84 



MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 240 



few farmers mixed their own spray, but the common practice was to purchase 

 a commercial Bordeaux in the powdered form and add water and lead arse- 

 nate. The exact amoimts are sliown in Table 5. 



Table 5. — Materials Used per Acre of Potatoes, Granby Area, 1926. 



a Hired dusting, amounts not given. 



b Dust, not included in average. 



c Averages for acres on which applied. 



Labor and Materials Used in the Concord Area. 



The variation in man labor for potatoes on 14 Concord farms was from 75 

 to 175 hours per acre. In general, it can be seen that more labor was used 

 in Concord than in Granby and somewhat less than in Chesterfield. There 

 seems to be some increase in all the operations. 



Preparation and Planting. 



Reference to Figure 4 shows that the time taken to plow an acre with 

 horses was from 4 to 6 hours with one extreme case of 16 hours. On this 

 farm there was only one acre in potatoes and this was a very stony sod. 

 Nearly all the potato fields in this group are more difficult to plow and 

 cultivate than those in Granby. 



Operations before planting were not much different from those in Granby 

 or Chesterfield. More labor was spent cutting seed than in Granby. It took 

 longer to plant an acre. On three farms the ground was marked off with 

 a one-horse marker before using the planter. On two farms planters were 

 not used, the land being marked off, fertilizer applied, and potatoes dropped 

 by hand. Another farm used a large amount of time by placing each seed 

 potato separately. 



