24 
alk b 
amounting to 150,000 acres. Most counties show relatively 
little change, small increases being sufficient to meet the growing 
demands of the local population. But the expansion of the 
urban districts has brought about a notable extension in the 
areas where potatoes are grown for sale to other districts and 
this is accentuated by the reduction in the potato acreage in 
some counties, a reduction which is particularly heavy in Cumber- 
land, Devon, Gloucester, Somerset and Wales. In the western 
potato district the increase is small, amounting to about 8,350 
acres in Lancashire and 1,350 acres in Cheshire. But in the 
eastern counties, Lincoln has increased its potato area from 
35,500 to 104,000 acres and Cambridge (with the Isle of Ely) 
from 7,500 to 37,500 acres, the group of counties comprising 
Lincoln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford and Norfolk now 
having a total area of 182,000 acres under potatoes as compared 
with 55,000 acres in 1878. 
The highest yield per acre of potatoes is secured in Lanca- 
shire, where during the past 10 years the yield has averaged 
7 tons to the acre. In Norfolk, Lincoln, the Isle of Ely and 
Stafford yields are between 64 and 7 tons and in Yorkshire 
(East Riding), Kent, Middlesex, Salop, Worcester, Northumber- 
land and Cheshire, from 6 to 64 tons. The remaining counties 
have average yields of less than 6 tons to the acre. Of potatoes 
more perhaps than of any other crop (except hops) can it be 
said that high yields are secured in the areas where the acreage 
is greatest, and low yields where it is least. The commercial 
production of potatoes has become centralised in those districts 
where conditions are especially favourable to high yields and it 
is probable that were it not for the comparatively heavy transport 
charges in relation to the value of the crop, the area of potatoes, 
outside the two districts already indicated. would be even further 
reduced. 
Of the total area of 493,000 acres of potatoes in 1925, some 
63 per cent. lay within the three divisions comprising the eastern, 
north-eastern and north-western counties, while of the total 
production of 3,214,000 tons in that year these divisions provided 
2,128,000 tons or over 66 per cent. Although this is the total 
estimated production on land coming within the agricultural 
returns, there is of course a large production on allotments and 
in private gardens. No estimate can be made of the latter, 
but the output of allotments in 1925 was put at 550,000 tons 
on the assumption that about one-half the area of allotments 
is devoted to this crop and that the average yield is about the 
same as on agricultural holdings. 
In the above estimates, the production both of early and 
main crop potatoes are included. With regard to early potatoes, 
the chief producing areas are Cornwall, Bedford, Kent, Cheshire, 
Lancashire and Lincoln (Holland). In 1925, it was estimated 
that there were 55,000 acres of first early potatoes on holdings 
in England and Wales with a total production of 233,000 tons.