Growing Potatoes Successfully in ]^ew York. 41 



to use potato boxes for handling the crop, by the hundred. They 

 are 16x13x13 inches inside, with hand holes in the ends and made 

 of very light wood. They hold one bushel (60 pounds) even full; 

 thus one can be placed on another. 



Find out what varieties of potatoes do best on your soil and in 

 your climate and then stick to them as long as they do well, and 

 select the best for seed each year. Don't grow more than one or 

 two kinds. Straight goods sell far better than mixed. Keep 

 your seed so that no sprouts will start until after the potatoes are 

 in the ground, for main crop. The first sprout gives the strongest 

 plant. You can sprout a few in the light for early ones. Do not 

 apply fresh manure on land for potatoes. Put it on at least the 

 fall before hand. 



In the four-year rotation named (clover, corn, potatoes and 

 small grain), the manure applied to the clover sod for corn will 

 be in excellent condition for the potatoes the following year. 

 Treat all seed to destroy scab germs that may be on it, thus hold- 

 ing this trouble in check as far as you can. If you grow potatoes 

 with nearly level culture (always the best way in a dry season, 

 and as good in a wet one on drained land), plant in drills. If you 

 plant in hills, you must hill up or they will grow out of ground 

 and crack ground open and be injured in quality. If you want 

 potatoes perfect in quality (snowy white inside), never let them 

 be exposed to any light at all from the time they set until you 

 eat them, so far as is possible. Keep them where it is absolutely 

 dark. Those who sell to consumers or to local retail dealers may 

 well make a note of this point; and also it will pay them to grow 

 only those varieties that are choice to eat. Much of our money 

 was made in this way. I have sold 1,000 bushels of potatoes to 

 a grocer in the city at one time for 15 cents a bushel above market 

 price. First, I produced something choice, way above the ordi- 

 nary, and then I let folks know what I had. After trying them 

 and finding that they could depend on their being No. 1, always, 

 they readily paid me my price. 



