364 THE POTATO 



to-day by the best potato growers originated at 

 Greeley. 



The story of the Greeley district is to be told by 

 Senator H. C. Watson, one of Greeley's most in- 

 fluential men and one of the first in the business; 

 by Lord Ogilvy, agricultural editor of the Denver, 

 (Col.) Post, one of the best informed men in 

 agriculture in the world and an old-timer at 

 Greeley; and I. Rothschild, the leading dealer in 

 the Greeley market. Senator Watson says: 



"The colonists commenced to arrive here early 

 in May, 1870. I came on the first day of May of j 

 that year, and am now the oldest inhabitant in 

 point of continuous residence. The necessity of] 

 raising something to feed the people was very ap-j 

 parent, so I hired a man who had a yoke of oxen, 

 to plow up some lots on the higher ground but 

 under the ditch we proposed to dig, and bought 

 some Early Rose potatoes of a merchant in Evans, 

 Col., the town which was, at that time, the ter- 

 minus of the Denver-Pacific Railroad (now the 

 Union Pacific Railroad), about four miles from 

 Greeley. I paid 3 J cents per pound; had them 

 planted, but unfortunately for the success of the 

 experiment, I joined a party of men who proposed 

 and did go to the mountains for the purpose of 

 floating logs down the river to supply the very 

 great need of lumber to house the people. The 

 man I left in charge of the crop did not do much, 

 and as a result I did not get much of a crop, al- 

 though I did demonstrate the fact that we could 

 raise potatoes on the uplands of Colorado, and 

 received enough money from my venture to pay 

 the actual cost of raising. I believe these were 

 (with the exception of some that were raised on the 



I 



