4 BULLETIN 695, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGKICULTUEE. 



rice, hominy, and com bread and similar preparations of corn meal, 

 while, at the other extreme, in many States of the North, it is cus- 

 tomarily served at breakfast and dinner and perhaps infrequently 

 at the third meal of the day. 



The potato is subordinate to food habits, and these are largely 

 formed in childhood. Great increase or diminution in its colisump- 

 tion as food is influenced by low or high price, by abundance or 

 scarcity, and by the relative standing of substitute foods. The 

 potato eaters of this country are accustomed to a fuU potato consump- 

 tion according to their desires, and this is not large, as a per capita 

 average for the whole country, when comparison is made with promi- 

 nent potato-consuming countries. Under normal conditions, there 

 are usually so many other things to eat in generous supply that the 

 practical upper Hmit of potato consumption is easily reached. On 

 the other hand, in a year of short supply and high price of potatoes, 

 substitutes are accepted, but reluctantly so. Following the imder- 

 production of potatoes in 1916, a retail price of 75 cents to $1 a peck 

 caused many a family to substitute rice, corn meal, and hominy. 



ACREAGE. 



The acreage of the potato crop in this country, as reported by the 

 decennial censuses, is for farms and does not include the numerous 

 gardens that produce potatoes off farms. The actual acreage from 

 year to year is the result of the individual opinions of the farmers 

 who produce potatoes with regard to the prospective total demand 

 and price during the coming year, and in practice there is Hkely to 

 be less miscalculation concerning acreage than there is concerning 

 the various causes of high or low production per acre. Potentially 

 the usual potato acreage of this country could be mcreased enor- 

 mously. 



The acreage of the potato crop was first determined by estimate 

 by the Bureau of Crop Estimates for 1866 to be somewhat over 

 1,000,000 acres; in 1869 the census production was divided by the 

 average production per acre estimated by this bureau and the com- 

 puted acreage was 1,309,000 acres; similarly in 1879 the computed 

 acreage was 1,713,000 acres. The first acreage determined by census 

 enumeration was for 1889, and was foimd to be 2,601,000 acres, and 

 the number of acres increased to 3,669,000 in the census year 1909, 

 followed by small increase in later years, except that 4,390,000 acres 

 were harvested in 1917, and that in 1916 the estimate of the acreage 

 of this crop was 3,565,000 acres, or considerably below the acreage of 

 the preceding seven years. 



During the nine years, 1866-1874, the average potato acreage was 

 1,243,000 acres, and the acreage increased during each subsequent 

 10-year period untU the average for 1905-1914 reached 3,541,000 

 acres, an increase of nearly 200 per cent m 40 years. 



