Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1901 — EATING EUROPEAN POTATOES. [ARTICLE]

EATING EUROPEAN POTATOES.

Ireland, Scotland and Belgium Helping to Feed Uncle Sam. For the first time in eight years this country has been obliged to go abroad to make the supply of potatoes in market adequate to the demand. Four-fifths of the potatoes that have reached New York in the past few weeks hare come from abroad. Within a week nearly 200,000 bushels have been received in that port and all told over half a million bushels have reached there. The potatoes coma from Scotland, Belgium and Ireland, where the crop has been good, while on our side of the ocean it has been the worst in a decade. The farmers who have a good supply have been holding back for better prices, putting the product in cellars and storehouses. Those who have sold recently have demanded as high as $3 per barrel, which has brought the price up to $4 and >5 at a time when potatoes are usually cheap. Potatoes abroad can be bought for 70 cents a barrel. There is a duty of 25 cents a bushel and this, with some other charges, brings the cost of potatoes from Europe to >1.70 per barrel on the pier in New York. New York consumes about 25,000 bushels of potatoes daily.