Uses.
In the United States, potatoes are used almost entirely as human food, a few million bushels being used for the manufacture of starch. They may be desiccated and in this form can be readily trans ported. In Europe, large quantities are used for the manufacture of starch and alcohol, the latter being a cheap source of power for motors. Pota toes are also used as a stock-food, either raw, cooked or as silage. [For the making of alcohol, see Part II of this volume.] Marketing.
Potatoes are sold by the pound, peck, bushel, barrel, cental, sack and car lot. The bushel hoA is the most convenient package for a home The barrel and sack are often used in shipping. The potatoes must be graded before shipment and all small, diseased or ill-shaped tubers sorted out. Eight to 10 per cent commission is usually charged by salesmen in New York, Philadelphia and other markets. When potatoes are shipped any distance by rail, it not infrequently happens that of the price paid by the consumer for a bushel of pota toes about two thirds is required to defray the cost of transportation and distribution, and one-third is left for the grower.
Machinery. (Figs.
754-760.) Potato machi nery is in a much less satisfactory condition than that used by the grain- or hay.
grower. There are no potatc planters which will plant all the tubers all the time unless a mar sits behind tc look after them 80 to 95 per cent perfect is the best that has beer attained automatically. bew of the potato spray. ing machines carry enough nozzles to ensure the covering of the whole of the plants with the With potato harvesting machinery the aim has beer to supply a two-horse machine, and in some case: these are efficient, but in some soils three or foul horses are necessary to handle the same machine. The shovel plow is not an efficient tool and is of little value for the com mercial grower. The elevator ' diggers, of which there are sev eral makes, are a distinct ad vance. There are two types, the high elevator, in which the pota toes and soil are lifted to a height of two or more feet up an inclined plane and shaken mean while, and the low elevator, in which the soil and potatoes are elevated very little, but are passed backward ove disk-like rollers.
In spite of defects, any commercial grower wh, has ten acres of potatoes needs a planter, sprayer cultivator and digger of the most approved types With a good planter a man can open, distribute tie fertilizer, plant and cover three to six acres pe day, and by changing teams during the day th, machine may be run at the maximum figure. .2 weeder will cover twenty acres a day once. Wit] reasonable facilities for filling, a spraying machine taking five rows should cover one to one and a quarter acres per hour of work, or about ten acres per day, once over. A two-horse cultivator set to take two rows will cover eight to ten acres per day, going once in a row. A man without machi nery will dig one-eighth to one-half an acre per day, depending on the crop and the soil, at a cost of two to six and sometimes eight cents per bushel ; with a good mechanical digger and three or four horses and eight to sixteen hands to pick up, three to six acres may be dug per day at a cost not exceeding two cents per bushel.
A specific example.
While the average yield of potatoes in the Jnited States is less than ninety bushels per acre, it is wholly practicable, on good potato soil, to produce three to five times that yield. It is doubt ful whether it pays to raise less than two hundred bushels to the acre. Whether it pays to raise more than three hundred bushels depends on the price of labor and the ability to secure it advantageously. By superior tillage, the yield may very easily be placed beyond three hundred bushels, if the land is right ; but if this requires the keeping of an extra team throughout the year in order to have it when the potatoes need tilling, it is a question whether the crop would return a profit. The question of farm organization at once arises, for there should be other productive work for the extra teams and men at other times of the year.