The Potato Boom 



extension. Ridiculous reports circulated. It was 

 said that Findlay's next would cost £1,000 a 

 pound, and make its possessors millionaires. The 

 boom had become a bubble, frantic and self- 

 doomed; single tubers were sold by public auction 

 to excited bidders, and a world's record was made 

 by the sale of one single Eldorado for £100. 

 The purchasers of Eldorados forced them in 

 greenhouses, and sold off the potted plants at one 

 and two guineas each. Many thousand plants were 

 sold in pots in this manner, the buyers planting 

 them out like geraniums, but few of them came to 

 anything. Such super-cultivation killed them, 

 their constitution could not stand it, and Eldo- 

 rado was ruined by its too anxious holders. 



After the original holders had parted from all 

 the Eldorados that they held, those who had 

 been unable to get any began to buy the future 

 crop for forward delivery, and the most novel and 

 penultimate phase was entered. 



Eldorados were sold for delivery in the fol- 

 lowing autumn — 1904 — at about £200 per cwt., 

 £4,000 per ton; and many tons, perhaps thirty, 

 certainly over twenty, were sold at these figures! 

 Every one speculated. Small men bought a few 

 stones, merchants bought a ton or two, contracts 

 were signed, deposits paid, and all was done in the 

 most approved Stock Exchange fashion. The 



85 



