POTATO CULTURE 



J. L. Stone, Ithaca, New York 



(In connection with Farmers' Week Program of the Department of Farm Crops.) 



Many of you have been listening during the past hour to some 

 potato statistics that I am sure you have been interested in. The 

 topic assigned to me on the program is 'Totato Culture." I will 

 present to you some factors of potato growing that I think it is well 

 for you to have your attention called to. 



CROP FACTORS 



There are four factors that I would like to name as chiefly respon- 

 sible for the potato crop. First, of course, is the potato plant, 

 the possibilities of the potato plant. What is the potato plant 

 capable of producing? The average yield of potatoes in New York 

 for a series of years is less than a hundred bushels. The average the 

 past year was something over a hundred bushels. Must we be 

 satisfied with that yield or may we expect greater things? First of 

 all, the statement I want to make is that we are not limited by the 

 potato plant. That is, we are not anywhere near the limit of pro- 

 duction of potatoes. As evidence of this, we come across facts that 

 are current to most of you — that the yield of potatoes in certain 

 countries is much higher than the yields in New York or the United 

 States. The yields of potatoes in Great Britain are two or three 

 times as large as in the United States. The same is true in regard 

 to Germany and several of the European countries. While the 

 potato is a native of America, yet in other lands the potato is produc- 

 ing much greater results than it is in our own land. We may satisfy 

 ourselves that we in America have not reached the ultimate limit of 

 potato production so far as the potato plant is concerned. 



Not only is the general average of potato growing in Europe 

 very much above ours, but the maximum yields secured in some of 

 the European countries are very remarkable. I was told by persons 

 right on the ground in Scotland that it is not at all uncommon for 

 them to get ten, twelve, or fifteen hundred bushels per acre on certain 

 of the favored potato producing farms. I saw potatoes that made 

 me believe it. The rows were only twenty-seven inches apart, and 

 the hills only a foot apart. As a matter of fact, on that farm they 

 claimed that their yields frequently average twenty tons per acre. 



