232 



German Potato Products. 



unenumerated may be noted oilseed cake and other animal 

 foods (;{j88,50i), straw-plaiting (;£73, 1 02), and yeast (£6gy6j2), 

 all of British manufacture. 



German Potato Products. 

 The Board have received through the Foreign Office a 

 communication from H.M. Consul-General at Hamburg from 

 which it appears that the German potato crop of 1897 was, 

 on the whole, slightly below the average both in quantity 

 and quality ; and reports indicate that the percentage of 

 starch, as well as the size of the tubers, was comparatively 

 small. 



According to the preliminary estimates of the harvest of 

 1897 issued by the Government, the yield last year repre- 

 sented 87-5 cwts. of potatoes per acre, as against the final 

 estimate of 76-4 cwts. in 1896 and 83 cwts. in 1895, from an 

 area of rather over 7,500,000 acres. The percentage of 

 diseased potatoes in the three years named is reckoned to 

 have been 6-4, 9-9, and 2-8 per cent, respectively. 



The export of potato-flour and starch from all parts of 

 Germany in 1897 was 278,000 cwts., or considerably below 

 the quantities recorded in recent years, which have been, as 

 follows : — 





Cwts. 





Cwts. 



1888 - 



817,897 



1893 - - 



598,913 



1889 



861,958 



1 894 - 



726,780 



1890 



1,009,484 



1895 - - 



597,5^2 



I89I - 



289,624 



189b 



666,6c8 



1892 - 



252,468 



1897 - - 



277,982 



About sixty per cent, ot this export has of recent years taken 

 place through Hamburg, which port in 1896 sent 130,085 

 cwts. of this commodity to Great Britain, 158,208 cwts. to 

 Spain, and 53,886 cwts. to Italy. The total export ol potato- 

 flour and starch to Great Britain was 315,946 cwts. in 1896 

 and 160,541 cwts in 1897. 



As the above figures show, the export trade in 1897 in this 

 commodity was considerably less than in the previous year. 

 The causes of this decline are stated to have been the low 

 price asked by competing manufacturers in Holland and the 

 low quotations for corn-starch in the United States. 



