MORE POTATOES 



Growers Might Double Size of American Crop on Present Acreage by More 



Scientific Cultivation and by Selecting Entire Hills, instead of Single 



Tubers, for Planting United States far Behind 



European Growers in Potato Production 



MORll than five thousand million 

 bushels of potatoes are grown 

 in the world in a normal year. 

 That would allow 5 bushels, or 

 about eight hundred fair-sized tubers, 

 for each man, woman, and child on the 

 face of the globe — not only for the 

 persons who eat potatoes, but for the 

 Eskimo, the Chinese, and the Hottentot, 

 who do not. 



No other crop comes within a billion 

 bushels of this total. The potato is, 

 in amount of yield, incomparably the 

 chief food ])lant of the world. 



The Western Hemisphere has little 

 share in this production. South Amer- 

 ica, the home of the potato, now grows 

 only 7 Vjushels in every thousand that 

 the world uses, while the United States 

 produces but 6% of the total crop. 



As far as the United States is con- 

 cerned, this low position is mainly due 

 to the inferior methods of planting and 

 cultivating, which are in general use. 

 The Englishman or German grows more 

 than twice as many potatoes on an acre 

 of ground, as does the American — in 

 fact, the average yield in the United 

 States is little more than half a pound 

 per plant, and a sini^Je (^ood tuber weighs 

 more than that. This shameful showing 

 is jjartly due to the fact that the climate 

 of the United States is hotter and 

 drier than might be desired for potato- 

 growing; it is i)artly due to the fact that 

 European jjotatoes are often of a coarse 

 but heavy-\-ielding variety, suitable 

 only for stock food or starch and alcohol 

 manufacture; it is ])artly due to the fact 

 that Americans do not fertilize their 

 land to the best advantage; but it is 

 to a considerable degree due to the fail- 

 ure of Americans to use the most intelli- 



gent methods of selection of tuljers they 

 plant. 



While a single hill, in the United 

 States, yields on the average only half 

 a ])ound of ])otatoes, a single hill in 

 English experiments has ])roduced 20 

 pounds. This shows that there is a 

 variability which offers abundant chance 

 for permanent imj^rovemcnt ; and jjltnty 

 of cases can be cited which j^rove that 

 such improvement can be made. Spill- 

 man, for example, mentions a Michigan 

 grower who "some }'ears ago began the 

 ]:)ractice of digging by hand enough 

 potatoes for seed, and .saving only those 

 hills that had six or more merchantable 

 tubers and no .small tubers. When he 

 first began this practice, only sixteen 

 hills out of each hundred dug came uj) to 

 this standard, but after he had continued 

 the jjractice for five years the number 

 of such hills had risen to seventy in 

 a hundred." 



I.MPROVE.MKXT IS IMPORT.WT 



The improvement of the American 

 potato yield is thus entirely feasible, if 

 a little thought is used. How great a 

 change in the total would be caused 

 Ijy a very slight increase in the hill yield, 

 is pointed out by Luther Burbank, who 

 calculates that to add only one tuber to 

 each hill would augment the annual 

 crop by 21,000,000 bushels. If the 

 half-pound average yield of American 

 ]jlants were doubled — an achievement 

 that ought to be easily ])ossible — the 

 3,500,000 acres planted to the crop 

 in this country would ])n)duce enough 

 jjotatoes so that every individual in 

 the country could have 53 2 bushels a 

 year:^ enough potatoes to insure an 



• Surveys of many farm communities in the United States have shown that the consumption 

 of Irish potatoes is often 5 bushels \wr jjcrson per year, or about 25 I)ushels per family. In 

 potato-growing regions, it may l)c double this. It is evident that in large i)arts of the South, and 

 among many elements of city po])ulations, the con.sumption of potatoes must be small. 



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