Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1895 — POTATO NOW IS KING. [ARTICLE]

POTATO NOW IS KING.

Farmers Beginning to Realize that _ There Is. Money in Tubers. The potato has at last taken rank as king among the tillers of the soil. For years Secretary of Agriculture Morton has been appealing to the farmers of the United States to grow potatoes, as he be- : lieved that they would be-their salvation. They have finally taken his advice, and now lhey are beginniug io realize, that they will profit by pianting more ground to the tubers instead of wheat and corn. There is at all Ernes a steady demand for them, and they arc quite as staple as wheat and not subject to the fluctuations of the latter. With the low price of wheat and corn the farthers have looked about i for some more profitable crop and investigation shows that the United States has never produced enough potatoes for home consumption. Thousands of bushels are bought in foreign markets every year and if there is a profit for powers abroad, with .small areas to devote to the crop and the additional expense of ocean freight rates, there ought to be money in the business for the farmers in this country, who hare larger tracts of land and cheaper freight rates. The imports for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, were 3,022,578 . bushels, of the value of nearly $1,250,000. Last year 2,737,973 acres were devoted to this crop, and that was an increase over the year before of 83,000 acres. The product of 1894, on account of an unfavorable season, was 2,24(5,000 bushels short of the year before, notwithstanding the increased acreage. But in measuring the popularity of the potato as an article of farm product, the product is scarcely worthy of consideration, for the increase in the ayea of land devoted to the crop is plainly the index of its popularity. All the evidence available indicates that there are now 3,000,000 acres of potatoes growing in the United States. The fact that there has been a steadily decreasing acreage of wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn, which continues this year, is considered by the Secretary of Agriculture to indicate an increased acreage of potatoes and other substantial small products. New York has steadily led all the other States as a potato producer. Last year 378,728 acres of land were devoted to the crop in New Yosk, and the product, aggregating over 29,000,000 bushels, was sold for half as many million dollars. Michigan whs second, With 215,270 acres' and a

product of over 13,000,000 which brought the growers nearly $G,000,60<3. Pennsylvania was third, 206,879 acres, which produced almost the exact number of bushels produced by Michigan, though the acreage was vastly less than Michigan’s. The acreage in Ohio was in round numbers the same as that In Penusylvania, and the aggregate of the crop was the same within a few thousand bushels, showing that both Pennsylvania and Ohio raised a larger crop than Michigan with less acreage. The other big potatogrowing States are lowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, in the order named. lowa had 176,605 acres last year; Kansas, 108,213. The aggregate of acreage gradually decreases from lowa to Kansas, excepting that Illinois and Wisconsin had almost the same acreage—that is, about 166,500. While Missouri, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Colorado, and a half-dozen other States are good potato growers and have a large acreage,.none.ot4hfjiiapjiro^ehedloo,(X)o acres last year, and in nearly all of them less than 50,000 acres of land was devoted to potatoes.