18 
BULLETIN 81, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
It will be noted that during seven years of the twelve, more pota- 
toes were exported than were imported, while during live years the 
imports exceeded the exports. 
The possibilities of potato production in the United States are 
almost unlimited. All of the States could increase their acreage and 
their average yield, and there exist in many northern districts, par- 
ticularly in Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, large areas 
of cut-over lands, recently in forest but now being brought under 
cultivation, which could produce many times more potatoes than at 
present. The same is true of the irrigated West. Under present 
economic conditions, however, no material increases in acreage could 
be made without risk of overproduction. 
Among the most striking features of potato culture in the United 
States are the low average yield per acre, the relatively high cost of 
production per bushel, the distance from markets of many import £int 
ff/lUOAf 3US¥£L$ 
3 S / 
/MPO&TS 
<? s s 7 & a 
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Fig. 1.— Exports and imports of potatoes for the United States during the years 1000 to 1911, inclu- 
sive, showing graphically the alternating seasons of overproduction and scarcity. 
potato districts, and the fluctuations in the market price, which make 
potato growing rather a speculative enterprise. 
To insure permanent prosperity there is a real need for the adoption 
of a constructive policy that will strike at the roots of the present 
difficulties, a policy of which quarantines or the regulation of imports 
are only minor phases, for foreign potatoes must of necessity in the 
future play a still smaller rdle than now in supplying food to the 
people of the United States as our population increases and as the 
European crop will be more and more needed for home consumption. 
PROTECTION FROM DISEASE. 
In view of the already excessive losses from diseases and insects, 
it is apparent that it is of national importance to prevent the intro- 
duction of more pests of this nature from other countries, a pro- 
tection which is afforded through the plant quarantine act. 
