POTATO CULTUKE. 175 



treated all his seed. As a result, our crop is nice and 

 smooth, almost perfectly so, except a few that grew on an 

 old strawberry patch that had been heavily manured. These 

 are fine and large, but scabby. We will save them to plant, 

 as they can be made safe by soaking in the sublimate solu- 

 tion. We made very much less work of doing this job this 

 year. Our potatoes were quite clean, and we did not wash 

 them. We used the same solution over and over until it 

 was worn out, and believe it was just as well. We shall 

 most certainly treat all seed next year, sound or not. We 

 have the new boxes, that we used last spring, carefully put 

 away where no germs can get on them. In these and new 

 bags we will handle the seed next year after treating. 



SPRAYING. 



We bought two knapsack sprayers one Galloway and one 

 Garfield. We could not afford to fuss with one must get 

 along faster. We bought knapsacks instead of a cart-sprayer 

 to be drawn by a horse, because, first, better work can be 

 done with less material by a man walking, and spraying one 

 row at once. He can go slower when vines are large, and 

 step faster when sprinkling a small plant ; in fact, he can 

 spray every hill perfectly. To do this with a cart would 

 require a great waste when vines are small. Again, the 

 damage from turning at the ends with horse and cart, in our 

 small fields, would be too much. We had as good potatoes 

 as the average, clear out to the very ends, this year. Culti- 

 vating with one horse, we need do almost no damage at the 

 ends in turning, even with rows coming within four feet of 

 the fence. Of course, in large fields one may leave head- 

 lands to turn on, and cultivate with two horses, and spray 

 with a cart and horse. But there is another point in this 

 spraying business : You may use a cart the first two times; 

 but on our farm, in a good season, by the time you want to 

 spray the third time, the vines will so cover the ground that 

 a cart would do much damage by rolling down vines. My 



