1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



r99 



thing, a great part of the potatoes are left down 

 in the furrow left by the digger. This makes 

 it more work to pick them up than where they 

 are ieft on top of the ground, or on a strip of 

 ground slightly raised, as with a high-priced 

 digger. It is harder work on the back where 

 you have to reach down lower to get the pota- 

 toes. Mr. Metlin has Carman No. 1 (or did 

 have until I bought them) and the Koshkonong, 

 the potato that gave such tremendous yields at 

 the Ohio Experiment Station last year. His 

 soil is like friend Fenn's— a sandy loam. 



WILL IT PAY TO BUY A POTATO-DIGGER, AND 

 WHAT KIND SHALL ONE BUY? 



That depends. If you raise an acre or more 

 of potatoes, I think it will pay you to have a 

 digger. Perhaps one that costs $8.00 or §10.00 

 like my own, will do. If you are going to raise 

 high-priced potatoes, so it is important to get 

 every single one, big or little, it may pay to 

 invest still more money in a digger, say the 

 Hallock; but if you are going to raise five or 

 ten acres every year, and especially if you get 

 200 or 300 bushels per acre, and of valuable 

 sorts, then you can afford to buy a digger that 

 costs $7.5 or SlOO; and, by the way, if the owner 

 of the digger can go out and work with it for 

 his neighbors it will very much aid in reducing 

 the expense of keeping such a machine. I get 

 25 cents a day for the use of my cheap digger, 

 and sometimes several want it the same day. 



On our grounds we commenced digging pota- 

 toes about the middle of August, putting in 

 crimson clover after them, and we have been 

 digging potatoes and putting in their place 

 crimson clover, winter oats, and rye, olmost 

 ever since when the weather was suitable. Our 

 last potatoes were dug and put away Oct. 20. 

 Now, you see with only ten acres of potatoes ol 

 different varieties, and ripening at different 

 times, you can use a digger almost constantly 

 for two months; and if you let it out to your 

 neighbors, it may be made to pay a very good 

 interest on the money invested, even if it is 

 used only in the fall of the year. 



SOBTING POTATOES. 



Wilbur Fenn does the sorting as he picks 

 them up in the field. As a rule he does not 

 pick up any seconds at all. Each man is care- 

 fully instructed, and he follows after them to 

 see that they are working according to the 

 instructions. I thought they were leaving 

 some pretty nice potatoes on the ground.* and 

 so I asked him how much he would throw off 

 if they would pick up every thing, little and 

 big. There were two reasons why he did not 

 want to do that way. One was, that he did not 



♦Wilbur Fenn's Monroe Seedlings are remarkable 

 for being of such a nice oval oblonp: shape— scarcely 

 a prongy or crooked potato. This year, however, 

 the abundant rains had tlie effect ol' making- more 

 prongy ones than usual. Tliese, unless very large, 

 he throws out with the seconds. His reason torso 

 doing was that he believes like produces like: and 

 although these prongy ones might do very well for 

 table use, he says lie thinks it pays him to throw 

 them out as seconds. For instance, should he draw 

 a load of potatoes to market, half a dozen prongy 

 and crooked ones scattered through the lot would 

 knock off three or four cents a bushel. Here is an 

 important item for you, brother potato-growers: 

 When ,vou are going to market with a load of pota- 

 toes, all of nice shape, it has quite an influence on 

 the one who is naming the price he will give. Use 

 up the prongy or crooked ones on your own table- 

 that is, if you think it will pay to bother the good 

 wife in that way, or else sell them at half price as 

 seconds. I am not at all sure that planting prongy 

 ones would be more likely to ■produce a prongy crop. 

 Win not our experiment stations please make some 

 experiments so as to decide in regard to this matter 

 a little better ? 



want any potatoes to go out as " Wilbur Fenn's" 

 unless they were up to standard according to 

 his ideas. Secondly, he had got his gang of 

 men trained to do the sorting just about to his 

 notion, and he did not want to demoralize them 

 by starting in any other way. So I decided to 

 let them go on, but made arrangements to have 

 a man go along afterward and pick up some 

 Sir William seconds specially for me; therefore 

 Wilbur Fenn's potatoes are all firsts. He has 

 nothing else in his cellar. In our work at home 

 we pick up every thing, especially with the 

 Thoroughbreds and other high-priced potatoes. 

 We stack them up in slatted bushel boxes in 

 the cellar; and when it is stormy and bad 

 weather, so the boys can not work outdoors, 

 they do the sorting with the machine shown 

 below. 



You will notice it has a tray with a screen 

 bottom. This tray is arranged to swing. A 

 chain is attached to the back of the tray so that 

 it can swing only so far. Now, one great trou- 

 ble with most sorting-machines is that potatoes 

 will come part way through the screen and 

 stick. By giving this tray a smart bump or 

 jerk, rather (for the chain jerks it when it gets 

 the length of the chain), the potatoes will, 

 most of them, get jerked out of the screen — that 

 is, they will either go through or else hop out 

 and go down among the bests. The space un- 

 derneath the tray is just big enough to hold 

 four of our bushel boxes. To work rapidly it 

 needs a man and two boys— one boy for each 

 side of the machine— that is, where your pota- 

 toes are to be sorted as we sort them for seed, 

 not only for size, but so that we can throw out 

 all the bad-shaped ones and all scabby or cut 

 or brui.sed ones. All these we put in as seconds. 

 While a cut or bruised potato may keep over 

 winter all right, it does not suit very well to 

 put such into barrels labeled No. 1. This ma- 

 chine, as you will notice, gives the operator or 

 the boys a chance to see the whole of every 

 potato as it rolls down the incline. If we sort 

 them only for size, we can put them through 

 rapidly; but it takes quite a little time to sort 

 them over, especially in regard to general ap- 

 pearance. The price of the machine is $15.00. 

 You see where it is made, by the lettering on 

 the cut. There are three different sizes of 

 screens for each sorter, and the machine is so 



