16 BULLETIN 182, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
when potatoes are cultivated every third year. Since the potato 
demands deep cultivation this crop accomplishes for the eastern | 
provinces what the sugar beet does for the heavier soils of the west-. © 
ern provinces. Furthermore, the alcohol distillery makes possible 
the ready conversion of an unstable product into a stable one. At 
best, potatoes can be kept only until the warm weather of the next 
season sets in, whereas alcohol has been kept by the Central Associa- 
tion for several years following an overproduction. Besides, the po- 
tatoes can be sorted, as is done, for instance, in the neighborhood of 
Berlin, and the best can be put upon the market for eating, while 
the small and otherwise inferior ones—that is, those which are dam- 
aged or which reveal poor keeping qualities—can be taken to the 
distillery. Again, as soon as the potatoes show signs of decay the 
capacity of the distillery can be increased. Thus a large part of the 
waste of an important product of the farm can be saved, for even 
those potatoes which are already partly decayed can be utilized. 
The spent mash—by far the most important by-product of the dis- 
tillery—and the skins and watery wastes (Abwasser) are important 
adjuncts to the food rations of cattle. The cattle in turn furnish 
fertilizers to the soil, and are thus profitable aside from the pecuniary 
advantages derived from the milk and the meat. In order to fully 
appreciate the value placed on the manure, the by-product of the 
dairy barn, it is necessary to see with what scrupulous care it is pre- 
served as well as with what large expenditure of time and labor the 
fields are manured. 
Thus everything works hand in hand. After having seen all this, 
one begins to appreciate more fully why such an organization as the 
Society of Distillers for the Disposal of Alcohol, consisting almost 
exclusively of agriculturists, should be willing to spend so much 
money and energy in finding new industrial outlets for alcohol and 
for improving and popularizing the present outlets. This class are 
not trying to improve their situation by stimulating the consump- 
tion of alcohol as a beverage but by devoting their entire resources 
to the increased use of technical alcohol, as it is called. In this way 
they are not only helping themselves, but they are also striving to 
make their country independent of Russia and of the United States 
in so far as the use of petroleum is concerned. Besides, the rapidly 
growing population of Germany demands that every acre of land - 
be cultivated as intensively as possible. It is interesting to note that 
whereas the agriculturists as a class show considerable foresight in 
this respect the average owner of an estate has not yet learned to 
stimulate the consumption of alcohol by using it for technical 
purposes on his own premises. 
For the sake of convenience the agricultural distilleries of Ger- 
many may be classified into three groups, as follows: 
