84 THE POTATO 



Chas. D. Woods, Director Maine Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, in an address before the New 

 Jersey State Board of Agriculture, said : 



"While potato growing is somewhat a matter of 

 soil and climate, it is even more dependent upon 

 the ability, knowledge, and energy of the man who 

 is trying to grow them. This fact was very clearly 

 demonstrated in Aroostook County, Maine, in the 

 season of 1907. Aroostook County is perhaps the 

 richest agricultural county in the United States, 

 and the potato is the money crop. Upward of 

 eleven million bushels of potatoes were shipped 

 from the crop in 1906, besides all that went into 

 starch. The shipments from the crop of 1907 were 

 less than half that of the preceding year. And yet 

 the good farmers had as large, and in some in- 

 stances larger, crops than in 1906. The season of 

 1906 was favorable for a large crop, and everybody 

 that planted potatoes succeeded in growing and 

 harvesting a good crop. The season of 1907 was 

 unfavorable, and only the good farmers had good 

 crops. The men that thoroughly prepared the 

 seed bed on well selected soil, planted only what 

 they could properly care for, who used fertilizer 

 liberally, cultivated all the season, and who 

 sprayed early and often against insect and fungous 

 enemies, and harvested as soon as the crop was 

 ready, not only had a large yield per acre, but 

 because of the high price of potatoes after the 

 poorly grown early ones were marketed, brought it 

 about that with many Aroostook farmers the sea- 

 son of 1907 was the best for years. On the other 

 hand, the farmer that planted illy adapted and 

 slovenly prepared land, of larger acreage than he 

 could well care for, who neglected to spray because 



