“A City Potato Drive” 
The Consumer’s Price—The Farmer’s Share 
F or the past two weeks the New York papers 
have contained eohunn after 'coluinn ahont a 
’•drive” to Increase the consumption of potatoes. 
Tliis seems to liave been orftanized by the various 
food commissions. In some cases we were told that 
the purpose was to save Avlieat through 
an increased consumption of potatoes. 
Now and then announcement was made 
that the purpo.se Avas partly to help 
farmers dispose of their big stocks of 
potatoes, but if that had been the object 
this “drive” would have been started long 
ago—before fai’iners started on their 
Si)ring Avork. The followiifg statement 
taken from the New York papers ])rob- 
ably gets close down to the real truth 
about this “drive”: 
' Cyrus C. IMilltu-. director of the Bureau 
of Transportation and Distribution.' and 
E. I’. Miller, of the Potato Division of the 
Food Administration, had a long confer¬ 
ence Avitli 100 produce men, who make a 
specialty of dealing in old potatoes. An 
agreement was reached to encourage the 
movement of potatoes from the farms by 
urging shippers to release their holdings. 
They also agreed to maintain prices suf- 
ciently low so that the retailer may be 
able to sell at the price suggested by the 
board, and even lower, if there should be an 
unusual ciuantity arrive daily. 
.Tust how you are going to encourage 
farmers to .ship potatoes by a.ssuring 
them that the price Avill be cut below 
the cost of production is a new one—to(t 
much for us. 
THE DRIVE.—At any rate, it .started, 
and no doubt Ave shall soon have a great 
volume of figures to show how much the 
farmer Avas helped. As usual. The R. 
N.-Y. Avill let others eat figures if 
they care to. We prefer to eat po¬ 
tatoes; .so Ave Avent right out ou the 
street and bought the tubers at 
stores and from jieddlers’ Avagons in 
just such sized lots as the majoi’ity 
of city people do. Then Ave got 
many other families to report actual 
price.s. so that Avhat Ave give here is 
based on a large number of actual 
imrchases. We also kept close track 
of tbe arrivals of ])otatoes in this 
mai-ket and Avhere they came from. 
IKJW PEOPLE BUY.—Very few 
city ])eople Imy a barrel or bushel 
at a time. A few families Avho come 
from the country may do that, but 
the great majority buy ])otatoes 
about as they do sugar—in small 
lots. Prol)ably 10 to 15 pounds is 
the usual size of purchase. One 
reason for this is that feAV people 
have good storage room for such 
food. Then they get in the habit of 
letting the grocer and butcher do the keeping for 
them: .some people eA’en buy potato salad or cooked 
potato in order to avoid the bother of handling raw 
potatoes. Most grocery and butcher .stores sell po¬ 
tatoes. and some of the,stores make a private “driA'e” 
on them by ottering a “measure” at a low jirice in 
order to attract trade. As a rule, the storekeepers 
do not like to handle this bulky and perishable crop. 
We have uow hud high retail pi-ices for potatoes 
for two sea.sons. and there is no doubt that many 
families have given up eating them largely, and Avill 
not buy freely until the price goes down. In the 
lower parts of the city a great trade is done by 
peddlers. They buy up what they can at a bargain, 
load a wagon and go yelling and screaming along 
the Streets. People run out to the Avagon to buy, 
and the potatoes are sold in lo-pound lots—deliA'ered 
Taken from 
the ‘‘'potato 
a package of potatoes bought at retail in New York Citg during 
drive.” Then cost cents a pound. About one-fifth were like this. 
in paper bags. In the upper part of the city Avhere 
the wealthier people liv(‘ and where the great apart¬ 
ment hou.ses are located these peddlers rarely go. but 
people are served from the stores. The Avealthier 
people do not eat many ]»otatoes. The great bulk of 
the crop is consumed by the i)oor or middle classes. 
Then we must remember that in this great city close 
to 2.000,(M)O peoi)le. or nearly four times the entire 
population of the .state of A'ermoiit, eat at least one 
meal each day at a hotel or restaurant. Thus we 
must consider all these things in trying to learn 
Avhat New Yorkers pay for potatoes.^ 
PRICES AND QUALITY.-During this “drive” 
the jieddlers sold 10 pounds for 25 cents. They gave 
good Aveight, and most of the potatoes Avere fair 
quality—evidently No. 1 and No. 2 grades mixed; 
They probably bought most of these potatoes at a 
little over 90 cents a bushel. The stores 
in the loAver part of the cit.v charge<l 
t'A /2 to four cents a pound. Up toAvn in 
the Avealthier districts the ]»rice ran to 
five or e\’en six cents. New potatoes re¬ 
tailed at eight cents ])er pound. During 
the past Winter most of the restaurants 
have been charging 10 cents or more for 
potato Avith meat orders. During this 
“drive” some of them served ])otato 
free and charged for bread. The high- 
priced restaurants charged fi’om 15 to 25 
cents for a ymrtion of ytotato—about 
e(iual to one fair-sized tuber. The j)o- 
tatoes shoAvn here (actual photograph 
.showing size and condition) Avere from 
a lot costing four cents a ]>ound, or $2.40 
l»er bushel. About 20 per <'ent of the 
luircha.se Avas of this size. It Avas evi¬ 
dently a mixed lot, both grades being 
put together. From all the evidence and 
after figuring niang separate purchases 
we find that during this “drive” Xcui 
York people paid on the. average 1<'2 
cents a pound, or $2.Hi per bushel. Mang 
of them paid ‘more than. 
THE FARMER’S SHARE.—Now Iioav 
much of this did the farmer Avho gi’CAv 
these ])otatoes j-eceivoV We dirl no1 ac¬ 
cept any marlad figures in s<!ekin:; this 
an.swer. We found Avhere these ])otatoes 
came from, and then Avent to actual 
farmers right at th(?.se points and 
found just Avhat tlu'.v were paid. 
I’his work Avas doin' by farmers Avho 
sold the potatoes and by Farm Bu¬ 
reau agents Avho Avent carefully over 
the tigure.s. In parts of Michigan 
Avhere some of these yiotatoes 
started the farmers rec<'ived .‘>5 
cents per bushel. In Western Noaa' 
York prices to farmers ran from 
50 cents a bushel to $1.20 for 100 
pounds. As an average of many of 
these actual and personal reiiorts Ave 
found that while New York yieople 
Avere paying from 2V1> to live cents a 
pound, or a low average of cents, 
farmers received a trifle over one 
cent, or about 0.”. cents a bushel on 
the average. .Us a rexuil of this 
“drive.” therefore, the yew York 
consumer paid $2.yj on the average, 
while of that amount the farmer 
averaged 03 cents. B'c make that a 
30-eent dollar. 
THE FACTS.—And the Avhole truth is Avorsc than 
that. The 05 cents to the farmer represented the 
No. 1 U. S. standard grade. The No. 2 grade brought 
only about half of this, yet on oA-ery .sample Ave 
bought it Avas evident that the two grades had been 
mixed together and the mixture sold for the i>rice 
of No. 11 One farmer in Livingston Co., N. Y.. re¬ 
ports : 
One Avould care a great deal less about the Ioav price 
