Studies oe Heaetei in Potatoes. 
27 
xA.rkansas divide once shipped potatoes by the trainload. iThe crop 
failed, as did likewise an attempt by the Colorado station to grow 
potatoes at Elizabeth, under improved methods, in 1909. This crop 
was harvested by the writer. 
On Clear Creek and Bear Creek near Dernier, in 1863 or 1864, 
according to Mr. Asa Sterling, of Greeley, one crop of potatoes, of 
excellent quality, was raised but none have been raised since. 
On the present site of Denver, in the suburban region west O'f 
Denver Universit}^ potatoes were raised in the early days and of 
good cjuality. On August to, iqt2. we visited the locality, talked 
with gardeners and small farmers and saw the brick residence, 
spacious for its time, of the man who was known as “PotatO' Clark,” 
because of his great success at that place with potatoes grown for 
Denver and the mining camps, in the early days. We later had a 
gracious letter from his widow, an elderly lady in the East. All 
were agreed that potatoes had failed about 1876 and, though often 
tried, they have not been grown thereabouts with any success what¬ 
ever for forty years. 
The same was true later, but in less degree, of the farms 
about Longmont, Johnstown and Fort Collins, on soils so rich that 
they grow the largest yields of sugar beets and grain produced 
anywhere. 
The plants, in such of these cases as have been observed, 
appeared to have the leaf-roll disease. On the station plots at Fort 
Collins Professor E. P. Bennett, in the years 1907 to 1912, secured 
about one fairly healthy crop in the six. 
Down the Platte river, at Brush, and at Julesburg, where the 
yields were formerly very large, failures came sooner than on less 
rich soils. In 1915 crops of potatoes have been good again, the 
Greeley district having one of the best crops it ever raised. The 
worst crop was in iQii, but the crops of 1912, 1913, and 1914 
were far below the average. 
On the West Slope there are heavy lands which have gone out 
of potato production—mostly bottom lands that have had the leaf- 
roll. Other bottom lands and damp spots at the breaks between 
benches, will have trouble, but the high sloping mesas, with their 
pure, cold water, have fine conditions for permanent potato pro¬ 
duction. 
