Increase in Price from Ninety Cents Per Bushel to Nearly $3 Is Recorded Since Early Fall. Shortage in the Crop of Late Potatoes, Due Chiefly to Insufficient Moisture Largely Responsible. Upward Price Trend Is Expected During the Coming Months.

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With the prices of potatoes sky-rocketing, New Ulm housewives and places of business without stocks sufficient to carry them over until the 1926 crop comes in face the necessity of paying high prices for the tubers in future months. Prices have been on the upward trend since a short time after the greater part of the crop was harvested. When the late crop was being taken from the ground,”spuds” could be purchased in this city for seventy-five and ninety cents a bushel. Even this was high compared to the figure prevailing a year ago.

Some farmers report that they sold tubers last year for as low as thirty-five cents per bushel. Many of them fed potatoes to the hogs for fattening purposes, rather than to place them on the market at this low figure.

The price had risen to $1.50 per bushel several weeks ago and has been on the upward trend since, until now potatoes are hard to get and are selling for about $3.

A shortage in the crop of large potatoes, due chiefly to insufficient moisture, is largely responsible for the lack of adequate supply and resulting high prices, dealers declare.

The shortage is said to be large in Minnesota and it is hinted that “spuds” will be from $6 to $7 per hundred-weight before spring.

Brown County Journal,

November 13, 1925