26 
BULLETIN 1242, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
USE IN KRAUT. 
When the crop is large, prices low, and the demand for shipment 
or storage limited, the extensive kraut-making industry (fig. 18) 
affords a useful outlet. It acts as a balance wheel, increasing its 
activity in full-crop years but letting up in years of short crops and 
high prices. 
Most of the commercial kraut is manufactured in the cabbage 
areas of New York and Wisconsin, although, when prices are low, a 
considerable share of the car lot domestic cabbage finds its way to 
kraut factories in midwestern cities and in Philadelphia and Balti- 
more. City kraut manufacturing helps to account for the compara- 
tively large receipts of cabbage at some of the distributing centers. 
During and after the war period kraut production was extremely 
variable; but in 1923 it was estimated that kraut factories con- 
sumed nearly 160,000 tons, compared with 67,000 in 1920, with 64.000 
TE'I H " fir*- 
Fig. 18.— Intake for unloading cabbage at kraut factory with space for 10 wagons and teams. 
in 1921, and with 164,000 in 1922. About 80 per cent of cabbage 
used for kraut is grown in New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan. 
Most of the other 20 per cent is raised throughout the North Central 
States west of the Mississippi. The beginning of kraut making is re- 
ported in Colorado, Texas, and Florida, where in some seasons mere is 
much surplus cabbage. 
Western New York, the greatest kraut-cabbage section, produced 
43,000 to 44,000 tons, approximately 3,500 carloads, in 1923. The 
chief centers are near Geneva, Ontario County, where SO to 90 per cent 
of the domestic cabbage is used for kraut, and in Fulton, Oswego 
County. 
In 1920-21, the 30 kraut factories in Wisconsin used 16,000 tons 
of cabbage. About one-third was manufactured in two great fac- 
tories in Racine County. Over 6,000 tons of kraut cabbage were 
sold in that county in 1920-21. Kraut is made in all the cabbage 
sections of Michigan except in Berrien County; the largest center is 
in Saginaw County. 
