Vermont State Horticultural Society 83 



posure to light from beginning to end. That meant that we 

 could not plant potatoes in hills, unless we hilled them up high, 

 and that is not practical, because in a hill you are going to 

 put in considerable seed, and as they grow they are going to 

 crack the ground open ; the light will get in and you are going 

 to have the potatoes green. So we took the one eye cuttings and 

 planted them, one little piece about every 12 or 15 inches, three 

 to four inches deep, instead of having a number together in a 

 hill ; they didn't crack the ground open so much and we could 

 keep the light out better. And if there is anything on earth a 

 potato crop needs in an ordinary summer it is water. I want 

 the ground level, not hilled up, so the water will soak down 

 evenly all over the ground. We are more apt to get too little 

 than too much water. So we settled on this plan of one eye 

 cutting, practically, and drill planting 15 inches apart and four 

 inches deep and keeping them down in the ground. It requires 

 drained land; we had to tile drain some. If your land was not 

 drained you might have trouble with rot in a wet season. With 

 our land drained we find no more trouble with rot when planted 

 four inches deep than when planted shallow. 



When I speak of one eye cutting, I think you all know prac- 

 tically what I mean. I don't have any iron-clad rule, — I mean 

 to take potatoes that have the ordinary number of eyes, a medium 

 sized tuber, and cut it so you will get one eye to a piece, in the 

 center. At the stem end you will find a little weak one, reach 

 up and take the next one. When you get to the seed end, there 

 is a cluster of eyes; just take your knife and cut off the cluster 

 of eyes and throw it away, leaving one or two eyes then on the 

 piece. Supposing we didn't cut that off what might be the result ? 

 not always, but sometimes, — why, half a dozen eyes might start, 

 I have often seen it ; half a dozen little weak sprouts would mean 

 40 or 50 little potatoes and no large ones. Supposing you have 

 that weak eye from the stem end and a poor piece from the seed 

 end, you get about 10 good pieces and two poor ones. One- 

 sixth of your crop is poor. That is not business. 



In catering to our customers we chose varieties that would 

 have good eating qualities. We have grown in the years past, 

 first, the Early Rose, the Hebron Beauty, the Snowflake, and 

 potatoes of that variety good to eat, and then we so managed to 

 learn their habits as to grow a large crop and then grew them 

 down in the ground so they would be white and nice when we 

 dug them. Another thing we learned was that a really dis- 

 criminating person who had a fine taste for a good potato could 

 tell if we put fresh manure on a fielfl. We learned to put it 

 on a year ahead. 



