1232 



EARLE V. HARDENBURG 



TABLE 63. 



AVERAGE DATE OF PLANTING, AND AVERAGE DATE OF LAST KILLING FROST 

 IN SPRING, FOR THE FOUR REGIONS SURVEYED 



HAND AS COMPARED WITH MACHINE PLANTING 



The extent to which the potato crop of any region is planted by machine 

 planters is determined principally by the average acreage, the system of 

 spacing hills in the row, and the amount of large stones present in the 

 fields. The writer (Hardenburg, 1915 a) found that in Steuben County, 

 in 1912, when the average acreage of potatoes per farm was at least 5, 

 the saving in labor cost by machine planting more than overbalanced the 

 interest, depreciation, and repair costs of planting by this method. In 

 regions where checkrowing is practiced, machine planting is impossible 

 because potato planters cannot be used to plant in checkrows. As is 

 shown later, much of the acreage in Steuben County was planted in this 

 way in 1912. Some growers in Franklin and Clinton Counties find it 

 impracticable to use planters because there are so many large stones in 

 their fields. Conditions on Long Island, however, are almost ideal for 

 machine planting, and it is done there almost entirely. The extent to 

 which the acreage in each region was planted by hand and by machine, 

 in the two years concerned, is shown in table 64: 



TABLE 64. 



METHOD OF PLANTING AND TYPE OF MACHINE USED IN THE FOUR REGIONS 

 SURVEYED 



