REQUIREMENTS OF POTATOES. 317 



slopes of the foothills and in the mountain valleys of the 

 Sierra Nevada and out beyond, upon the stretches of sage- 

 brush, wherever water can be had to turn the desert into 

 a garden. California has capacity for a potato produc- 

 tion beyond the ability of any available market to handle, 

 and though a few years ago it seemed likely that our cli- 

 matic advantages in early production would give us com- 

 mand of distant consumption at certain times of the year, 

 it has since been shown that much less can be profitably 

 done in this direction than was anticipated. There have 

 been in some years very large shipments at reduced freight 

 rates when the Eastern production was deficient, but the 

 potato is ordinarily too cheap an article to endure the cost 

 of long transportation. The California potato product 

 sometimes exceeds 3,000,000 sacks per year. 



Situations. Though, as has been stated, the potato 

 grows wherever adequate moisture is assured, there is 

 much difference in the times of the year at which maturity 

 is attained. Though the potato is a tender plant it will 

 endure light frosts, nor does it always yield its life when 

 the frost blights the foliage. Dormant buds lower on the 

 stem develop into a new top growth. It is, therefore, pos- 

 sible to secure fall and even winter growth in places where 

 a strictly tender plant like the bean would perish. Where 

 only light frosts occur and where irrigation is provided to 

 supplement rainfall, it is possible to have new potatoes all 

 the year and to bring to edible condition three crops suc- 

 cessively on the same ground withing a twelve month, 

 though it is, of 'course, better to let the potato take its 

 place in a rotation. 



New Potatoes. The first new potatoes from a California 

 point of view, would be the crop that comes in the autumn 

 with the first green peas counting July 1 as the begin- 

 ning of the garden year. In fact the first potatoes and 

 peas come from the same localities. They make their 

 growth in the fall from planting on ground well soaked by 

 irrigation in July and August. The regions for this work 

 are those in which fall frosts are light or do not occur at 



