238 The Potato 



toes is an average of figures for 1899 and 1909. An 

 average of five persons to a farm is considered fairly re- 

 liable, and each person is assumed to eat about 5 bushels of 

 potatoes a year.^ From these figures we can estimate the 

 number of bushels eaten on farms. We have then figures 

 from which we can compute, rather roughly, the number of 

 bushels to be handled annually on the potato markets of 

 the United States. 



From the above table, we see that nearly one-seventh of 

 the potato crop has to be saved for next year. About one- 

 twenty-fourth of the whole crop, or one-twelfth of the 

 quantity stored, is lost through shrinkage and rotting. 

 Starch manufacture and home consumption of potatoes 

 on the farm also take some of the crop. The quantity 

 left, after subtracting all of these from the crop, repre- 

 sents, in a rough way, the number of bushels of American- 

 grown potatoes to be handled on the market. If we 

 then balance the imports and exports, and add the excess 

 of imports to this figure, we have the total number of 

 bushels of potatoes handled in the American markets. 

 This is approximately 184,930,000 bushels, or 30,822 cars.^ 



According to statistics published by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, about 50 per cent of the 

 potato crop has been sold by January first. A relatively 

 large proportion of this quantity is sold by farmers at 

 the time of digging, or shortly afterward. The following 

 table ^ gives figures for the total of 19 Northern states : — 



1 The average annual consumption per capita in the United States is 3.5 

 bushels. The consumption is higher than this in the North and lower 

 in the South, where sweet potatoes are eaten in place of Irish potatoes. 

 Funk, in Farmers' Bui. 635, finds an average farm consumption (483 

 farms) of 5.7 bushels. 



2 Car of 600 bushels. 



5 Monthly Crop Report, January 31, 1916, p. 8. 



