406 THE POTATO 



to produce potatoes for home consumption, and 

 they are obtaining very fair yields of very high 

 quality tubers. In fact, potatoes, grown under 

 dry-farming conditions in eastern Oregon on the 

 silt loams, or volcanic ash soils, as they are called, 

 I believe to be the finest flavored and finest quality 

 that I have ever seen. 



"Potatoes are harvested in all the large com- 

 mercial fields by a machine digger, in the smaller 

 fields by hand with the spade, or sometimes merely 

 by plowing them up. Those potatoes which are 

 stored are often merely dumped in bins in an 

 ordinary warehouse, but the best growers, in those 

 cases where they make a practice of storing them, 

 are putting up specially constructed warehouses 

 which are properly insulated with sawdust in the 

 walls and with special ventilation to keep the po- 

 tatoes in the best possible shape over winter. 

 Practically no protection is required here against 

 freezing, as that rarely occurs with our mild cli- 

 mate. What protection is used is generally merely 

 to maintain equable temperature and humidity. 



"The Oregon potato crop is practically all 

 marketed at Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, 

 all the Early Rose and other varieties raised as a 

 seed crop, being marketed in the last city. 



"The cost of growing, of course, varies a great 

 deal, but under good methods it will average from 

 twelve to fifteen cents per bushel in the bin, this 

 figure including interest on the investment. The 

 profit, where the potato crop is grown as a regular 

 part of the rotation, will average $40 or $50 per 

 acre net. 



"No artificial fertilizers are used, the only fertil- 

 izer of any kind so far used or recommended being 

 a cover crop of vetch and rye or vetch and oats 



