THE COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. 131 



judgment in the matter of potatoes. They know how to dig 

 them. I never had a Yankee who could dig potatoes with a 

 hoe as an L-ishmau will with a spade. It is a very pretty 

 sight to see two or three of them go through a potato-field 

 with their spades, digging the potatoes, and throwing them, 

 even the smallest, in a clean row ; levelling the ground ; 

 taking up every weed and every bit of witch-grass, and throw- 

 ing all that is foul in the land on the surface. The field is 

 thus left in a beautiful condition. You. pick up your fine 

 potatoes and put them by themselves, and the small potatoes 

 are taken up afterwards for the stock. Then you can go over 

 the land, raking the witch-grass and weeds into heaps, and 

 have them taken up and carried ofi", leaving nothing on the 

 land to prevent its easy culture the next spring. 



There is one point which I hope will be referred to while 

 we are on this subject; and that is, the sure approach of the 

 Colorado beetle. I look upon it with dread, and feel sadly 

 to think that, in connection with the other troubles which we 

 have with the potato-crop, this pest is to visit our shores. 

 I hope that before it reaches the eastern coast of Massachu- 

 setts, something besides that fatal poison, Paris green, will 

 be found to stop and destroy the creature, and I hope that we 

 shall have a discussion here which may throw light upon it 

 while we are on this subject. I should like to know if there 

 has been anything discovered by the farmers of New England, 

 or of New York State, w^here this creature has committed its 

 devastations, except Paris green, for its destruction ; whether 

 anything is being done ; whether our Board of Agriculture 

 has caused the subject to be investigated, because, I suppose, 

 we may have the beetle here next year along the whole of our 

 seaboard. 



President Allen. I Avill merely state the mode of pro- 

 cedure which we follow in the State of Maine in raising 

 potatoes. After the ground is well ploughed and in good 

 condition, we. take True's potato planter, which cuts and plants 

 and covers the potato. It is so gauged that we can plant 

 them at any distance apart. We gauge it so as to cut the 

 potato as fine as we wish. It is generally gauged so as to cut 

 a medium-sized potato into three pieces, and then it drops one 

 of those pieces eighteen inches from the other in rows three 



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