54 
BULLETIN 1399, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF ACUICULTURE 
in the six eastern provinces— East Prussia. West Prussia, Pomerania, 
Poseiij Brandenburg, and Silesia. But most of the great distilleries, 
the starch factories, and the desiccators were located in these pro- 
vinces, and almost the whole of the local potato crop except that 
which was consumed as human food or fed to livestock was locally 
manufactured into spirit and starch or was desiccated. Only the 
relatively small average quantity of 3,000,000 bushels was shipped 
from these six provinces to the deficit regions of the south and west, 
and these shipments were nearly covered by annual imports from 
Congress Poland on the east. 
Hanover and the provinces to the north produced a surplus of 
about 9,000,000 bushels annually that was snipped to Westphalia, 
Thuringia, Saxony, and the districts to the south, whose combined 
deficit reached about 23,000,000 bushels. This Left about 11,000,000 
bushels deficit to be covered by imports from abroad, Westphalia, 
Alsace-Lorraine, and the Rhine provinces importing potatoes from 
the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy. 
The pre-war distribution of the potato crop is indicated in Table 
37 prepared from estimates published by the Bureau of Economics of 
the German Ministry of Foods : 10 
Table 37. — Potatoes: Utilization of the German pre-war crop, 1914 
Use 
Total 
Germany 
Six eastern 
provinces ' 
Seed 
Million 
bushels 
249.9 
543.8 
55. 1 
17.8 
99.2 
169.0 
510. 7 
Million 
bush rlx 
113.9 
Food 
L83.7 
Drying .. 
to. ■ 
Starch 
47.8 
Alcohol. 
B4. 5 
Total crop, 1914 
1,675.5 
SOS. 3 
Average 1909-1913: 
Crop 
1,682.8 
10.9 
B30. i 
Imports less exports 
« -3. 7 
Available for disposition 
1,693.7 
826. 7 
1 Easl Prussia, West Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and B 
2 Average surplus entering into interior trade, 1912-13, as reported by the statistisches Reichsamt, in 
Statistic der Gueterbewegung auf I 'eutschen Eisenbahnen and Verkehr und WasserstSnde der Deutschen 
Binnenwasserstrassen for vjvi and L913 (Statistic der Deutschen Reichs, Bd. 265, 274). 
The relative quantities of potatoes used for human food, feed for 
livestock, or used for industrial purposes varied greatly from year to 
year. The crops in the years immediately preceding the war were 
utilized approximately in the following proportions: Seed, 15 per 
cent; human food, 33 per cent; drying, 3 per cent; starch, 3 per 
cent; alcohol, 6 per cent; waste, 10 per cent; and other uses, prin- 
cipally feeding, 30 per cent. In times of shortage in the gram crop 
a larger proportion of the potato crop was used for human food. The 
average pre-war consumption for human food was estimated at 83/2 
husliels per capita. In general, before tin 4 war, Germany just, about 
met its own potato requirements, and imports have been compara- 
tively small (about 0.7 per cent of the total production) even in years 
of shortage. 
1: Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilurig des Reichsernaehrungsamts: Beitracge zur Kreigswirtschaft, Kartoflel 
Trocknerei im Kriege, prepared by Professor Lautenbach, Berlin. 
