Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1925-03-05
Potato Figures Call for
Careful Crop Methods
POTATO RAISING INDUSTRY IS
IN PERIOD OF TRANSITION
DUE TO MANY FACTORS

AZ CAAC OAOoC VI lIi0 llISI WC0A III
February Wisconsin growers had
sent SLAP cars Of commercial potatoes
to market, which is about 800 cars
shy of the number marketed at the
same date last year. There were IT,
096 cars sent from this state during
the 1923-24 shipping season.
Even those who have been raising
potatoes at low costs feel the pinch
pretty hard when stocks are quoted
at 60 to rs cents hundred pounds.
We have not had any long spells of
brisk cold weather. to speed up the
demand for any length of time as yet
The high production of 1924 was caus
ed by favorable growing conditions in
the nation as whole rather than to
a greater acreage to potatoes. In fact
the total acreage in 1924 was A per
cent under 1923 and Is per cent under
1922 1t certainly is not season to
plan extended acreage of potatoes,
but one in which to reduce costs by
using good seed stock on every acre
planted The potato game is getting
tough for those whose land is run
down and who use Gull seed stock.
For such the potato game is not
cash income crop when all the fig
ures are considered.
Potato growing is in a state of
transition, A steadily increasing pro-
portion of the potatoes raised for sale
is being produced by those grow ers
who have an acreage large enough to
justify the use of improved machinery
for cultivating, spraying, digging and
grading the crop. A growing proper
ton of the acreage is being planted
in those sections where the average
yield is high. A greater emphasis
than formerly is being placed on seed
improvement, seed treatment, and
the use of fertilizers. The better quail
ity of the product, the increased
yields secured and che use of improv-
ed equipment are together increasing
the numbers of bushels of marketable
potatoes which the large growers can
produce with a given amount of labor
The more efficient growers are reduc-
ing the cost Of production. In the
long run this will reduce the profits
of those growers who raise potatoes
for sale in quantities too small to
justify the purchase of efficient equip
4 III. 49,
During the last 80 years the aver
age yield of potatoes in the United
States has been increasing at an aver
age rate of nearly a bushel per acre
each year. Additional allowance must
now be made for the effect on yields
of the great Improvement in the aver
age quality of the seed potatoes used
1t, therefore, appears that if in 1925
weather conditions are about as fav-
orable to potatoes as they are in an
average year, the yield per acre may
reach, say, 1O8 or Ito bushels per
acre instead Of 1905 bushels, the
average of the last ten years.
There are many local variations in
the potato outlook During the war,
when the prices Of farm products
were high in proportion to freight
rates, potato production was greatly
stimulated in some states remote
from the principal markets. The acre
tage Of potatoes in the five states of
l
Minnesota, North Dakota, South Da4
kota, Colorado ard Idaho increased
from less than 100000 acres in 1914
to over 100000 acres in 1922 Since
then overprOduction and low prices,
combined with higher freight rates,
have caused the acreage in these
states to decline. In 1924 only 100000
acres were grown and yet the price
there has been so low that millions
| Of bushels have been fed to live stock
and in the Dakotas a considerable
acreage was left undug. Growers in
these states should watch closely the
acreage planted elsewhere, because in
recent years of overproduction they
have been the ones who suffered the
Wisconsin Farmer