THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 231 



Tn ;ill about .'^BO acres of hoan land were worked over witli pdlatoes 

 during Uie spring- of ]!)15. This was divided as follows: James 

 Leonard, 100 acres ; Donlon Bros., 220 acres; Johnson Bros., 40 acres. 



James Leonard fonnd that land which had been worked over thor- 

 oughly the year before showed V(>ry few worms, and finally confined his 

 experiments to one field which had not been gone over entirely the year 

 before. The results were practically perfect stands of beans on all 

 his holdings. The total cost for potato work done in 1915 was 

 approximately $100.00. 



Donlon Bros, went over about 220 acres with rows of location potatoes 

 placed 150 feet apart. They then concentrated on the spots that showed 

 the most worms. These spots (about 100 acres) were gone over with 

 potatoes in rows 20 to 80 feet apart, dropping the potatoes 6 to 9 feet 

 apart in each row. These potatoes were all put in with a single-hole 

 planter of their own manufacture. Unfortunately, they only had time 

 to make three pickings, which were not sufficient to get rid of the worms 

 in some places where the infestations were extremely heavy. Several 

 small spots were noted where the worms had been missed, apparently on 

 account of having had the location row^s too far apart. One 40-acre 

 piece of sandy land was worked over with the location rows of potatoes 

 A\dthout disclosing any worms, but the beans were very severely dam- 

 aged after they had been up several weeks. In all. Donlon Bros, spent 

 $220.23 in their potato work, divided as follows : cost of potatoes, $16.75 ; 

 wiring and planting, $58.39 ; picking, $145.09. 



Johnson Bros, worked over a 40-acre field with potatoes put 50 feet 

 apart each way. In this way they were able to locate ycry definitely the 

 area of infestation, amounting to about 15 acres. They then concen- 

 trated on this area, putting rows 15 feet apart and potatoes 6 feet apart 

 in the row. They did all of their planting by hand and used little red- 

 wood stakes as location iiiarks. When the potatoes were jiicked over, 

 each man carried a little bag of potatoes and replaced any which were 

 rotten or eaten by the w'orms. This ground proved to be very wormy. 

 One piece of ground in the garden consisting of less than an acre showed 

 a severe infestation. As high as' 95 worms were taken from inside and. 

 around one piece of potato. Numbers running from 50 to 75 were not 

 unusual. It is estimated that they took fully 25,000 worms out of this 

 piece of ground in the six times it was picked over. Even then the work 

 was not entirely satisfactory. In the main field it is estimated that they 

 took out 100,000 worms in five pickings. The expenses of this work were 

 as follows : 



3 sacks of potatoes at $2.25 - $0 7."> 



Hired labor 21 00 



Own labor 35 00 



$62 75 



This makes an average cost of $4.20 per acre for the 15 acres directly 

 concerned. The main field showed just one small infestation, less than 

 50 feet across. Otherwise they had nearly a perfect stand. 



In this work in order to secure the best results it was found necessary 

 to place the potatoes, each with at least one cut surface, well down into 

 the moisture. It Avas also found that good sound, high-grade potatoes 

 were more economical than culls, fcr the reason that there was less loss 



