POTATO CULTURE IN COLORADO 
By 
E. P. SANDSTEN 
The potato crop is rapidly becoming- one of the leading crops 
in Colorado. The soil and climatic conditions in many sections 
are ideal for the normal development of the plant and for the 
production of a high quality. Cool nights and moderately warm 
and sunny days favor a gradual growth with a maximum develop¬ 
ment of the starch content, together with firmness and cooking 
qualities. Poor quality in Colorado potatoes is not due to soil 
or climatic conditions, but to methods of irrigation and culture. 
The past year’s experience has shown that the potato can be 
grown successfully as a garden crop and on city lots and gardens, 
and we may expect in the future that a large share of the city 
gardeners will plant potatoes in place of the more perishable 
vegetables. 
The success of potatoes as a garden crop will depend largely 
upon the* grower’s ability to rotate his crops so that potatoes 
will not be grown oftener than once in three or four years in the 
same soil; also to his ability to provide the soil with the needed fer¬ 
tilizer in the form of humus materials. The problem of rotation 
is more difficult in garden work than under field culture, due to 
limited area of the garden plots. But, where well rotted stable 
manure or rotted street sweepings are obtainable, the problem of 
rotation is easily solved. 
So far as food values are concerned, potatoes will yield more 
for a given space than any of the common vegetables grown, and 
have the additional advantage of keeping qualities. 
Under field conditions, the potato crop fits well into a rational 
system of rotation and has the advantage of leaving the land in 
the best possible condition for other crops. 
Success in potato growing is never obtained by hit and miss 
methods nor by constantly changing from small to large acreage, 
and vice versa, in order to “catch the market.”' The farmer should 
adopt a standard rotation for his farm and hold to it from year 
to year. This implies that the acreage devoted to potatoes in 
settled communities should be about the same from year to year. 
If this method were uniformly followed, we should not have the 
large fluctuation in acreage nor in price. 'Phis would stabilize 
prices, and at the same time make for better farming methods. 
