190 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



than one sprout from an eye, and with a very thin knife you can separate 

 these. I put those hills four feet apart each way. I got potatoes at 

 the rate of over 400 bushels to the acre — some twelve bushels from a 

 pound — but I didn't get there after all ; a fellow in Kalamazoo got four- 

 teen. I always thought he worked it someway. 



In regard to the cultivation, the condition of the ground makes a good 

 deal of difference with me. Many times in the spring of the year, after 

 you have planted your potatoes, a severe rain comes, the ground is 

 packed down, and these weeders don't take hold as they should. I have 

 a weeder and use it, but if the ground is in that condition, if I can see 

 the marks, even if the potatoes have not come up, I go through with the 

 cultivator and set it as wide as I can. You won't disturb the potatoes as 

 easily as you think. I work the ground up loose in that way, and then 

 go through with my weeder and make it clean. If you go through with 

 the weeder on that hard ground, you don't do the work you think yon 

 will. The after cultivation depends on the condition of the ground. If 

 the ground is hard, I loosen it up, unless it is late in the season. Unless 

 the potatoes have advanced so far as to fill the ground pretty well, with 

 roots. I wouldn't do that after the potatoes have advanced. 



In regard to gathering a crop. I have for a number of years used 

 sacks — not these thick, clumsy things — burlaps, spice sacks, etc., but the 

 thinner ones, such as are used for commercial fertilizer. You can put a 

 bushel in a sack. This year there was an objection, most of the potatoes 

 were green, and the peeling would slip worse handled in sacks than in 

 boxes, and another year, if the crop is green, I will handle them in boxes. 

 I keep the main crop in the cellar, and pit my seed. I have storage for 

 5,000 bushels. I don't care how deep they are, I put them in five or six 

 feet deep, and put them solid, but if I intend to keep them there all winter, 

 I make little ventilators. I use six inch fence stuff. Take two pieces, nail 

 strips across, and on top of those strips nail another strip lengthways, 

 and set those up there five or six feet apart. If the bin is six feet deep, 

 there will perhaps be five and a half feet dry, and six or eight inches from 

 the top will be wet, and I ciin't prevent it, except by putting in 

 ventilators. 



In regard to the quality of the seed, it makes a difference what kind of 

 seed you plant. I got some seed from one of my neighbors, he had a strain 

 of smooth Empire State, and I bought of him seed enough to plant five 

 acres, and the other five acres in the same field I planted my own seed. 



As a result, on the five acres planted with seed I got of him, I had about 

 fifty bushels to an acre, and the other end of the field, with no better 

 chance at all. went 200 bushels to an acre. All the difference was in the 

 seed, they were both the same variety. One had ripened in the summer by 

 blighting. They were not large, and I thought just right for seed, but 

 they had been ripened by some means that injured their vitality. They 

 hardly came up at all. There was no life to them. Sometimes I select, 

 and then plant: or else I take my seed from a place where the potatoes 

 are uniformly good. 



Q: What do you do to check potato blight? 



Mr. Post: I never have done anything. I have a theory, though, that 

 I shall probably try next year. That is to take one of these strong force 

 pumps, with two sprays, and then, standing on the back end of your 



