88 The Potato 



The warmest province of Canada, Ontario, averages 121 

 against 207 for the cool and moist maritime provinces 

 and 229 for British Columbia. 



Land is much higher in price in the potato-growing 

 regions of Europe than in America. An extreme case is 

 on the Island of Jersey, where land is worth $1000 to 

 S2500 an acre. The annual rental under the tenant sys- 

 tem common in Europe is often higher than the sale 

 value of an acre in sections of the United States which 

 raise millions of bushels each year. Labor is much 

 cheaper in Europe than in America, allowing the use of 

 very intensive hand culture at low cost. If European 

 growers are to secure a living profit above their high 

 rentals, they must farm this high-priced land very inten- 

 sively with large expenditure of cheap labor, seed at 

 the rate of an average of over 37 bushels to the acre and 

 heavy fertilization. 



American agriculture has been developed in the direc- 

 tion of heavy production to each worker engaged rather 

 than in that of large yield to the acre. The high-priced 

 day's work is the unit, not the high-priced acre of land. 

 From the time when the Massachusetts Bay colonists 

 "went west" to the Connecticut Valley in 1635, it was 

 necessary to go westward, even to northwestern Canada, 

 for there has been a new region of cheap land awaiting 

 settlement. Almost until the present time, the competi- 

 tion of new soil of virgin fertility has kept down the price 

 of farm produce and of land in the older settled communi- 

 ties to figures far below those of Europe. An even worse 

 effect of this competition has been that little attempt has 

 been made to keep up soil fertility. Methods of farming 

 suited to frontier conditions of low prices and highly 

 fertile soil have continued in use too long. Land is now 



