38 BTJLLF.TIN 1399, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The millers' association reported thai during the period of rela- 
tively low purchasing power of the German mark a plentiful supply 
of potatoes greatly affected local demand for Hour and bread grains. 
The millers themselves have not found it practicable to mix any 
large quantity of potato Hour with the (lour produced from German 
gram, because of the high moisture content of the latter, but individual 
bakers may introduce some potato flour into their bread, because 
this practice is not now forbidden. During the pre-war period, 
when bread was advertised as rye or- wheat bread, it was required t(> 
contain only rye or wheat. In general the substitution of potatoes 
for bread cereals is done largely by the consumers themselves by 
eating potatoes instead of bread. 
In the present state of German economic interrelationships it is 
impossible to trace any relationship between potato supply and 
imports of bread cereals. 
During the season 1922-23 yields were better, probably up to 
norma!, but imports had fallen off 27,000,000 bushels below the pre- 
vious year, so there was more real lack of wheat in that year than in 
the comparatively good year of 1921. 
Government requisitioning of grain had ceased in 1923 and there 
was not the incentive to minimize statements of yields that had 
characterized returns from the rural districts during the previous 
years, although the farmers were still suspicious of further possible 
wheat confiscations by the Government. Thus the 1923 production 
estimate may be slightly nearer the actual harvest than those of 
the two previous years. On the other hand, the rapidly depre- 
ciating currency up to December, 1923, made the farmer loath to 
market his wheat except when he was ready to buy something of 
about the same cost as the value of the grain he had to sell. This 
resulted in a bad distribution of the crop, with many of the workers 
in the industrial regions and the urban inhabitants going hungry, 
even though in some cases farmers might be feeding wheat to their 
livestock. 
Increasing freight rates also tended to keep the crop from being 
well distributed. Imports were smaller in 1923-24 than in the pre- 
ceding years. It was about this tune that the German Government 
ceased importing grain and private firms had difficulty in arranging 
credits with which to buy the required supply. 
POSTWAR FOREIGN TRADE IN WHEAT 
Before the war imports were normally required in the German 
Empire to supply about 36 per cent of the total wheat requirement. 
Because of the loss of some of the wheat -consuming area as well as 
some of the wheat surplus-producing territory, the relative quantity 
required normally by the population within the present boundaries 
of the Republic has not changed materially. It is estimated that 
with a return to normal production within these boundaries about 
38 per cent of the total normal supply will have to be imported. 
pplied over one-half 
of wheat. Some of the falling off in importation these last years is 
Formerly Russia supplied over one-half of the pre-war importation 
certainly due to the inaccessability of the cheap Russian supply, a 
situation which will improve very slowly in the future. Germany 
took about equal quantities of wheat from the United States and 
Argentina, with Argentina slightly in the lead. Since the war the 
