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sini])le culture, its abundant yield, and the apparent ease of caring for the harvest, 

 place it high amongst our staple foods. 



\\' ith the present soaring prices of food, it is an impressive fact that potatoes 

 give a greater yield in weight per acre than any other food crop. Quebec had an 

 area of 13,292,798 acres under cultivation in 1918, and of this 264,871 acres were 

 planted to potatoes. The yield per acre was 147 bushels, the total yield 38,936,000 

 bushels, valued at $38,157,000. 



Though in Canada, potatoes are mainly cooked fresh, a good quantity is 

 boiled, shredded and dried, mainly for camp use. In the United States, the tub- 

 ers find use as commercial potato starch, flour, and for making glucose, syrup, 

 mucilage and sizing for paper. As a basis of industrial alcohol, the potato is large- 

 ly used in Europe, and the smaller tubers form an important stock food. Que- 

 bec is likely to become more and more a source of seed potatoes, for which the 

 climate is highly suited. 



Canada has increased her yield from 75,300,000 bushels annually for the 

 period 1909-1913, to 104,346,000 bushels, 1918, and 125,575,000 bushels in 1919. 

 The United States have fallen back from a production of 411,860,000 bushels in 

 1918 to 357,901,000 bushels in 1919, and an increased market, it is seen, is open- 

 ing for the Quebec producer. 



There is, then, a great and notable source of wealth in the potato, and the 

 importance of conserving the annual harvest by proper storage methods, till it can 

 be transported to its market, must be apparent. 



We have heard and seen recently, indeed, that large as was the potato 

 harvest in 1919, the amount of it available six months later, is far short of the 

 demand. Potatoes sell at $6.50 a bag or more, and at that figure, the supply is 

 scarcely equal to the demand. 



Much of this shortage is due, we believe, to shrinkage in storage where fiost, 

 decay and wilt have diminished the supply. Not less than 8-10% of the Canadian 

 crop has thus been lost, a drop since harvest of 1.225.750 bushels. The estimated 

 loss in the U.S.A. is S% or not less than 13,047,968 bushels. . 



Diseases of Stored Potatoes. 



While many diseases attack the potato in storage, particularly destructive 

 are the parasitic fungous diseases, late blight and rot ( Phytophthora infestans de 

 Bary), dry rot (Fusarium sp.), the parasitic bacterial diseases, common scab 

 (Actinomyces chromogenus Gasp.), and wet rots(Bacillus solanisaprus Harrison) 

 and others. Other storage defects or maladies are classed as non-parasitic in- 

 cluding frost necrosis or injury, black heart, and internal brown streak. 



