216 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



haps, $500 a peck). He says enthusiastically: "It is as 

 perfectly round-shaped a potato as can be imagined. There 

 is a slight dash of pink on the outer rim of the eye. My stock 

 of it is very small, only 126 lb., and I do not care to sell 

 any. If next year's crop yields as well as this year's, we 

 shall have twenty times that quantity." Mr. Findlay has 

 other seed potatoes, just as high priced, for which he wants 

 $125 per lb., which, he says, "means that I do not want to 

 sell any." 



This shows what progressive people think of the real 

 value of good seed. 



It is worth mentioning that " The land on which these are 

 grown is not highly manured ; the only artificial manure that 

 it has received is about 200 lb. of potash per acre. It has 

 the drawback of being rather stony." 



Of course this is "a fad" ; it is doubtful if it will pay any 

 one to give such prices for seed except to sell to some bigger 

 fool than himself. Of course, also, the market for a particular 

 fancy thing may soon be overstocked, but it seems to be a 

 nice thing for the Findlays meanwhile, and it does good in 

 teaching people to appreciate good things. 



Yet the average potato patcher prudently saves his small 

 potatoes for next year's seed, which is just as if a breeder were 

 to keep the colts that were too poor to sell, to be the parents 

 of his herd. 



In the dark ages of farming to wit, in 1881, for this is 

 a true story a minister of the Gospel came into possession, 

 by inheritance, of a fifteen-acre farm a short way from Phila- 

 delphia. He found the soil a reddish, somewhat gravelly 

 clay, and so worn out from years of cropping that it did not 

 support two cows and a horse. City born and bred, he was 

 encumbered with no knowledge of agriculture which had to 



