The Potato Crisis of 1877

In the earliest stages of our Puget Sound agriculture, potatoes were found to be the most profitable crop that could be raised, because with but little outlay of capital and only the rudest preparation, they gave the largest pecuniary return from the least amount of tilled soil. But the generous tuber has at length resented the sort of imposition practiced upon it and refuses to yield as it formerly did without something like the same extra pains and expensive preliminary provisions that are requisite to the successful culture of other specialties. The easy luxuriance of this crop has naturally had a demoralizing tendency upon our farmers who have relied upon it, by inducing a slackness and carelessness of methods. The soil constantly cropped with the same product becomes exhausted, the quality has deteriorated, the yield diminished, and the stock become diseased from want of care and ill usage. Farmers will have to accept the fact that their profession is really one of the fine arts, and clumsy, inartistic work will not pay. The question then comes up of the relative profitableness of some other agricultural specialty as a partial substitute—the potato. We emphatically believe that in this particular locality, the best is fruit culture. To this conclusion we are forced by the convincing logic of experience.