A POTATO ROMANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9718, 14 February 1910, Page 4

A POTATO ROMANCE.

Notwithstanding the inferiority ,of the soil and climate of Germany for potato-growing, the industry has been increasing by leaps and bounds. This is due, not to the fact that the Germans are larger eaters of the potato than other nations, but to the subsidiary industries which have been developed in connection with it. These industries include the making of potato-spirit, motor-spirit, starch, potato flour, dextrose, glucose, and artificial sago. The potato crop, from first to last, gives employment in Germany to over 2,000,000 persons. Although some of these by-products of the potato are consumed by the Germans themselves, they are also largely exported. England receives, it need hardly be • said, more than her fair share of them. Dextrose, which is used by English brewers instead of barley, is obtained from Germany. Over and over again farmers in England have been urged to take up the question of the pro • duction of potato-spirit. It has been found so profitable by our German competitors that they have erected over 6,500 distilleries for this purpose. At the present time Germany produces one fourth of the total potato crop of Europe and the United States of America. This is a great achieve-, ment. The interesting part of it to the English farmer of that it has only been brought about by the careful study of his own methods of I potato-growing.