Seeds of Wealth or Tomato in America

Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich

Author: Henry Hobhous

Seeds of Wealth is a collection of four elegant essays focusing on the economic and cultural consequences of the exploitation of timber, tobacco, rubber, and the wine grape. These cash crops have had, for the past three centuries, a profound effect on our world. In this intriguing account, Hobhouse illustrates how timber deficiency sparked an industrial revolution, tobacco lead to a wealthy and young nation, the rubber tree created nations, and wine provided the head, heart, and pocketbook with wealth.

This book offers proof of how the seemingly irrelevant can have widespread unintended consequences. In presenting global history from his own perspective, Henry Hobhouse offers an overview of how nature has unwittingly contributed to the creation of human wealth and economic growth.

Nola Theiss - KLIATT

Five agricultural products?—?timber, wine grapes, rubber, and tobacco, along with coffee (added to this newest edition)?—?have had an enormous impact on the history of the world. Two (timber and tobacco) reflected the changing fortunes of Britain and the United States. Timber and its rampant use for construction and fuel probably added significantly to global warming. Rubber and winemaking were influential in other areas of the world, like Singapore and Ancient Rome, and coffee brings the Arab world into the picture, but all these products have had significant impact on the United States. The author notes that one thing they have in common, beyond the fact that each stimulated or was crucial in wars, was that they have been a boon for "tax gatherers." Hobhouse has also written a related book, Seeds of Change and, although a journalist by trade, he has become an authority on the impact of plants on the history of the world. Because this book is written in an extremely readable style, it would be a good addition to any school library. Students will use it as a reference in history, political science, economics and science classes. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Shoemaker & Hoard, 313p. notes. bibliog. index., Ages 12 to adult.

Table of Contents:

	Timber : the essential carpet	3
	Wine : the grape's bid for immortality	69
	Rubber : wheels shod for speed	125
	Tobacco : more than a smoke	189

Interesting textbook: Dirty Dining or Eggs

Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery

Author: Andrew F Smith

From the Americas to Australasia, from northern Europe to southern Africa, the tomato tickles the world's taste buds. Americans alone devour more than twelve million tons annually of this peculiar fruit, which has variously been considered poisonous, cutative, and aphrodisiacal.

In this first concerted study of the tomato in America, Andrew F. Smith separates myth from historical fact, beginning with the Salem, New Jersey, man who, in 1820, allegedly attracted spectators from hundreds of miles to watch him eat a tomato on the courthouse steps (the legend says they expected to see him die a painful death). Later, hucksters such as Dr. John Cook Bennett and the Amazing Archibald Miles peddled the tomato's purported medicinal benefits. The competition was so fierce that the Tomato Pill War broke out in 1838.

The Tomato in America traces the early cultivation of the tomato, its infiltration of American cooking practices, the early manufacture of preserved tomatoes and ketchup (soon hailed as "the national condiment of the United States"), and the "great tomato mania" of the 1820s and 1830s. The book also includes tomato recipes from the pre-Civil War period, covering everything from sauces, soups, and main dishes to desserts and sweets.

Now available for the first time in paperback, The Tomato in America provides a piquant and entertaining look at a versatile and storied figure in culinary history.

Library Journal

Did you think that tomatoes were not in this country before the 1880s? And did you think that this was because they were considered to be poisonous or aphrodisiacal? Since 1987, writer and lecturer Smith has been researching references to tomatoes. After examining 50,000 sources, which he says does not by any means exhaust the material, Smith traces the history of this most popular fruit/vegetable-one that is now grown by more home gardeners in this country than any other food. The evidence he presents, drawn from newspapers, letters, diaries, and cookbooks, refutes the popular myths and supports his thesis that the tomato was cultivated for culinary and medicinal uses from early Colonial times and was introduced to the American colonies on numerous separate occasions. Smith also includes a selection of recipes from early cookbooks and magazines. Chapters are supported by extensive references. The book concludes with a classified bibliography and a list of heirloom seed sources and tomato organizations. While lacking the narrative appeal and readability of other books about individual plants, this is a thorough and useful reference, making available masses of material not otherwise available. (Index not seen.)-Carol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi