336 THE POTATO 



The yield in this district is three times that of 

 any single district in the United States and quite 

 double that of the irrigated states 



Mr. E. L. Cleveland, pioneer and father of the 

 seed potato industry in Houlton, Maine, has for the 

 past thirty years been growing seed potatoes for 

 shipment over the United States, but largely for 

 the Southern market. They are growing sixty 

 varieties of pure seed and their shipments amount 

 to from eighty to one hundred thousand barrels an- 

 nually. 



Their growing season is very short, much shorter 

 than we have in Colorado. It is only about one 

 hundred days between killing frosts from June to 

 September. The first week of April the fields were 

 still covered with snow and it was known as a mild 

 winter and a light snowfall. They almost univer- 

 sally practise fall plowing owing to their short sea- 

 son. They plant their potatoes much closer than 

 we do in Colorado, rows from twenty-eight to 

 thirty inches apart, and the hills from ten to twelve 

 inches apart. This method produces more uni- 

 form and smaller potatoes than are grown in the 

 irrigated West. They use about 700 pounds of 

 very small, cut seed to the acre. 



The implements for cultivation are very similar 

 to those used in the best districts of Colorado. 



Owing to their lack of livestock they have little 

 or no barnyard muck. They place their whole 

 reliance on commercial fertilizers and it is from this 

 and the extravagant use of it that gives them such 

 wondrous results in eclipsing other potato com- 

 munities, but the cost has been high. They com- 

 menced the use of commercial fertilizers twelve or 

 fifteen years ago, using 400 to 500 pounds per acre 

 at a cost of $7.50 per acre. They have been com- 



