26 THE POTATO 



"A Greeley farmer said the other day that his 

 soil was a good one, especially for potatoes, if he 

 kept it built up so that it would not blow. This 

 soil, twenty years ago, was considered about worth- 

 less, except to grow alfalfa, and there was con- 

 siderable difficulty in securing a stand. Even in 

 this unfavorable season (1910) the output of pota- 

 toes is 125 sacks to the acre. 



"This particular farmer moved off a very rich 

 bottom farm, which was a heavy producer of all 

 crops except potatoes, on to the land he occupies 

 to-day. I remember that his neighbors said he was 

 foolish for moving, that the bottom land had twice 

 the productivity of the other tract. 



"The man who moved said that they were right 

 in a general way, but that he had always made his 

 money with potatoes, which blighted on the bot- 

 tom lands and were only of moderate quality, and 

 that the nature of the subsoil made their irriga- 

 tion a matter of chance. 



"I have myself seen water turned on at one 

 corner of a field in such lands, come bubbling up 

 forty or sixty rods away, having in some places 

 sub-irrigated considerable areas to the point of 

 saturation, in others passing through contracted 

 channels, leaving the surrounding soil as dry as a 

 bone. 



"The man who moved and the man who suc- 

 ceeded him on the bottom farm have both done 

 well by specializing (the latter growing sugar-beets) 

 somewhat on the crops their lands were adapted to, 

 but the potato man has made his money easier, has 

 had less help than is entailed in growing beets, and 

 has been able to make good with the help of his own 

 family; in other words, has had the more self-con- 

 tained business venture. 



