THE POTATO INDUSTRY OF COLORADO 
By C. L. FITCH and E. R. BENNETT 
PREFACE. 
When the cattlemen first established their home ranches in 
our mountain valleys and in the creek bottoms on the plains, they 
found the dark, sandy, alluvial loams good potato soil, rich with 
the wash and willow leaves of ages, and large returns were secured 
for years on these soils. The introduction of alfalfa from Utah 
and California made the bench lands even more productive, and 
when farmers learned how to break and handle the alfalfa sod, it 
proved the greatest factor in the extension of potato growing and 
of irrigation development generally. The total output was doubled 
from the same areas in a few years’ time and the possibilities of 
profit woke up the state. 
A little later the fine shape and wonderful quality of mountain 
potatoes became known outside the mining and lumber camps, and 
railroads saw the possibilities of agricultural freight, and farm 
development. 
Somewhat later the newer districts made so many demands 
upon the Agricultural College for advice and instruction that the 
Board of Agriculture secured a potato specialist to work for the 
growing industry. The attention of growers and of business men 
generally was called to the geographical position of Colorado with 
reference to the production and consumption of potatoes and the 
specialist went up and down through the mountains as an instructor 
and adviser to the newer potato districts. In connection with the 
Rio Grande Railroad and the department of Farmers’ Institutes, 
Professor Cottrell took expert potato growers to the newer moun¬ 
tain districts, and later three special institute trains were run by 
the railroad and the college that were of great use, both to the 
railroad and to the people along its line. 
In 1895 Colorado put in 37,000 acres of potatoes and produced 
three and one-half million bushels and ranked as the twentieth state 
in the Union in total potato production. Next year she was twenty- 
second. In 1900 she was twenty-third. In 1902 Colorado rose 
suddenly to sixteenth place in the Union. In 1903 she was tenth, 
and since that time she has held about that position. In 1906 her 
crop fell to the sixteenth, and in 1909 it rose to the ninth state. 
This year the August freeze at Greeley has lowered her position 
again to the twelfth place. The acreage in 1910 was 64,000. 
In money value per year her crop in fifteen years has grown 
from a little over a million dollars to an average, since 1903, of 
more than four millions of dollars, with the highest total in 1909 
