BULLETIN OF THE 
USIPfEMAWHll 
No. 47. 
Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry, Wm. A. Taylor, Chief 
November 25, 1913 
LESSONS FOR AMERICAN POTATO GROWERS 
FROM GERMAN EXPERIENCES. 
By W. A. Orton, Pathologist in Charge of Cotton and Truck Disease and Sugar- 
Plant Investigations, Bureau, of Plant Industry. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Iii seeking the improvement of our agriculture Ave may advan- 
tageously take notice of the progress made by other countries and 
the methods that have resulted in their success, to the end that by a 
comparison and study of the relative conditions here we may gain 
a wider viewpoint and new ideas. 
Those working for the betterment of our potato industry can find 
no country that will more richly reward study than Germany, where 
potato culture and trie utilization of this crop have attained a high 
development. 
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE POTATO IN GERMAN AND AMERICAN 
AGRICULTURE. 
The potato in Germany takes a more important place than with 
its. Though the country is much smaller than the United States, the 
area planted is 8,165,000 acres, as compared with 3,566,000 acres in 
the United States. 1 The average total yield is 1,653,403,000 bushels, 
or 202.5 bushels per acre, as compared with our average of 343,587,000 
bushels, 1 or 96.2 bushels per acre. If the States of Maine, New York, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota alone were to plant 12.5 per 
cent of their arable land in potatoes, as Germany does, and secure an 
equivalent yield, the product would amount to 1,558,944,000 bushels, 
4J times our present production from the entire country. At the 
present rate of consumption of potatoes in the United States, which 
is considerably less than 3 bushels per capita, the needs of the -entire 
country could be supplied from ar^ one of the States of New York, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota and leave a surplus unused, 
whereas all the States combined have several times failed to produce 
1 Five-year average, 1908 to 1912. 
14572°— 13 
