Production and Trade Potato Cultivation

In America and Canada, where the Colorado beetle exists, lead arsenate is added to the Bordeaux mixture to poison the beetles when they come to eat the foliage ; for if this is not done they devour all foliage of the growing crop leaving the potato field bare as the road.

Harvesting the Potato Crop.

The task of lifting the potato tubers from the soil, and gathering them into bags is no light task and causes much demand for labour at potato-harvest times. In Ireland, and also in France, much of the crop is still dug out with hand forks : in England and Scotland the "potato spinner"— a digging machine that throws tubers and soil into the air—is much used. Hand gathering of the tubers has still to be made and large gangs of Irish workers are brought over for this purpose. Similarly in Germany gangs of Polish peasants are in troduced for the potato-harvest. In the United States and in Denmark machines have been constructed that will dig the pota toes, riddle out the tubers from the soil and either leave the tubers collected together in rows or in the more complicated form the machine also gathers the tubers into boxes or bags.

World Production.

Though a plant for the cooler regions, the potato has made rapid development as a food crop, and as a world's crop, now exceeds, in point of total production, that continuous cultivation and judicious manuring with fertilizers they have been rendered fertile for potatoes, which are grown in great quantities and largely used for making (a) farina, or (b) alcohol. The varieties of German potatoes are many though curious to relate the English variety—Magnum Bonum—is very largely grown. In spite of the large home production imports of potatoes are made annually. (H. V. T.) It will be noticed that the higher yields, Great Britain and Ireland 149.5 quintals per hectare, Germany 108.8 quintals, Po land 105.4 quintals, Canada 10o quintals, are made in countries with climates that may be classed as cool, and that the yields rapidly drop off in the warmer countries, France 76.2 quintals, U.S.A. 76.1 quintals, Italy 65.6 quintals and Bolivia 11.7 quintals.

There is an important oversea trade in potatoes. Europe in 1926 imported 10,850,000 quintals of potatoes and exported 11, 822,000 quintals, the balance exported being 972,000 quintals, which is a little less than the normal. North and Central America

imports 2,552,00o quintals and exports 2,287,00o quintals. The warm continents of South America, Asia and Africa are likewise deficit zones, and each imports about 500,000 quintals of potatoes annually. Potatoes are so apt to carry diseases with them that most countries now insist that all potatoes imported must be accompanied with health certificates and to that extent trade is hampered.

The demand in England and Wales is not satisfied by the home crop and supplies are sent from both Scotland and Ireland where supplies are always largely in excess of the home needs. In most seasons the British Isles as a whole are almost self supporting in potatoes. Imports of early kinds however are brought in from the Canary isles, Spain, France and the Channel islands in the early months when people have tired of eating "old" tubers.

Commercial production of the main crop potatoes (varieties Great Scott, King Edward, Arran Chief, Majestic and Kerr's Pink) is centred in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Dur ham, in England, and Forfar, Fife and Perth in Scotland, and in Counties Down and Antrim in Northern Ireland. The potato soils in all these places is light working which seems necessary for cheap production. Some of these potatoes—the Lancashire, and a part of the Lincolnshire and Irish crop—are produced in black peat soils which are very suitable for this crop, but the tubers are dull and dark in appearance and sell at lower prices than the crops of bright-skinned tubers from the red sandstones, silts and limestone soils.

Potatoes are grown throughout France, though in some of the departments the soils are not well suited to this culture and acre ages are small. In other departments, Vienne, Rhin, Saone-et Loire, Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire Inferieure, Maine-et-Loire and Morbihan considerable areas are planted for commercial produc tion. In certain specially favoured places such as St. Malo, Brit tany and also in the RhOne valley, quick-growing varieties are planted to give an early supply to the markets not only of France, but also of England. A trade of substantial size in early potatoes has now been built up.