The Potato Industry oe Colorado. 47 
or local warehouse. In those districts where the winter climate is 
particularly severe, and where it is difficult because of cold weather 
or bad roads to take the potatoes from store house to market there 
is more of a tendency to sell potatoes direct from the field regardless 
of price at digging time, and in districts where the rainfall is ex¬ 
cessive there is also the objection that storage houses are not so 
easily kept dry as in the arid regions of the West 
In Colorado there is seldom a time when potatoes cannot be 
taken from the farm to the market. As a result our potato growers 
have taken advantage of the favorable conditions for storing and 
a characteristic and unique system of storing has been developed. 
Our growers thus avoid glutting the markets during the digging 
period in the fall, and take advantage of any brief bulge in the 
price during the winter. The history of this system shows that it 
is not an invention but a gradual growth from the idea of storing 
in pits to the perfected ventilated potato cellars that are found in 
Colorado today. This system we consider one of the great features 
of the Colorado industry and is well worth the careful study of all 
potato producers who do not already understand its principles. 
POTATO cellar construction AND MANAGEMENT. 
Cost of Construction per Hundred Weight of Potatoes. —This, 
in the best grade cellars, is about 20 cents. With a permanent roof 
over the dirt roof, the cost will be at least 5 cents more, and if a 
grower wishes to provide for seed potato storage, and have a hand¬ 
some cellar for sales purposes, he may spend as much as 30 cents 
per hundred weight of potatoes to be stored. On the other hand, 
with cheap construction, without much regard to permanence, and 
with the use of farm labor, as little as 7 cents per hundred weight 
on a large cellar may provide good safe storage. Interest and sink¬ 
ing fund on this basis make the cost of cellar as a minimum one 
cent per hundred of capacity per year. 
Size of Cellars. —Each square foot of floor space within a 
cellar will carry 200 pounds of potatoes, piled five feet deep, or 240 
pounds per square foot six feet deep. Thus a cellar 50x100 feet 
will hold one million or one million two hundred thousand pounds of 
potatoes, with the driveway filled. It is wise to have a cellar large 
enough to care for the crop if piled four feet deep. 
Driveways and End Doors. —A large cellar should have a 
driveway clear through it, with doors at each end. This saves 
backing into the cellar, or makes the potatoes at each end accesible, 
when the cellar is full. It also makes quick and complete ventilation 
easy. At the same time driveways take space, and the extra bulk¬ 
head and double doors are expensive, and let in cold, so that small 
cellars are often built with only one doorway. Such cellars should 
be arranged, however, so the center at the rear can be emptied early 
