4 BULLETIN 695, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
rice, hominy, and corn 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 dimner 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 dimimution in its consump- 
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 full 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 limit 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. Followmg the under- 
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 likely 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 increased 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 found 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 until the average for 1905-1914 reached 3,541,000 
acres, an increase of nearly 200 per cent in 40 years. 
