potatoes: acreage, PEODUCTIOlSr, ETC. 13 



plus imports as a percentage of the production range from 0.25 per 

 cent for 1895-1904 to 1.36 per cent for 1885-1894. The value of the 

 surplus imports of potatoes bears about the same relationship to the 

 value of the production as the quantity of the surplus imports does 

 to the quantity of the production, whether the subject be considered 

 by groups of 10 years or by years separately. 



PERCENTAGE OF CONSUMPTION. 



The surplus imports of potatoes have been as high as 7.13 per 

 cent of the consumption, in 1881, and no other year has as high a 

 percentage, but often the percentage is less than 1. All of the 10- 

 year periods except 1866-1874 are represented by a surplus of imports • 

 of potatoes, with fractions of consumption in no case higher than 

 1.3 per cent for 1885-1894. 



The surplus exports of domestic potatoes in years when this fact 



is found have always been less than 1 per cent of the consumption, 



except 1.07 in 1915. 



CONSUMPTION. 



QUANTITY. 



In 1849 this country consumed 65,815,000 bushels of potatoes. 

 Fifty years ago the yearlj' consumption of potatoes was about 

 100,000,000 bushels. Dm^ing the 9 years 1866-1874 the yearly con- 

 sumption averaged 112,522,000 bushels. Tlie annual average in- 

 creased to 261,889,000 bushels during the 10-year period 1895-1904, 

 after which there was a great mcrease to 344,733,000 bushels during 

 1905-1914. In 1915 the consumption was 355,912,000 bushels, and 

 in 1916, 287,533,000 bushels. 



There is no carry over of potatoes from the old to the new con- 

 sumption year. The last of the crop of the former year is disappearing 

 as the early crop of the present year is coming to market. Conse- 

 quently there is no carry over of potatoes from one consumption 

 year to the next to modify the computed consumption. Since 1900 

 the lowest consumption of potatoes was 205,754,000 bushels in 1901, 

 and the largest consumption was 418,953,000 bushels in 1912, This 

 is the largest quantity of potatoes ever consumed in this country 

 in one year, and by a large difference exceeds the higher consumptions 

 of other recent years, except the consumption of 1914, which amounted 

 to 407,055,000 bushels. 



Potato consumption is almost entirely confined to potatoes pro- 

 duced in this country, as appears when attention is given to the quan- 

 tities of foreign-produced potatoes. The consumption of foreign 

 potatoes in 1849 was 173,000 bushels, and the quantity had risen to 

 only 234,000 bushels as an average for 1865-1874. In the next 10 

 years the average yearly consumption of foreign potatoes was 

 2,158,000 bushels, and the quantity rose to 3,018,000 bushels in the 



