Spring, the germinating season, diminishes its nutritive value.