POTATO CULTURE. 115 



as it may seem, I could not find out from the many present 

 at Wooster how many gallons were needed for an acre. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



The Use of Bushel Boxes. 



At last we have the crop grown. We have carried it 

 through bugs and blight, scab and drouth. We have done 

 our best from beginning to end, and now we must arrange 

 for securing and handling our crop. The next four chapters 

 will be devoted to this part of the business. When we first 

 began growing potatoes they were handled in the old way, 

 of course. When picking up we would carry them together 

 into heaps, in bushel baskets ; or we would drive along with 

 a wagon and empty the baskets into the wagon as we picked 

 them up. The potatoes had to be picked up by hand from 

 the heaps ; from the wagon we could shovel them up. As 

 we went into potato-growing more largely we found this 

 part of the business was behind. It cost us too much to 

 handle the crop, and there was too much lifting, and the 

 potatoes suffered from so much handling too. Well, the 

 result was the making of a lot of bushel boxes. For several 

 years we used these for marketing early potatoes in the city, 

 as long as the skins slipped at all, and it saved us much work 

 and made us some money. 



First take a look at the box. The first ones made were 13 

 inches by 16 by 13, all inside measurements. The sides and 

 bottoms were made of f stuff and ends of |. Hand-holes 

 were cut in the ends, as shown in the picture. The upper 

 corners were bound with galvanized hoop iron, to make 

 them strong. Getting only a few, so, the price I paid at a 

 box-factory was $25 to $30 a hundred. The publisher of this 

 book, my friend A. I. Root, saw, some eight years ago, that 

 they were a good thing, and went to making them on a large 



